We thought the ghost idea would be really effective, as we wouldnt actually have the ghost as anything (a person or a white sheet for example) - it would just be thin air. This would then tie in with the name of our film 'The Unseen', implying that the villain isn't noticeable, it's 'unseen' which adds to the spooky, eerie effect that we wanted to create. We thought that using a young child around abouts the age of 8 years old as the innocent victim, would engage the audience as they could possibly feel sorry for the character as she is so young, and they could get attached to how sweet and innocent she looks. Instead of using an 8 year old to be the actual character for our film, we decided on using our friend Ellie Duckles who is the same age as us (16 years old). She already looks quite young for her age and is quite petite, so we thought with the help of make-up and clothing we could make her look around abouts the age of 8. We would also be at an advantage using her as she has strong acting skills and studied Drama at GCSE and is currently taking it at AS level. So we thought she would be used to taking directions from people, whereas using an actual 8 year old might give us a disadvantage as they might not be used to this sort of thing, may not understand our storyline/directions we give or they might be a little shy.
Our Final task Idea: We decided that the opening shot would be a panning shot of Katie running up a driveway and into a house which had a 'for sale' sign outside. There would be a dissolve shot into a two shot of Katie and her mother in the kitchen, the two would be in conversation about moving house and how Katie was feeling. There would then be a jump cut to a close up 'sold' sign outside of a secluded small house situated in a village. An over the shoulder shot would occur of the young girl looking out into her new room which would be surrounded with cardboard boxes, emphasising the fact of a move to a new house for an average family. This then being followed by a fading transition to a shot of the mother and daughter walking their dog down the village lanes when suddenly the daughter runs off as the mother loses concentration for a small period of time. A jump cut would then show Katie peering into a graveyard with no dialogue as the camera pans around the graveyard with spooky music playing quietly in the background. The camera would then jump cut to a close up of one gravestone in particular with Katie continuing the read out the name and dates on the gravestone. Suddenly as soon as she has finished reading the name, it starts to get more mysterious and leaves begin randomly swirling around in the air behind her back. Unfased by it all, Katie skips home whilst a tracking shot follows her on her journey. Back at home, in the new kitchen, both the mother and Katie sit face to face across a table dicussing Katies new friends, when she mentions Thomas who followed her home from the graveyard (the ghost). Then the film continues with lots of mysterious happenings surrounding Katie and her new 'friend', and finally finishing with 3 short jumpcuts of different scenes in which Katie is in danger. Leading to the opening of the film ending with a blackout.
This is what our main task storyboard looked like:
Location
The first few scenes would be located in Baldock, at Harri Nicholls (a member of our group) house. The next scenes would be at a small, desserted, creepy looking house in Sandon and the inside of Harri Longs (another member of the group) house. Also we would have some scenes filmed in the church graveyard in Sandon, and some filmed on the road leading from the desserted house. We thought the desserted, creepy house and the graveyard were typical horror film conventions and so that is why we included these settings in our film to make it as 'horror' like as possible.
Props
Again, we thought that we didn't need to include that many props in our film as we thought we would be able to achieve the horror genre and thrill factor with very limited amount of props... just like we did in our preliminary task! One of the props that we used were some leaves for the scene in the graveyard. We threw these infront of the camera to make the weather seem very windy all of a sudden and to create a mysterious, frightening effect. The other prop we used was Harri's dog for a few of the scenes. We decided on using a dog as families generally own some sort of family pet e.g. a dog, so we thought families that watch our film could relate and might get more engaged with the film as they want to know if anything might happen to the dog - as you can tell throughout the film by the eerie music, edited effects and mise-en-scene that something bad is going to happen. And obviously they would hate to see anything bad happen to the dog, cos then they could relate it to their own pet and this would scare them.
Costumes
We thought carefully about what sort of clothing we would want our characters to wear. We decided to keep it as realistic as possible, so our audience could relate. We dressed our characters in clothes that we thought suited their age. We had the mother wear blue denim jeans, a green barbour jacket and grey boots for the scene where she is walking the dog. We thought this would be what a fashionable, mid 30 year old, single mum would wear whilst taking the dog for a walk in the morning before the day had fully begun. The mother is then seen again inside the house, wearing the same jeans as before, but having removed the coat and now revealing a purple/grey knitted cardigan. We chose the cardigan as we thought it showed a relaxed side to her personality, the colours aren't too bold and 'in your face' which could also symbolise her type of personality - calm and collective.
The young girl character had 3 outfits for the film. We suited these outfits to the mood she is in at that point in time, so the outfit refelects how she is feeling. The first outfit is a knee-length, bright, floral dress that she is seen wearing in the first few scenes where she has just mooved house and met Thomas (her ghost friend). The bright, floral pattern reflects her happy, positive mood as she has met a new friend that she calls her 'bestest friend'. The next outfit is again, a knee-length dress but a deep navy/purple colour without a vibrant pattern. This outfit is worn when Thomas starts to become restless towards Katie, and things start to become mysterious. The final outfit, which she is seen wearing in the last few scenes where Thomas becomes evil and nasty towards Katie, and Katie has no control over what is happening. The outfit is a knee-length, dark, black dress which could show how she is in a dark place, and reflects her mood at that time.
Here is the link to our final main task sequence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2gtzahD0tY
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