The British Board of Film Classification

The British Board of Film Classification states the guidelines for a 15 rated film are:-

·         No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate to 15 year olds.

·         There may be frequent use of strong language – the strongest terms are rarely accepted. Also continued aggressive use of strong language and sexual abuse is unacceptable.

·         There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context.

·         Sexual activity and nudity may be portrayed but without strong detail. The depiction of casual sex should be handled responsibly. There may be occasional strong verbal references to sexual behaviour.

·         Violence may be strong but may not dwell on the infliction of pain and of injuries. Scenes of sexual violence must be discreet and brief.

·         Dangerous combat techniques such as ear claps, head-butts and blows to the neck are unlikely to be acceptable. There may be no emphasis on the use of easily accessible lethal weapons especially knives.

·         Sustained or detailed infliction of pain or injury in horror in unacceptable.

·         Drug taking may be shown but clear instructive detail is unacceptable. The film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug use.

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/592478/index.html

The British Board of Film Classification states the guidelines for a 18 rated film are:-

·         There are no constraints in theme, language, nudity or horror. However the board can cut or reject content such as detailed portrayal of violent or dangerous acts that is likely to promote the activity.

·         The board can also instructive detail of illegal drug use which basically means the more explicit the images of sexual activity, unless they can be exceptionally justified by context.

·         When sex material genuinely seeks to inform and educate in matters such as human sexuality, safe sex and health, exceptions to the normal constraints on explicit images may be made in the public interest. Such explicit detail must be kept to the minimum necessary to illustrate the educational or instructional points being made.

·         Material which appears to be stimulated is generally passed at ‘18’, while images of real sex are confined to the ‘R18’ category.

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/592497/index.html

We need to take this into consideration to avoid creating a 18 rated horror movie as otherwise we would have cut our target audience so we have decided to have no sexual activity or visible violence as we would have run the risk of our film being certificated at a 18 which means our 15-17 year olds would be unable to watch the film as it would be illegal for them to watch it.

Location

At first you see the character Amelia in an empty class room. We chose an empty class room because emphasised the theme of isolation. The empty class room is used for deliberate effect as it creates a sense of the unknown, also a classroom is supposed to be considered a safe environment to be in this means it will create more fear for the audience as they may feel unsettled in somewhere they are supposed to feel safe and secure. We chose this classroom as it is one of the oldest classroom and the  décor is quite dark which means it is very effective for our film as it a contrast of a bright learning environment.

Next you see Amelia walking into the woods, the woods is considered to be a horror convention this also adds the effect that the film is sinister, as it signifies to the audience that this is a horror film.  We chose this as it was close to the school which meant it is convenient for filming and this woods also clearly signifies the film is set in Britain because of the scenery and weather. It is important to have  a British location as our target audience live in Britain therefore the audience can relate to the film more as it it set in the same country as they live in.

Copyright - Music licensing

"Music licensing is intended to ensure that the owners of copyrights on musical works are compensated for certains uses of their work. A purchaser has limited rights to use and reproduce the recorded work without a separatteky arranged agreement."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_licensing

Taking this into consideration it restricted us on what music could be used in our horror opening as it takes 70 years for the music to become copyright free. We then decided to find copyright free music as no of us are able to compose our own music. We used the website http://www.freesound.org/ as all the sound is copyright free and we were able to find music that created tension for our film.

Actor

We chose Ellie to be our main character as she is a similar age to the character, therefore she is better at representing a teenage girl. One of the main reasons we picked Ellie is because she has blonde hair and we wanted a character that would go against the convention that  of having a sexual convention so we didn’t want to have a brunette female lead character as it follows the conventions of horror. We were inspired by ‘Prom Night’ as the lead character ‘Donna’ is blonde but she doesn’t get killed in the film so she is the final girl.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Costume planning

We chose our character to wear this costume as she in sixth form therefore she had to wear smart clothing however not to formal as it may alienate the audience as they are less likely to relate to the character as they unlikely to wear formal clothing like an adult so it had to be something that the audience can relate to. As we are challenging the convention that blonde girls are presented as sexually orientated we picked modest clothing to signify that our character is going against this horror convention. We were inspired by 'Sidney' from 'Scream' as she is presented as a smart and respected character through her costume as when she was wearing appropriate clothing she was able to escape from the killer and the audience can also connect with her as they can imagine themselves in the same position by having a relatable character, we wanted to create this same effect.              

      

Film title

Our original film title for our first initial idea was going to be 'Amazing Grace' because the lead female character was called Grace and the content of the film is also a play on the original meaning on the 'Amazing Grace' poem which denotes the message forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of the sin carried out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace). This related to our film as the killer is seeking revenge by making other people suffer. However since we have changed our film idea we also decided to change the film title. We were thinking about calling the film 'You Can Run But You Can't Hide' but we decided that was to cliche and we didn't audience to get the impression that our film was a cliche and predictable film as they probably wouldn't be interested in watching the film. We decided to call the film 'Amelia' as that is the name of our lead female character and the film focuses on her life.

Intial ideas

Storyboard

Prop's

Props

The phone is a major part of iconography in our film as the unknown number calling Amelia’s phone starts to raise suspicion. The crack on the phone suggests that the character is careless and vulnerable. We watched ‘Scream’ and used the idea of having a phone ringing this hints that something severe will happen to the character later. For example when ‘Casey’ picks the phone in the first scene of ‘Scream’ she starts to have a conversation with what will be her killer but she doesn’t realise this as she is a naive and immature character.

The fake blood on the trees which was made from red and blue food colouring with gelatine, this made a realistic blood effect is an important aspect for our film as it makes the opening daunting and make it seem more a horror rather than our previous attempt where nothing sinister was happening.                                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Shooting schedule

We had changed our shooting schedule as we had changed from our intial idea, before we were going to be fiming at a house with different actors however since we changed our horror film idea we therefore had to create a new shooting schedule for the new location and actors.

Opening Synopsis

The original synopsis

The film opening is set on the outskirts of Norwich, Costessey in the 1980’s era. The opening focuses on Amelia. Amelia is a 16 year old, brunette. She dresses appropriately and she is very intelligent, she is also naive and adventurous. Amelia lives in a semi-detached single-family house with her 45 year old father David and her 43 year old mother Karen.

Amelia is first seen running out of her house and down the road in with her dad following her early afternoon for an unknown reason. This reason is found out soon.

Amelia is upstairs in her room playing a (80’s artist) record on the 25^th November 1987 then she hears a strange noise so she warily walks down the stairs. The camera sharply cuts to a hand holding a knife covered in blood. When Amelia reaches the bottom of the stairs she finds her mother dead on the floor. Amelia begins to overwhelm with emotions as she screams at first then kneels beside her mother and begins to cry. Watching her cry beside her mother is David standing on the other side of the room with a sinister look in his eyes.

Amelia is looking around and her breathing gets heavier as David is getting closer to her.

The new opening synopsis

The film opening is set in Norwich at the school Ormiston Victory Academy, in 2012. The opening focuses on Amelia.  Amelia is 16 years old and brunette.  She is intelligent and cares about her studies, she wants to gain the best grades.
Amelia is first seen studying in an empty room. As she’s studying she is getting calls and text’s from an unknown number, she ignores the unknown number, but not so long after she hears strange noises and she doesn’t know where it is coming from.  Amelia decides to leave the empty room and walk home.  As she’s walking home she gets another call from the unknown number and is still hearing the strange noises. Amelia  is looking around and her breathing gets heavier  and you see the villain in the darkness .

We changed our opening synopsis because it was difficult for it to be set in the 80’s due to the setting such as buildings, cars and other surroundings out of our control being to modern and we also struggled to get an accurate representation of people in the 80's so we didn't know how to clearly signify that our charcters are in the 80's.