Pre- Production Report

During the pre-production stage we made the decision to use the horror genre straight away as we all enjoy watching these types of film and know we would not loose interest. However we had a few difficulties with deciding on the story line as there were communication problems within the group and many ideas to choose from. We finally came up with the basic outline of what the sequence was going to contain, however we all had our own ideas and views on what should happen, and unfortunately none of them matched. For example killing three girls in the opening sequence and having the film as a detective finding out what happened to them. This led to us having a group meeting to discuss all the options and to decide on the best action to take for our film. Luckily we agreed on a storyline which we have stuck to.

One of the first pieces we had to write was the treatment. This did not go to plan as we made many mistakes and had to add parts and change the order of scenes. This again was down to communication and misinterpretation of what was happening, and when, in the film. Yet when we went through the whole idea whilst writing the shot list we found it much easier to correct the errors of the treatment and make the two pieces match. We also had a problem with our storyboard as it did not match the shot list or treatment at one point. We also found that it needed to be in more detail with the sound used and how long each shot was. So we had an extra lesson re-arranging the storyboard to make it correct and easy to follow. The other items from the pre-production went ok and everything was completed quickly without as many problems.

We had to post all of our work to do with our production on our blog. This meant scanning in certain parts like the storyboard and inserting it as a JPEG image, also with the shot list, script and location recce, as they cannot be copied and pasted onto the blog as it does not allow this to happen. A problem that occurred for me during the transferring period was that my computer at home would not allow me to copy and paste onto the blog so I had to relocate it to school to do so. I tried to keep this as up to date as possible with our group work and also our independent work about the genre we have picked, but also the reasons why we chose to do it. Throughout the project I feel that the group has worked well together with the sharing of the work over the group so one person isn’t doing all the work. We also had a few disagreements about things like the name of the film as someone wanted to call it Nightmare of Elstree as it is a play on words of another with the name 'Nightmare on Elmstreet', however we decided against it as it sounds witty so could be confused as being a comedy as well as being unoriginal. Also different ideas of what the actual storyline would be like, and what the plot would contain.

Our first idea for the plot was for three girls to move into a flat and get murdered by a hooded man. However we changed this as it is a predicable story for a horror film and would not leave a great plot for the rest of the film. We decided to keep the three girls moving into the flat but not getting killed, instead just getting the impression they would later in the film. This is done by viewing the hooded man watching the girls, as well as an old lady getting worried at the thought of them living in the flat. This gives a mysterious vibe and sets up the narrative enigma to the film as well as seeing the superimposed images of past events including the hooded man, leaving the audience wondering.