Film Distribution

Earlier on in our research we looked into three possible media institutions that could distribute our film. We looked into Twisted Pictures, New Line Cinema and Platinum Dunes.
We decided to use Twisted pictures is synonymous with the horror franchise Saw, therefore it would be perfect to distribute our film as if we wanted to branch out and make a franchise of successful horror films we could, as this company has the experience. To download this onto our film during editing, we found a clip of the Twisted Pictures intro on Youtube and converted it into a format that would be comaptible with iMovie and the computer and then added it to our film.This is what we used:

We also decided to use New Line Cinema, this film comapany is more mainstream but has done a horror franchise, like Twisted pictures,called  A Nightmare On Elmstreet. Both companies are perfect to distribute our film. New Line Cinema is more mainstream than Twisted Pictures so will be able to ensure our film is gieven the best possible coverage. We used a clip from Youtube like this:

Upon revisal we decided not to use Plantinum Dunes because we thought three Intros would take up too much space in our opening but that wasnt the only reason. The company was founded in 2001, fairly recent, we would prefer a company that has more history to it, as a more experienced company. The horror films they have produced has been to a high standard but after much deliberation we decided to stick with Twisted Pictures and New Line Cinema. 

Killer Clothing

We Took Various different images of the killer on set wearing the clothing we researched. We also gave our actor a bandana to wear over face to cover his identity. As well as creating a scary and creepy image it was important to keep the killers identity unknown. Uncovering his identity or letting the audience see his face at such an early stage in the film would 'spoil' the enigma of the film.

We gave the killer a bandana dark to wear to make him have a terrifying presence and help protect his identity.

With the face darkened, it gives the killer a much more scary and dangerous presence.

Influences & Inspiration for our Film Opening

We subverted the convention of having a series of murders in our film and used Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (from 1960) as inspiration; there are only two murders in the story, and the idea of a disguised and insane killer came to prominence with this film.

A widely used convention in the horror genre is using a female actor as the victim. For example, Fred Walton’s ‘When a Stranger Calls’ from 2006, is about a psychopathic killer who terrorises a female babysitter. we wanted subvert this convention and use a male actor for our victim.

Deaths in horror slasher are conventionally very gory. For example the SAW films.

Filming

On Saturday 21st Of January, we had our final day of filming, Gabbie, Jack and Christina were present along with our two actors, the murderer and the victim. We had noticed during our editing session there were some continuity errors that we felt affected our film opening. For example, we hadn't had the CCTV finished on the previous days filming so the glow from the TV was white not green like it should have been so we had to refilm once we had the CCTV finished. Another matter was that some of the shot were not as smooth as they could have been, so we all made a conscious decision to reshoot them.

Gabbie doing Ben's makeup

 One thing we ensured remained consistent was the make up there fore we had Gabbie doing it every time and each time she referred to the photo we took on the first day of filming.



Gabbie doing Ben's makeup



Gabbie doing Ben's makeup



Christina looking into the lighting

During our filming we enusred that the lighting for each shot was good, by testing it before hand, in previous days of filimg we hadnt done this and some shot ended up darker than expected. 

Typography

As we near the end of our editing we realised we hadn't actually finally decided as a groupd which typhography we would like for our title. We really wanted a modern font with a hint of technology but yet have a supernatural edge, quite a lot to ask for! We went on the website dafont.com. Another idea of what our font could look like was based on the idea that the text had been eroded through time, this would link to the name Remote as it has connotations of not being looked after, abandoned and isolated.

Film Title Poll RESULTS

'REMOTE DEATH'

We set a poll to decide on what our film should be called, our group had a brainstorm earlier and came up with a few of our favourite ideas. The results of the poll came out with the most popular being "Remote death" with 42% of the vote. It wasn't an overall majority as many of the other options were very popular. Shadows came second with 23% of the vote. Ariel View third with 14% of the vote. In the end 21 people voted.

Analysis of film title - 'Remote Death'

We think this is the best title for our film as it is the most relevant and has many different layers to it, as does our film.The title links to the storyline very well, as the story revolves around TVs, CCTV and technology.
The word "Remote" has two main connotations, the first being more obvious, a remote control linked withe TV theme. The second being to do with isolation. Our victim has been kidnapped and taken away from what he know, he his emotionally and physically isolated.

Filming, 5th Jan 2012

Thursday 5th of January- 2nd day of filming.

Gabbie, Jack, Christina and Felicity were the crew. Both our actors were needed to film.
Arrived at location 4.45pm. The time is perfect as we needed to film in the dark, to make our scenes as authentic and scary as possible.

The first thing we did was recreate the mise en scene from pictures we took on the first day of filming, We realised continuity was important and painstakingly recreated the scenes. This meant we also ensured the make-up on our victims face was equally the same, refering to past photos we recreated his make-up.

Placing Mise en scene

Doing make up

This delayed filming until 6.15pm, we then prepped our actors on the agenda for the evening. Our aim was to reshoot certain scenes, and film more specific scenes, that needed to be done. For example, we filmed a scene that was a close up on the flickering lightbulb, this was an important scene that we wanted to get right, as it represented our character waking up in the new surroundings (picture below).

Filming

Other scenes were more difficult to film and we had to overcome some problems. We wanted to get a close up of our victims face face on. It caused a problems as the pit meant the camera was further away than we'd like and the tripod (which we wanted to use to keep the camera steady) would otherwise end up in the pit, at the best distance for our shot we needed to be half in the pit, being the creative people we are, we came up with a clever way to overcome this. Gabbie used a sledge hammer to balance our tripod on, it was precarious for a while but we managed to get a great shot and it was worth it.



Solving our problems



We spent a some of our night doing preliminary shots, to see how things would work out. We had a lightbulb that could be dimmed manually and for some scenes that was vital as you can tell from the photo below Felicity became the expert in that field. We wanted to test distance and light in shots and by using ourselves instead of the actors we saved them time as well as us. We were then able to bring the actors in for the proper filming.

Prelim shots

Real shots.

Some other photos from our shoot:

Correcting mise en scene and checking our shots.

Enjoying the shoot.

Filming