Practical Task - Actors

The plot of our film opening requires a cast of three teenage girls and an adult male. Fortunately, we can use ourselves to star in the film, and for the most part the characters will look realistic. 

We chose to have the victims as teenage girls, as this conforms to the conventions of the slasher horror genre. It is common for teenagers to be among the main cast of slasher horrors, such as can be seen in Scream. Furthermore, we wanted the victims to be female as this conforms to the common representation of women as being victims and vulnerable in circumstances such as this. 

We chose Tia to be the main victim, partially because she volunteered and partially because she has the most athletic build and the character is jogging in the film. We filmed the all of the shots of the girl running in the forest next to Tia's house, and so practically it was a sensible decision to use Tia as the main the girl, as she could film any extra shots we might need after the initial dates of filming with ease. 

For the other two victims,  we used Amy and I. We did this because it was easier in terms of accessibility for us to use group members as actors. Amy and I seemed like the obvious choice, both for this reason and also because we both fit the features of a teenage girl in a horror film, both being teenage girls ourselves. Using ourselves also meant that as well as us being at filming anyway, we wouldn't have to rely on other people for the role.

The only actor we faced some trouble with was the killer. The killer is an adult man, and so the actor playing him had to look like an adult man, however we didn't have an adult man we could use, and so instead we used David. David's build can pass for that of an adult man, but if you see his face it is clear David is a teenager. He is also blonde and baby faced, which means he doesn't look scary or intimidating at all. As a result, we decided to have the character masked at all times. This actually worked out quite well, as it added an enigmatic tone to the opening as the identity of the killer is unknown. It also makes the whole scene more realistic as a film opening, as the killer's identity would not be revealed right at the beginning of the film. This also turned out to be helpful when we had to use Tia's boyfriend to step in so we could film a few extra shots that David couldn't make it to due to prior engagements.

Pratical Task - Actors

When looking at who we should have for each character in our film opening, we felt that we were restricted and could therefore only use the people in our group. Although there was the option of casting, I felt that this would overcomplicate the process, as we would have to rely on other people to attend the filming days and follow precise orders, as we want to get the filming done as quickly and efficiently as possible. Also, we decided we wanted to film during three days over the Christmas Holidays, and felt that it would be unfair to rely on other people to attend all three of the necessary days.

Within our group of four, we have myself, Charley, Amy and David.  I decided to look at each one of us and look at which character we would fit the best and why. It was also helpful that our film opening only features four characters, as this meant we would all be a part of the acting team, but the amount of frame time we would get would vary, depending on the role. We have already decided that we wanted a male killer, so this meant that David would need to be this part, but I still wanted to look at what changes needed to be made regarding his appearance.

Within our storyboard, we have one killer, and although he is masked and is not visible to the audience for the majority of the opening, there will be shots in which his figure is seen and so we wanted to ensure that he fit in with our idea of what the killer would look like. In my deconstruction, I discovered that the killer is usually a middle aged, dark haired man, both of which David is not. Due to restricted resources meaning that we don't have any other options, we decided to use costumes to present David in a scarier and more intimidating way to the audience. We are going to do this by creating a mask which covers the lower part of his face, and then using makeup with darken his eyes. We will also put a black beanie on him so that his hair is covered, and may attempt to darken the areas which are visible.

Next, I looked at one of our two victims who are featured during a flashback. Amy fits the character appearance we were going for, as we wanted them to look like a female teenager who is portrayed as 'normal', which would add realism to who the killer is targeting. Within the opening, the areas which Amy would feature in are the short bursts of flashback of the killer torturing his previous victims. There will be shots of Amy before and after the attack to foreshadow what is to come to his latest victim.

Similar to Amy, Charley needed to have normality about her appearance, as we want the audience to fear the fact that the killer is targeting normal teenagers. Within the opening, Charley will feature in flashbacks before and after her death, as we want to emphasise how bad the killer tortured the victims. Her make up will be done to exaggerate the aftermath of her death and add a factor of gore to our opening.

Finally, I had to look at myself and analyse how suited I was to being the main victim in our opening. I looked at my hair, which is significantly different to Amy and Charley's, which meant that our killer didn't have a 'type' and his victims were varied. Within the opening scene, the kidnapping occurs whilst I am jogging in the forest. This means that I will firstly be viewed in running gear with my hair tied up, potentially looking sweaty. When taken back to the castle ruins, there will be shots of me tied up and very bruised, suggesting that the torturing phase has already begun, and the antagonist is about to kill me, which is not seen on camera.

Overall, I think that our actors are well suited to their parts, although we are able to use makeup and costumes to further emphasise the factors which are the most important for each role.

Deconstruction of Actors within Horror Films

Horror is a genre that has common conventions that can be found in nearly every film of this genre, so much so that these features have now become a joke within spoof films of the genre.

One particularly evident example of this is within the roles of the characters within horror films, particularly slasher horrors. There is a clear-cut sequence and order in which the protagonists of the films are killed in, and there is a specific criteria for the protagonist the remains alive in the end of the film and is the survivor. 

The character that is often left alive at the end of the film and survives the trauma is often referred to as the 'final girl'. This character is often a virgin and portrayed to have good standards and morals. One of the first examples of a final girl can be seen in the character of Laurie Strode in Halloween. 

The term 'final girl' was first used by Carol J. Clover. She recognised the trend in the altered perspective throughout the films. For example, in most slasher horrors, the killer's perspective is shared by the audience until partway through the film where there is a shift in identification where the final girl becomes the main focus of perspective. 

Other typical characters that are often scene within slasher horrors are the highly sexually active couple. The couple is almost always heterosexual and the female within the relationship is often the best friend of the virgin final girl. This contrast causes the audience to see the female in the relationship in a negative light in comparison to her friend. The common theme within sexually active couples is that they will get killed during or after they are having sex. This is so common within horror films that it is often parodied within spoof films. 

There is also a correlation between ethnicity and order of death. Slasher films often contain a token black character who is left under-developed and is killed off first. There has been an attempt as of late to see the decline of this trope, as it was realised that this was a bad representation of black people within films. 

Deconstruction - Actors

For my deconstruction, I wanted to look at the type of actors which were used in current psychological horrors. This would help me to decide on which actors we could use in our opening, in order to make it seem realistic and believable. As we are planning on using both male and female actors, I wanted to look at different examples of both genres for films, but ensuring that the female was the victim and the male, the killer.

The first film I looked at was Scream, as the main victim is a female. Her short blonde hair and fair complexion adds to her youthful look, and makes her look more vulnerable. She also has quite a petite figure, and again this makes her look defenceless. Her outfit also adds to her youthful look, as it does not sexualise her which also adds to the normalcy of the victim.

I then looked at the antagonist in The Purge, as he is presented as having a 'normal' look to him. He has dark hair which is generally the trend for killers and his appearance is presentable and well kept. This is effective because he comes across to the audience as a 'regular man', which again adds to the normalcy of the killers. His outfit of a suit also presents him to be well established and potentially well off regarding money.

The father which is possessed in Oculus also appears to be a regular man. Again, he has dark hair and has a light stubble on the lower part of his face. This makes him look more aggressive and enables the audience to see less emotion. It also increases intimidation that the audience feel, which is also aided by the low angle shot. His clothes are also 'normal' clothes which creates realism within the film, as the audience see him as a regular man rather than a killer.

The female character in Oculus also follows the trends and conforms to victims in a psychological horror being a 'regular family'. Although she has a dark hair, which generally isn't the trend for young victims, she also has a fair complexion. Again, she is not heavily made up which shows that she is not meant to be sexualised, and wants to be portrayed as innocent to the audience.

In Paranormal Activity, the victim conforms to having the general appearance of a victim in a psychological horror movie, as she is young and attractive with a fair complexion and blonde hair. This adds to her vulnerability and her age aids this further as she looks naive and unprotected from whats to come. Her clothes are regular pyjamas which again portrays her to be a regular teenager, rather than a victim.

Overall, the research which I completed into both the female victim and the male killer within the psychological horror genre, shows the normalcy within the characters. The specific films which I decided to look at characters from were chosen as I wanted it to be as relevant to our film opening idea as possible. In order for our characters to fit in with the trends, our male killer would need to be dark haired and potentially an older looking character, between mid twenties and late forties in order for it to be as believable as possible. For the female victim, she needs to look like a teenager, around 16 or 17, and to make her look as vulnerable as possible, have light coloured hair and a fair complexion. 

Practical Task- Actors

Practical Task- Actors

Casting the right actors in a film is so important. It is vital to have people who look right; they must be the right age, gender and have the correct physical appearances e.g. their height, posture, hair colour etc. Also being able to act is essential in making the film opening as believable as possible to the audience. 

As a group, Dave put forward the idea of casting for actors. After some discussion however, we decided that casting actors outside the group was a bit risky because they wouldn't be fully reliable for filming dates. TDAC is potentially going to need three dates in the Christmas holidays and finding three dates when all our actors are available would probably prove to be difficult. Also, keeping the actors in our group means that we have more flexibility to do what we want i.e. we will be able to do fake wounds on each other without having to get permission from the actors. 

In our storyline, we have one male killer and three youngish female victims. This was ideal because it meant that everyone got to debut in our opening. The three girls will work because myself, Charley and Tia are all girls and the right age; we are also fairly 'normal' looking which will emphasise the innocence of them. 

However for our killer, we didn't envision a 16 year old blonde, baby-faced boy so we are going to have to make some adjustments to Dave's costume. To hide his identity, we are going to mask him (all apart from the eye area) and also he will wear a black beanie to hide his blonde hair (commonly killers have dark hair). We will also try and use angles which will make Dave look taller and less like a teenager, and we won't be using diegetic dialogue so his voice won't be a problem. 

 Dave- needs a mask and a beanie

I (Amy) will have a cut off ear in a quick flashback of the killer's previous victims 

Tia- will have wounds on face and hair tied up 

Charley- will have a cut off ear in one of the shots

Overall, once we have found the appropriate costumes, our actors will be suitable for the plot of our film opening and will be more believable to the audience. 

Deconstruction - Actors in a Slasher

All sub genres within the main horror genre, all include the main stereotypical characters (most of the time). These characters include: the slut, the black guy, the virgin, the non-believer, the hero, the hysterical one, the sexed up couple and finally, the killer.

Starting with the slut of the group, they will be typically be the one that irritates the audience the most. She will also be likely to be the female in the sexed up couple, but will also be trying to sleep with everyone else. The slut will usually be blonde, almost always chewing gum, will be wearing minimal clothing and most of all, she will be exceedingly loud and annoying to the audience and will escape death on several occasions to make sure that at least one person in the audience is close to scream "just kill her already".

Has there ever been a black guy in a horror film that has lasted more than 15 minutes? As far as my viewing of horror films has spread, not once have I seen the black character be the last to die until the end with one exception... A parody film called "Scary movie" where the black character, shorty, gets shot in the lung and even then, he tries to re-inhale the smoke he already had in his lungs from smoking marijuana. The fact that they feel the need to parody a black guy dying in a horror film by leaving him as the last main character to die helps to outline the initial point of the black guy always dies first.

The virgin, also possibly the hero of the sequence will be the last survivor and in the case of them being the hero as well, will be the one that eventually brings the killer down. They will typically be a religious as it has stuck all the way through the horror genre that people that have a religion will be saved by god and so they are also the purist character out of them all so will give the killer less of a reason to hunt them down which will indicate that they won't be killed or at least not until the end of the film when everyone else is dead.

The non-believer will usually be the one to die straight after the black guy. They're the one that laughs around and jokes about the killer. Even when confronted with the killer in Scream (1991), Tatum (non-believer) even asks ghost face if he'd like her to play the helpless victim and if he'd like to play the violent killer that nobody can escape from. After a few silent nods of the head to Tatum's questions, ghost face then goes for her by slicing her arm to prove it's not a joke and then eventually kills her by opening up the garage door she's stuck in and breaking her neck by lifting her head up to the roof.

The hero, as the name would suggest, is the one that will save everybody, or the remaining characters if there are any, from the murderer. They won't typically be the one that leads the group and tells everyone what to do. That person will die and the hero will be the one that everybody turns to for last resort of help.

The hysterical one, almost as irritating as the slut if they're separate characters in a particular instance, will be the one that won't stop crying. She'll usually be a survivor from the opening sequence if it involves a murder (which nearly every horror film has) and then for the rest of the film will refuse to go anywhere and will stay home with people keeping an eye open around her house for the killer. However, their 'guards' will be quickly killed, followed by the hysterical character  soon after. They will always be killed alone due to the group going off and looking for the killer which gives the killer a perfect chance to kill her, Or they're killed off one by one which eventually leads down to the hysterical one and the hero being left alive and they either need to triumph and both survive the inevitable bloody battle against the killer as the finale, or they both die a bloody, painful death.

The sexed up couple will be the ones that the audience will shout at a little more than the blonde slut. They will almost always be killed just before they have sex, or whilst they're having an intense make-out session in a parked car in the middle of nowhere. They won't take any notice of the killer even when he's inches away from them because they're too horny to notice anybody else until there's a knife plunged into their chest.

Last but not least, the killer. The killer will be typically masked as the audience shouldn't know who the killer is until the end of the film so as to keep the audience on edge, constantly trying to figure out which member of the group it is that is actually the killer which tends to be discovered within the last 10-15 minutes of the film to allow time for a gory finale.