Sorority Row - Comparable Profile

SORORITY ROW
Scream
age			gender
4-6	0%		male	52%
7-11	0%		female	48%
12-14	0%		class
15-24	57%		AB	21%
25-34	31%		C1	37%
35-44	5%		C2	18%
45+	7%		DE	24%
source: CAVIAR

STORY:
A group of sorority sisters try to cover up the death of their house-sister after a prank gone wrong, only to be stalked by a serial killer.

	price: C+
	estimated box office: £1,500,000
	genre(s): Horror, Thriller
	director(s):
	film cast:
	certificate: 15
	distributor: Eros International

release date: 11th September 2009

Characters

Emma is going to be playing the main girl character and also being the target of the killer.

Bel is going to be playing Emma's sister.

 Ambrose if going to be playing 'Ben' who is then playing Emma's boyfriend.

 George is going to be playing 'The Killer.' We have chosen george to be the Killer as he is tall so therefore he will resemble a big scary character.



Research and Planning - Photos

In one of our media lessons our group decided who was going to do what. Katie was assigned the task of taking the photos, Emma was completing the storyboard and I was thinking about the music we could use behind the film and also costume ideas.
Katie took the photos in locations up her road. Some of the photos were just objects however she edited the pictures to give them a 'darker ' look. Katie then took a picture of a gate but made it black and white so the effect was more powerful. Another example is the picture of the letter box with eyes peeping through which was edited so the picture was red therefore implying danger.
The pictures are just ideas for where we might locate the film, we may end up not using particular locations however it was good to have a idea of what we could possibly use. We will deffinately be filming in the night for our short film similar to the photos taken.

Photos of Setting

These are a few photos of location where we will be filming. We have chosen to use a house for location because of the remote setting which gives a sense that there isn't any security. Katie took the pictures, however edited them so it reflected the horror genre which we will be using in our film. The first picture is of the front of the house, an establishing shot as this is what will first be shown in our film. The second to the fifth shots are all related back to the killer showing his 'footprints', where he will be walking over to the house, the second and fifth shot as these two are both of the bridge that he will be walking over towards the house. The last picture is of someone looking through the letter box, which our last shot will be of the killer looking through the letter box saying 'Emma's' name.

Shot list

My group and I have worked together to plan out our shot list, the shot list consists of 19 shots;


1. The first shot is an establishing shot of a house to show the audience where the film will be taking place


2. High angle shot, showing Emma and Ben in bed asleep which is to make them look vulnerable


3. Close up shot of the phone ringing, to show the audience that the phone is important in the film


4. Medium shot of Emma picking up the phone 


5. Long shot of the killer standing in the alley way


6. Over the shoulder shot of Ben opening the door to Bel


7. Arc shot to show that the camera is following the action 


8. Long shot and camera tracking to show Ben and Bel walking towards/into the kitchen


9. Medium shot from behind the killer walking towards the house 


10. Close-up-shot of the killer scrolling down their phone looking through contacts


11. Close-up-shot of the phone ringing in the house


12. Extreme close-up of the killers finger on the door bell of the house


13. Over the shoulder shot of Emma opening the front door expecting someone to be standing behind it...


14. Long shot showing the killers back 


15. Close-up-shot of the death threat that flys through the letter box


16. Medium shot showing Emma holding onto the death threat with a scared facial expression 


17. Long shot of Ben walking out of the kitchen over towards Emma


18. Medium shot of Ben's arm around Emma


19. Extreme close-up showing the killers eyes through the letter box

Shot list

Various shots we may be using, this isn't definite but its a brief idea to help the film making process.

1. Establishing shot of house to show where the film is taking place

2. High angle shot of Emma and Ambrose asleep in bed

3. Close-up of phone ringing to build tension and mystery

4. Medium shot of Emma picking up the phone and jumping when she hears the door bell

5. Long shot/zoom o0f the killer going through the alley way

6. Over the shoulder shoulder shot of Ambrose opening the door to Bel ( Emma's sister)

7. Arc shot of the action in the living room

8. Long shot/tracking to show Emma getting up and going into the kitchen

9. Medium shot from behind the the killer walking towards the house 

10. Cut to close-up shot of the killer scrolling down the contacts in his phone

11. Close-up of Emma's phone ringing

12. Extreme close-up  of Killer's finger on the door bell

13. Over the shoulder shot of Emma opening the door but finding no-one is there

14. Long shot showing the killer

15. Close-up of the letterbox

16. Medium shot showing Emma holding a letter and facial expression scared

17. Extreme close-up of whats written in the letter

18. Long shot of Ambrose walking out the kitchen

19.  Medium shot of both Ambrose and Emma hugging

20. Extreme close-up of the killer's eyes

possible names for our film

• Killer
• Night of HELL
• Paranoid
• Two Girls, One boy and A Killer
• Somebody is watching you

Romance Cliches

• According to popular lore, the romantic film is based on a simple formula: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl again. But that is not true. For the most part, the boys have nothing to do with it. The cliche that actually serves as the infrastructure of the classic romance is that the female lead almost never ends up with the man she was originally supposed to spend the rest of her life with. That is actually the theme of every Jane Austen novel, and of every movie based on a Jane Austen novel. Romances are built upon the idea that Prince Charming actually exists, but he may be a bit rough around the edges or temporarily unavailable, like Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre or the long-lost boyfriend in.

• A Very Long Engagement, or the weird guy who keeps popping in from the future in The Time Traveller's Wife. It helps a lot if the woman initially hates the man – 10 Things I Hate About You is an obvious example, as is Guys and Dolls. And it also helps if Prince Charming finds the female lead a bit annoying, as Heath Ledger does in 10 Things I Hate About You and as Matthew McConaughey does in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and as Dudley Moore ultimately does in Ten. There is something about movies with the number 10 in the title that always deals with unlikely pairings.

• Nobody knows why. Romantic films wend their way to the altar as inevitably as action films lead nowhere. Powerful, ubiquitous cliches associated with the genre include the bride or groom suddenly getting ditched at the altar (The Philadelphia Story, The Graduate, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Runaway Bride), and the hovering presence of the faithful sidekick, who secretly worships the male lead from afar. Romances depend on the traditional belief that opposites attract: retiring, tongue-tied bookseller Hugh Grant and glamorous movie star Julia Roberts in Notting Hill; obsessive-compulsive nutcase Jack Nicholson and harried single parent Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets; hotshot journalist Kate Hudson and jocky ad-man Matthew McConaughey in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Not to mention crass yuppie lawyer Richard Gere and saucy call girl Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. A variant on this are films about people separated by a seemingly insurmountable cultural gulf, like Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes in Maid in Manhattan or Kristen Scott-Thomas and Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer.

• Then there is the special case of movies like Manhattan, where middle-aged men prey on women young enough to be their daughters. But that is Woody Allen. Actually, that is also the theme of Crazy Heart and numerous other movies, but mostly it is a Woody Allen trademark. Romantic films frequently feature the pushy but lovable mother, the harried, befuddled father, the fat, mouthy but highly supportive girlfriend who wears glasses and has never had a date, and the gay neighbour or co-worker who knows what you're going through because he's had his heart broken so many times himself. In a number of contemporary romances, the male lead has a best friend who is a lovable slob. Not until he can ditch this slob friend is he ready for the big time, relationship-wise.

• For romances to work, the heroine should initially be involved with a possessive creep, a catatonic Wasp, a perfectly harmless fellow she's been dating for years, or Mr Wrong. Teen romances have their own separate cliches. Actually, they have one separate cliche: teens from out of town find it hard to fit in so they start hanging around with social misfits or goths or beatniks or vampires suffering from social anxiety disorders. In teen romances, the jocks are invariably portrayed as cruel, self-absorbed idiots. The dead or near-dead make excellent partners in romances.

• That is the theme of Ghost, City of Angels and assorted other motion pictures. It seems to suggest that the dead make better company than the living, even though the sex is a drawback. Lovers separated in some way by the space-time continuum can be found in The House by the Lake and Just Like Heaven, the film where Reese Witherspoon plays a woman who does not let being legally dead get in the way of a relationship. All of these movies drive home the idea that a good man is hard to find, as is a good woman. Usually, a good man is harder to find, though. Except in the movies.

Horror Cliches

Small children are often evil in horror movies, a tradition that descends from The Bad Seed and The Exorcist and The Omen. When they are not evil, they are troubled loners who consort with invisible playmates who are evil. If one hears children humming innocent nursery rhymes in the background, you can bet your bottom dollar that somebody's getting a carving knife through the retina pretty damn soon. Horror films work best in rural settings, because rustics are scary in and of themselves, and because there are lots of frightening farm tools on hand, and also because there are no neighbours to beg for help when the flaying and amateur surgery get into full swing.

One should never trust a handyman or a farmer in a horror film. It is said that in space no one can hear you scream, but no one can hear you scream in Nebraska or south Dakota or rural Slovakia, either. Horror films do not work well in places like Holland, because horror films require basements, for the crucial scene where the prettiest girl, for no good reason, descends into the miasmic cavern in which Leatherface obviously spends most of his free time.

Linen closets and tidy storage areas are surprisingly common in Asian horror films, which may have cultural ramifications that go over the heads of moviegoers in the west. In the west, linen closets are simply not scary. Neither are vestibules. They're just not. Horror movies almost always contain a scene in which a woman washes her face in a sink, and when she straightens up and looks in the mirror, a girl missing half her face is staring directly back at her.

If she decides to take a bath, the tub will soon fill up with hair, blood or a woman with purple skin and one eye missing. Horror movies also contain lots of scenes in which the living dead or the living undead zip past an open door or window, but nobody sees them. A surprise appearance by subaquatic, recently deceased femmes fatales is another popular trope; the distaff dead, like U-boats, do not like to surface. The more gruesome films in the genre require captives to sacrifice one section of their bodies in order to preserve others; this always comes as a surprise.

Women constantly take showers in horror films, even though this has been a terrible idea ever since Psycho. People check into remote, deserted motels, even though this too has been a bad idea since Psycho. If the people who inhabit horror movies had only seen Psycho at an impressionable age, an awful lot of carnage could have been avoided. This, in fact, is the basic joke in Scream. t is always a bad idea to go to sleep in horror films, or accept a ride from strangers, or respond to a personal ad. It is an even worse idea to get in an elevator, a popular hideout of the promiscuously dead. Computers are another place where the dead sometimes lay low.

Priests are generally well-meaning but incompetent in this genre, but nuns are to be avoided. Rabbis rarely appear in horror films.

In a horror movie, you should never purchase a dirt-cheap house or apartment without making detailed inquiries about how many previous tenants were skinned alive in the pantry. But be aware: estate agents can never be trusted. It is pointless to look at the images on the security camera in your apartment or office to see if the monster is in the lobby, because the dead cannot be seen on conventional cameras, no matter how high the resolution. You should never have any kind of medical operation in a horror film,

particularly a transplant, because you will inherit the eyes of a witch, the heart of a cannibal or the kidneys of a murderous transvestite. Never go into a darkroom alone, because someone in the film you are developing will come to life and rip your lungs out. Finally, never answer the phone in a horror movie. To avoid disaster, text.

Action Cliches

• The classic action film features a small group of world-weary assassins or Green Berets or Navy Seals or mercenaries who assemble to pull off one last suicidal mission, after which they will retire. It helps if they are slightly over the hill. At least two of the men don't want to go on the assignment. Towards the end of the film, one of the men who stayed behind will materialise out of thin air to bail out his buddies. This man will most assuredly die.

• At some point in the film, the leader of the unit will tell his men: "This is my fight. You guys have no skin in this game. You're free to go." But the men will not go. Never, ever, ever. In the course of the classic action film, several large men possessing a preposterous level of upper body musculature will be betrayed, usually by somebody who does not possess an identical level of upper body musculature, but who employs lots of people who do.

• Ultimately, they will be stabbed in the back by bitter rivals back at headquarters, weasel-like politicians or somebody they used to work for in the CIA, which is sometimes referred to as "the firm". In the contemporary action film, the villains are either heavily accented Russians, Serbs, or unidentified, all-purpose eastern European sociopaths (Taken, Eastern Promises, Rob Cohen's xXx), or cigar-smoking thugs from south of the border, or untrustworthy Arabs, or villainous bureaucrats from Washington or London.

• The women in action films tend to be promiscuous femmes fatales or crusading journalists or medical support staff or hapless rebels or victims or miscast.

• A good action film will usually include some impromptu emergency surgery, a fall from a great height, a reasonable amount of torture and a lot of rappelling. Men in action films rappel down high-rises, mountains and into the holds of ships. An action film without rappelling is like a horror movie without disembowelment: when in doubt, rappel!

• The principals should have lots of scars, and each scar should come with a story. A psycho with an eye patch is good, especially if he's a one-eyed giant with a machete. The hero should have lost his soul in Sarajevo, Nicaragua, Darfur or back in Nam, and is now struggling to regain just one smidgen of dignity that will help remind him of a time he didn't want to wake up every day and puke his guts out, goddamn it. Nobody drives a car in action films: off-road vehicles only.

• No mules, no ponies, no biofuel vehicles. At some point in an action film, a woman will get punched in the face, an arrow or bullet will rocket through a villain's skull in slow motion, and a blade or piston or spear will rip through a man's chest from behind. If the film is in the martial arts genre, the hero should repeatedly run up the wall to kick somebody in the face, and ninjas should fly through the air on invisible wires and do aerial battle in the bamboo forest. One of the ninjas should turn out to be a woman. Even though ninjas descend from ceilings with great regularity in this genre, it always comes as a complete surprise to the numbskulls on the ground. 

Crime Cliches

For starters, gangster films almost always showcase tough guys off the hardscrabble streets of blighted metropolises who turn to a life of crime because a)it is the only way to get ahead; b)they were wronged by the authorities at a young age; c)they realise that Credit Suisse and Bank of America almost never hire people from their ethnic background, so they might as well become leg-breakers. Even tough the code is vaguely defined, it cannot be violated. Crime movies almost always have a rat, and sometimes several. The rat can be undercover cop, a member of the gang, or even the gang leader himself. Rod steiger was a superb rat On the Waterfront. Gangsters have a hard time identifying the rat in the crew, even though the rat is always the newest and best-looking member of the gang, and never seems to belong to the same ethnic group as everyone else in the gang. Gangster movies often include a scene in a restaurant or nightclub where somebody says the wrong ting to the wrong guy and later regrets it. In crime movies, there is usually one straight arrow whom the gangsters respect because he is not completely crooked like them. For a crime film to work, there must be a wizened, cynical cop who is close to retirement and has seen it all. There must be a young cop who just got marries, and who will almost certainly die. There must be a full-dress funeral service, preferably in the rain. Finally, gangster movies would not be a gangster movies without the crucial scene in the hospital where a good-looking young cop comes on duty to replace the cop who is guarding an important witted, and then turns out to be a hit man.

Comedy cliches

The contemporary comedy is generally about a young man who is a jerk, a loser or a shmuch. He shares a filthy apartment with jerks, goes to Las Vegas with jerks, plays dodgeball with jerks, works with jerks, gets into trouble with jerks, and often has a father is a jerk. The contemporary comedy deals with the loser who must part company with his loser friends in order to become a man. Little boys in comedies tend to be mop-topped weenies who pout a lot and want their dads to take them to see the Yankees the way he promised to, but didn't. They are whiney and really deserve to have pies stuffed in their faces. Comedies must have a gimmick. A person wakes up in the morning and some seismic shift has occurred in his life. He is no longer capable of telling the truth. Or he can no longer tell a lie. He has won a lottery ticket but can't cash it in until the weekend is over. He can now use a remote control to stop life dead in its tracks. He can communicate with the dead. He can see ghosts. He is a ghost. He can become a completely different person. He can pass a woman. He can communicate with God. He is God He can go into the future or go back in time. He can also go to heaven. Once the premise has been established, though, the movie will proceed according to the same, tried-and-true comedy template that has existed for decades. Lots of stuff about bodily function. Lots of physical comedy.

Sci-fi Cliches

• There is always something out there in a classic science fiction film. No one knows what is out there, or what they want, or where it comes from, or what it wants, but it is out there.
• When the alien death ship makes its first appearence it will be hundreds of times larger than the vessel sent to defeat it. Women play an important role in sci-fi movies. fiesty, resourceful, inomitable women have pivotal roles in all the star wars films, the aliens franchise and the terminator movies.
• Callow youths play a major role in sci-fi films. They will question authority. They will lock horns with their superiors. They will carp endlessly with the heroine. But, in the end, they are the ones who will destory the Death star, or send Bana back to Romulus.
• There has always been the problem with sci-fi films: when the terrifying aliens finally turn up, they look like bean stalks or fetuses or Keanu Reeves or jumbo-sized scorpions or ET; with few expectations, aliens are just not scary.

Costume Ideas

Here I have added pictures of the costume ideas that we are thinking of using for each of the characters; 


KILLER

Black gloves, to show that the killer is hiding their trace marks and to keep the killer dressed up in as much black as possible to not show any flesh .

Black coat/jacket, represents the killer look and again to cover up as much flesh to not give away who the killer may be.

Black boots to keep in with the whole black costume vibe.                          

Balaclava, to hide as much of the face as possible to not give away as to who the killer could be.

Emma - Victim 

Cardigan, however the costume will look scruffier on the character to give a lazy and vulnerable vibe to the character.

Pyjama bottoms, which will show the character is dressed in sleeping gear and is comfortable in what the character is wearing.

Bel - Emma's sister 

Strappy top, to show that the character is into fashion

Black Leggins to go with the strappy top 

UGG boots, which go with the rest of the costume and to show that the character likes to wear comfy shoes 

Ben - Emma's boyfriend 

Tracksuit bottoms, to represent that the character likes to wear comfortable clothing and will show a scruffy vibe also to the characters costume

Black Jumper, represents similar to the tracksuit bottoms that the character likes to wear comfortable clothing.

Editing in the film

Non- diagetic - Music in the kitchen, hinges from the letter box being opened, foot steps of the killer walking up to the front door, heavy breathing down the phone,


Sound bridge -

Breif plot of summary

The group and I have now thought about our plot for our film, this is brief bullet pointing just to get an overview and to then edit it in more depth.




PLOT:
- The begginin of the plot starts off with with Emma and Ben asleep. They then both wake up from hearing the phone constantly ringing. Emma is confused as to who would be ringing at half midnight.
- Emma then gets up to get the phone downstairs as the phone won't stop ringing.
- Emma gets downstairs to find that nobody is on the other end of the phone.
- The shot then cuts to the killer who is over the road, on the bridge, showing that he is the man who is calling Emma.
- The phone keeps ringing and then the doorbell goes. At this point Ben comes downstairs to see what all the fuss is about.
- Emma is too scared to answer the door as she thinks something freaky is going on.
- The camera then cuts to the killer who is shown to be on the phone to Emma.
- Ben then answers the door to find its Emma's sister coming in from a night out but Emma is confused as to why she's home as Bel was meant to be staying at a friends.
- The phone then rings again while all three of them are sitting in the lounge. Ben thinks Emma's going crazy and just needs some sleep so Bel and Ben go into the kicthen to make a cup of tea before bed.
- The phone then keeps ringing again, this time when Emma answers it there is heavy breathing down the phone and Emma is now getting more confused, worried and agitated.
- The doorbell then rings again and Emma opens it to look out but nobody is there.
- Bel and Ben come back from the kitchen and Emma tells Bel to check all the doors are locked and and curtains are shut so nobody can see in.
- At this point Ben and Bel never heard the doorbell ring so they think Emma is going mad and don't understand as to why she's saying to Bel to shut the curtains.
- They all sit down in the lounge thave a drink before they go back to bed.
- They then all hear tapping coming from the front door. Something then drops through the letter box.
- They all go and have a look and Emma opens it, its a picture of her with a red cross over her face with the writing saying 'It's you'.
- At this point they are all getting worried and then Emma locks the front door up to the top.
- Ben then says look through the letter box because nobody is going out.
- Next Emma looks out of the letter box and the killers eyes appear and say 'Hello Emma'.
- This is then ended on a cliff hang

Characters, Setting and Plot

From planning our film so far we have now come up with the characters, setting and plot.


Characters:
Main girl - Emma
Main boy - Ambrose 'Ben' (Emma's boyfriend)
Girl - Bel
The killer - George


Setting:
Inside of Katie's house. Emma and 'Ben' starting off upstairs. After the kitchen and lounge are the main are used. The killer 'George' will be mainly focused on outside.


Plot:
Ben and Emma havinga night in, phone keeps ringing and nobody seems to be on the end of the phone. Phone keeps and keeps on ringing. suddenly the doorbell goes. Emma is too scared to answer the door so Ben does and to their relief it's only Emma's sister. Phone keeps ringing afterwards and then the doorbell rings once. Everyone's getting scared and confused and then a letter drops through the letter box. Emma locks up teh house and peeks out of the letter box so nobody can get her. The killer Georges' eyes then appear through the hole of the letter box.

Setting the scene

• The scene will be set at Katie's house. The shots will mainly be shot in the living room and outside by the front door while the girls are in the scene. The shot of the girls will mainly be in the living room while the shots of the killer will mainly be outside hiding in bushes, tree's and walking over the alleyway over the bridge to the house he has targeted. The scene will be set at night to make the girls in the film more venerable and help to build up the tension of creating a horror film.

• Firstly, the girls will be shot. As its Halloween there are a lot of shot reverse shots. By making the film set in Halloween will not make it out of the blue that a killer is striking. The plot being Halloween will make the girls think that the killer knocking at the door is just a man taking Halloween too seriously.

The shots consisting for the killer will mainly be long shots and close-ups of his face this is so we are making our film scary while keeping the tension in the audience the same.

Comparing scenes

• I have chosen these two images of the girls from Sorority row. I have chosen to use these two images because these are stereotypical representations of teenage girls. Innocent girls who you wouldn't expect to then be overwhelmed in a horrific situation. Our film will use similar stereotypical representations of girls, for example, the age of the girls around seventeen years old. Happy girls having a night in not expecting this girly night then to turn into murders and the girls fighting for their lives.

• Also, the way the the girls are positioned and the scene is very similar to the features used in our film. The girls start off in their home but don't expect the night to turn out how it does. This is the main feature that is going to be used in our film. Our girls in our film will be using this same feature but what will make it more scary is that it is set on the night of Halloween.

• Our girls then thinking that this mad man may just be getting into the swing of Halloween too much then realise that they need to get out of this situation and quickly.

• The camera shots used in Sorority row will be similar to the one used in our film also. This is because Sorority row is a chick flick made into a horror, ours is the same. Some of the other films such as paranormal activity and The Hills use the same camera features because they both are horror films. The camera shots used in horror films are mostly long shots, establishing shots, close-up shots and zooms.

• In our film we will be using long shots to show the killer from a distance to make him seem more of a mad person, making the audience feel intimidated and scared for the girls.

• Establishing shots will be used in our film to set the scene by also using the misenscene. We will be using establishing shots at the beginning of the scene to show the audience where the film will be set.

• The misenscene will show the setting and what the audience will see are that these girls are on their own in a big house and the audience will know what to be expecting next but will just be wondering how these girls will becomce under a horrible situation.

• Close up shots will be showing the reaction from the girls. The close up shot of the killer but not quite close up enough to show his facial expression will make the audience feel consious and won't know what to expect next.

• Zoom shots on teh otherhand will make the tension rise by seeing the girls crying in fear of the anger on the killers face etc.