Werewolf feeding location

As our narrative is continuing to develop, we are continuously looking for more and more locations to film in. The following locations I stumbled across during a walk in the woods and they show a small area engulfed by trees and when I saw it I instantly imagined it to be a great possible prospect for the werewolfs feeding ground, where it takes its victims to eat them etc

Further Locations

The above are more examples of possible locations. The white building surrounded by gates is the abandoned airfield tower from WW2, which is a listed building so cannot be knocked down. I'm not sure if we would be able to get inside to film anything, we will have to look into it. Eut even a quick long shot of the building surrounded by rusty gates could be a great image to use in the trailer. There is no issue surrounding lighting as the area is street light at night.

There is also the possiblity to call this a warehouse, or a werehouse! (as in werewolf and warehouse) which could be a possible narrative idea?

Dungeness

Recapping our last post- Whilst pitching the idea to our media teacher, she told us that a location to use for this type of teaser trailer is in a place called Dungeness.

The whole idea behind this was to capture the trainquility of the place. but to a degree where it becomes eery as it is slightly abadoned - with one glimpse of a werewolf at the end. That would be enough for a teaser trailer and still be so effective if we concentrated on every shot we got, storyboarding it carefully and when were there, taking multiple shots of one shot , until we get the perfect one.

The idea now is to visit location, and spend some time storyboarding accustomed to these surroundings. While in discussion we pointed out the relevence it has to 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' - meaning it seems like the surroundings and places that would know about the werewolf and know that they can't stop it, yet they dont tell visitors and decide to just let it happen, again highlighting the isolation and desperation. It is a location that we feel has shown a different side to the original plan and has only but opened new possibilities for the structure of our teaser.

Sackville school- woods location

Some of the stills above are of some fantastic possible locations. Our favourite shots that we think would work in the teaser are-  Long wooden steps above, x marks the spot, Danger keep out sign, long path with trees either side, boat by lake. have someone sitting on platform by edge of lake, scrap areas where the werewolf could take his victims to eat them. We are getting closer & closer to finding our final locations and soon we are also checking out an old bomb shelter!

Perfect abandoned boat by lake, chained up

X marks the spot

- Its starting to take form !

As a group, we have been discussing appropriate locations as to where we could stage certain scenes in our production of the teaser trailer.
An obvious and essential part of our teaser is a wooded area...being either woods or forest.

But does the genre we are using, allow for other locations? perhaps houses? which we have been looking at.
We can see from the film 'Twilight' that they do live in house - and with the text i am about to copy into this box it makes common sense and agrees with the staging of Twilight.

"Werewolves live at a house in human form, from wherever they come from. A werewolf in wolf form lives in forests or near their house where they live in human form. It is where they feel most safe, Werewolves are only in wolf form for 24 hours, so they could wake up human, naked, on the floor of a forest.
I am a lycan. I live in SC in the USA. its just a small little town. We have woods behind our house. "

- As from the text above you can see that , in parallel to jacob from twilight that they commomly live in houses that either back on to a forest or lake.

Futher Kings Hill woodland

These are further examples of possible locations we could use in Kings Hill. The bottom photo of the woods surrounding the trail is a great shot which we think would work perfectly in our teaser.

Woods Location - Tunbridge Wells woodland (&) Power station

Whilst out on a walk the other day I  took a few pictures of the woodlands I was walking in

I felt it had an eerie quality too it as it has a long pathway covered in trees next to a natrual stream that has things dumped in it. Also I noticed towards the end of the path there was an electric powerstation surrounded by barbed wire fencing which had quite an imtimidating atmosphere.

Location Research

We decided that Sophie's side shed would be the best place to film of teaser trailer. It has some very human elements, like the dresser and a door and tools, but its is also very animal-like as it is dark and dingy and rotten and partly demolished. We thought this half animal, half human den would be the perfect place for a werewolf to live. It was also very remote so we would not cause any disruptions whilst filming.

Initial location research

The twilight saga is of huge inspiration to us, so we looked closer into it's use of locations. As seen in the pictures to the left, and below, the werewolves in the film are often seen in various woodland areas, open grassland, thickets, cliff tops, and hills

This use of location is something we could mirror, or try to achieve ourselves, (unlike to special effects used to create a werewolf!)

Knole Park is a nearby location in Sevenoaks town, it has large open space, huge trees, some (small) areas of forest, and natural wildlife.

The area is large so we do to risk catching visitors on camera, or having limited choice in scenery. The grounds are open 24 hours a day, and it is free to enter, so filming time would not be cut short!





Photograph taken by Media group 9.

- Whats Inside - Mise en scene?

- So if we go ahead with the abadoned airfield/house for the idea for the main hiding spot for the werewolf - we will need at some point inside views of the locatin .
At such time, we are unaware on getting permission to enter the airfield- however we have other possible locations that we could use as the inside of the building.
-But what would a werewolf have in the building - as he lives in there..he would sleep there etc .
From the new wolfman film - they show anthony hopkins apporach the werewolf in human form - in his bedroom.
it looks like this:-

whats interesting about the mise en scene in this soht is the basics yet effectiveness it has.

A single bed frame in the corner - an old chair and what looks like a make shift table in the bottom right corner.

There are also chains in the room, so we get the impression that he tries to protect people from him. however we could use this in both ways as for the protection of the public and even the torture of the public.I will post shots of the bomb shelter i have at home - if we can get into it (its been sealed up).

meanwhile - check out the wolfman site  - it has a few interesting shots on its synopsis page , after the jump.

http://www.thewolfmanmovie.com/

Film Theory: Claude Levi-Strauss's Binary Opposition

An important piece of film theory, especially when looking at horror cinema is Claude Levi-Strauss’s theory of Binary Opposition, a piece of ‘westernized thought’ Binary Opposition states that there are a’ pair of terms or concepts that are theoretical opposites.’ and therefore one cannot be there without another. For example, without innocent villagers, there would be no horrible werewolf. Therefore when creating our film we must take into account creating a clear representative of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, because if our representatives of one, or both, are weak the lack of clarity could cause confusion.

The theory behind Codes and Conventions

Our trailer is to an extent required to follow the codes and conventions of the genre. These codes and conventions must themselves be decoded by us, so we as the audeince can understand implied meanings and repersentations, which are often reflections of society.

How are they made?
Codes and conventions are made by ‘original inspiration’, most of which were created in the age of British Hammer Horror, a time in which lower budgets increased individual creativity and originality. In a recent interview ‘Night of the living dead’ director George A Romero explained the creation of the ‘zombie movement’ as a reinvention of the subjects as a ‘thoroughly modern menace’ through lumbered, staggered yet constant movement. Since then, this form of movement has become a stereotype of what a zombie is, reflected in such films as ‘Dawn of the dead’.

What are we meant to follow?
What it comes to codes and conventions of a werewolf film, especially when it comes to the appearance of the werewolf itself it would be difficult to claim that we aren’t going to be influenced by George Waggner’s depiction of the creature. Although not the first werewolf film (it was the second, preceded by the unsuccessful ‘Werewolf in London’) ‘The Wolfman’ (1941, figure 1) holds a greater influence in the history of horror. When the werewolf was brought to Hollywood the core interpretation of the beast was changed, in mythology the werewolf was regarded as a wolf/man, yet Waggner created the semi-mutilated ‘wolfman’ we now see in most modern film. Therefore by including a Wolfman within our trailer we are already subjected to codes and conventions of our genre already.

Fig. 1

How much leeway do we have?

Although individual creativity creates codes and conventions, there must be a core following of conventions to fulfil the expectations of the audience.  As Media Studies students, we are unable to create/ find an actual werewolf, if we are unable to show a full werewolf, will just a moon be enough to define the genre?
 Codes and conventions follow the Zeitgeist, during the time of George A Romero’s ‘Night of the living dead’ the spirit of the time was one of war, and the film was seen as a metaphor for ‘America turning on isself’ and the first use of an African-american lead actor personified the time of the assassination of Martin luther king, a strong political message, reflected in the climax of the film. We have decided to interpret our zeitgeist as one of celebrity culture and obsession. The glorification of werewolves has proven to be an outlet for teen obsession and our trailer has tapped into both the ‘teen market’ through the relation of age of our protagonist and the popularity of the werewolf subject. Although familiarisation is key, we are creating out own codes and conventions, targeting a younger age of victim, in a more brutal, unsympathetic way.

The link below shows teen wolf obsession in its most extreme, we believe this is partly due to the Twighlight saga, which embraces werewolves as outcasts from others but as having a strong community of werewolves. Wolves are pack animals.

Genre Theory

‘Genre’ means ‘type’ or ‘kind’ in French. It is a term used to categories similar types of films together, such a romance, horror, comedy and so on. As well as the broad term genre, there is also subgenre, with physiological horror, slasher horror and werewolf horror for example.

Each genre has a different set of codes and conventions to follow, with particular representations and stereotypes, mise en scene, editing, diagetic and nondiagetic, as well as a slightly formatted storyline. These pre-determined ‘codes’ are not set it stone, but help decide a film from one genre to the other, so it is important we follow traditional horror code and conventions to ensure our genre is clear.

'‘Genre is not set - it is fluid, as it is defined by the audience.’'

Syd Field's three act plot structure

As our ideas continue to develop and our storyboard is getting closer and closer to being complete, it is important to look into narrative, genre and audience theory so that we can relate each theory to us.

Syd Field's Three Act Plot Structure

According to Field, the typical Hollywood film can be separated into three seperate dramatic sections or acts:
-The set up
-The confrontation
-The resolution
To move the action on from one act to another there are what he calls 'plot points'- particularly important pieces of the plot, which turn around the lives of the characters, change their relationships with others and alter the tone of the film.

The first act- setup:
Field claims that within the first TEN MINUTES in particular, the audience will decide whether they like the film and will normally be unwilling to change their minds later. It is therefore VITAL for the film-maker to give the audience a sense in those 10 minutes of what the film is going to be about, who the main character is and why they should care about him/her and what they can expect in terms of style.

The second act- Confrontation:
In this longest act of the film we see the main character in a number of more and more extreme problem situations where they confront theur enemies normally quite helplessly.

Act three- resolution:
The hero will finally take control in the struggles with their problems (often by going to confront the enemy on their own home territory) and will achieve a final, decisive victory.

How the theory relates to us:
The theory talks about films in whole, which are usually around two hours of length, and obviously we only have one minute to demonstrate our skills and hook the audience. However, the three stages still relate to us, we just need to shorten/change them slightly.
Act one- Instead of the first ten minutes, we could say it is important to pull the viewer in in the first ten to fifteen seconds, as an emphatic opening will give them a good first impression of the trailer.
Act two- Although again we do not have much time, as the trailer develops it is important to show the main character in scary situations with the werewolf as this is what the film is about. This is where the action happens!
Act three- Probably the least relevant to us as ideally, we do not really want to give away whether or not the herp/main character survives/kills the beast etc etc.. it is more likely that we will end on a cliffhanger, therefore attempting to entice the viewer to want to see the whole film to understand what happens in the end.

Vladimir Propp - Narrative Theory

Vladamir Propp suggested that characters took on the role of narrative 'spheres of action' or functions:

1. The hero, usually male, is the agent who restores the narrative equilibrium often by embarking upon a quest (or search), saves the princess and wins her hand (S.M looked into this when we were researching romance genre too). Propp distinguishes between the victim hero, who is the centre of the villain's attentions, and the seeker hero who aids others who are the villains victims. The hero is invariably the texts protagonist or central character.
2. The villain who creates a narrative disruption.
3. The donor gives the hero something, it may be an object, information or advice, which helps in resolution of the narrative.
4. The helper aids the hero in the task of restoring equilibrium.
5. The princess (the victim) is usually the character most threatened by the villain and has to be saved, at the climax, by the hero. The father's (who in fairy tales was often the king) role is usually to give the princess away to the hero at the narratives conclusion. He may also dispatch the hero.
6. The dispatcher sends the hero on his or her task
7. The false hero appears to be good but is revealed, at the narrative's end, to have been bad.

Although this theory is based on traditional films, if we think about modern films now, most still follow these codes and conventions, so although in our teaser trailer we cannot establish all these roles, it is still important to note who to include.

Barthes' Code

Barthes' Code:

Barthes suggests that a text is like a tangled ball of threads which needs unravelling so we can separate out the colours. Once we start to unravel a text, we encounter an absolute plurality of potential meanings. We can start by looking at a narrative in one way, from one viewpoint, bringing to bear one set of previous experience, and create one meaning for that text. You can continue by unravelling the narrative from a different angle, by pulling a different thread if you like, and create an entirely different meaning. And so on. An infinite number of times, if you wanted to.

Simplified- a text may be open (unravelled in a lot of different ways) or closed (there is only one obvious thread to pull on)

Barthes also decided that the threads that you pull on to try and unravel meanings are called Narrative Codes and that they could be categorised in the following ways:
-The enigma code (ie Answers & Questions)
- Symbols & Signs
- Points of Cultural Reference
- Simple description/reproduction

Tzvetan Todorov - Narrative Theory

Tzvetan Todorov suggested that conventional narratives are structured in five stages:

- A state of equilibrium at the outset
- A disruption of the equilibrium by some action
- A recognition that there has been a disruption
- An attempt to repair the disruption
- A reinstatement of the equilibrium

This could be a narrative structure we follow, but ocassionaly horror films do not revert to equilibrium, and this is a possible ending we are considering to truely imply horror.

Early On - The Wolf Man

After watching the trailer for 'The Wolf Man' we decided that we should look at the actual film to get more clarity on the approach of the werewolf that the film and Universal Studios took early on in the 1940's.

It was interesting to see that, the main protagonist Claude Rains  was not shown to be a antagonist. Instead it clearly asks the audience to sympathize with the character, and they establish him as a human rather than a human being.

The Opening Credits in which the title appears was expected to be very simple as from the era it was made, however on closer inspection of the font chosen with the background behind it, it makes to an interesting representing of a werewolf and the film. The Font used in "The Wolf Man" - resembles the likeness of strands of hair, that refers to the obvious type of film. it also takes up the main proportian of the screen as would any title, the sheer thickness of the title with the white on black background makes it completley clear to the audiences eye. The Background of the title sequence is one large tree that has no leaves and is bare. This very clever image symbolizes many things - the tree itself is going through a stage of transformation thus linking in with the transformation of the werewolf. It is also symbolizing death. As the tree's leaves have to die in order to transform.

The opening scene of the film was of a man picking up an old thick dictionary - and was flicked straight to the definition of Lycanthropy - which is the medical term for werewolfism. To open the film on the definition inables the film to strick fear straight into the audience. The folklaw and tales of the time were serious matters to some people and were believed in.

Above, is a process of transformation in an early werewolf film.

Universal studios were very wary of what they could and couldn't show so they used discreet cut aways to show transformation - in the one above they used merges early on to show growth in hairlines, and then the actor walked behind a wall, and came out the other side completely transformed. These are techniques we could replicate.

Deconstructions/Interesting shot ideas

Although the following two trailers are theatrical ones, we thought we could still seek inspiration from them, so below are some deconstructions of interesting shots etc...
 Devil - Teaser trailer

This shot reinforced our ideas that we could show the werewolf transforming without actually showing it. For example, we could create shadows on the wall and shoot the werewolfs shadows or silhouette. Many lower budget films do this. In this shot, although we are only watching a shadow, we can tell that the victim is being possessed or something along those lines.

Interesting narrative shots.. this text helps the audience visually, and the fact that it is upside down above the city connates that something is wrong, or twisted.

 

Thought it was interesting how a suspicious character can be created merely by the presence of a hooded jumper.

Use of sound throughout the trailer is also very impacting, for example.. at the end.. the non diegetic backing sound cuts to a shot of complete darkness and all we hear is diegetic panting and a scream of "who are you".. then the lights come on and back to non diegetic sound.
Another interesting use of sound which we are thinking of including in our trailer is the use of contrapuntal sound between the times 2.03 and 2.16. Whilst people are fighting for survival, and dying, all we hear are casual beeps.. like a metronome.. which could indicate the process is ongoing, and will never stop anytime soon.

The last exorcism

The trailer often has biblical references, which make it seem more real and historical etc

 


Again, although this, in essence, is only a close up of a girls face, the red tint, and the quick editing makes it seem a lot more extreme and impacting in the trailer itself.

Again, this is only a shot of a girl pretending to break her finger, and in the trailer, we do not see it actually break, we just hear a cracking sound which creates the illusion.

This is a clever shot, and goes back to when we analysed Quarantine a little. The shot shows two men quickly holding and looking down the camera lens straight at the audience, this makes us feel like we are there with them. The diegetic sound "switch it off" also gives the shot more of a documentary kind of style. As a group, we really like the idea of using handheld camera shots.



The two shots above and below again give the audience a visual to focus on, and again make the trailer feel quite like a documentary or recording (retrospective view?) The text is also spine chilling in its own.



This ending shot is terrifying. The red tint gives many different meanings, including, blood over the screen, the idea that the devil is in the room etc. The silhouette or figure of the girl can be seen and although she is so far away, it is cleverly shot so she looks scary. We could easily do this with our werewolf and we did shots like this in our coursework last year too!

Often during the trailer, the shots change to a red tint, which could be seen as a POV kind of shot. The red also connates blood, the devil etc. These red tint shots literally only last for a second, as many of them are designed to shock the audience and we are looking to do the same thing in our trailer, with quick shots of the werewolf.

There are also many shots used in the trailer which have the style of recordings.. for example.. black and white static appear on the screen, which looks very effective.