Cheeky Pitch

On Thursday the 27th of March my producer Victoria Wilson and I gave our pitch in a meeting room in BMC, Springvale.  I decided it would be better to use a unique technique to pitch instead of just reading from a page.  

I took the role of presenter and Victoria was my contestant on 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire'.  Every question I asked Victoria was something to do with our film.  Every correct answer (sound effects included) told you something new about what you could expect from our new short film, Dislocation.  

After we did the Who Wants to be a Millionaire skit we gave the spectators a hand out which included the information we went on to describe, only in more detail.  I feel that this allowed them to read into topics they wanted to know more about at their own discretion while giving us the opportunity to talk about everything evenly in our pitch.  Some of the topics we discussed can be shown below. 

Title: Dislocation

Genre: Comedy Horror, Magic Realism

Time/Setting: Set in present day in Northern Ireland

Theme: Satire battles redemption.  Two Geocaching friends search for an evasive cache deep in the forest.  Will they find their surreptitious reward, or will it find them?

Actors:

Josh Sugar: Richard Andrews

Dan Groves: Ryan Sloan

Groundskeeper: Dave McCaughey

Chelsea: Hannah Gallagher

Old Man: Patrick Allen

Locations:

Car: Andy’s Car

Road cutaways: Hillsborough

Forest scene: Hillsborough forest park

Graveyard: Blaris cemetery

Open field: Hillsborough

Cabin int: Studio BMC
Cabin ext: Hillsborough

Props:

Binoculars, backpacks, costumes, fake wounds, blood pellets, make up, fake gun, metal box, cigar, shovel,

Provisional Shooting Date: 7^th and 8^th of April

Intended Audience:

Young adults over the age of 15 that enjoy comedies such as the Inbetweeners and How not to live your life. 

How does it fit into Dislocation:

Set in the middle of nowhere, Dan is a hero; he is cool, slick and adventurous.  Josh is a lesser version, always in the shadow of his best friend.  He tries to be like him so much but always ends up getting it wrong.  When Dan is killed, the spotlight is thrust onto Josh, he is being forced to become the hero that the audience expected Dan to be.  Josh is in uncharted territory in this front and centre role, scared, determined, dislocated.  

The Reality of Magic

After showing one of my short stories to a few people I received an interesting piece of feedback that my style has elements of 'Magic Realism' to it. Although I am challenging a genre I have not worked on before (horror), I intend to drench the dialogue with satire and my own unique style.  Therefore I will not shy away from magic realism if that's the route my script goes down.  

Magic Realism is a genre where magic elements are a natural part in an otherwise ordinary, realistic environment.  What I take from this would be my stories tend to have a basic well known setting such as a bar, but they contain a magical element to it, in this case a magic ring that gives you wishes.  

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's name repeatedly came up as I was researching Magic Realism.  He appears to be the father of the genre, with several successful books to his name. E.g. 100 Years of Solitude and No one writes to the Colonel. 

"His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as magic realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations."  Source: Wikipedia.com

A book/film favourite of mine that carries this genre would be 'The Green Mile'.  This story is set around a realistic death row prison of characters and what they do in their last few weeks.  The magical element is then added with the character 'John Coffey' who can add and remove people's illnesses.  

Woody Allen's movies also tend to have a magical realism feel to them.  His latest film, Midnight in Paris involves an artist in Paris who starts off the story is a seemingly normal way doing normal things, then while carrying out these normal things the story shifts and he is transported back in time .  
By using realism within your fantasy I feel it allows people's mind to accept what is going on.  It draws the curtains over that voice that usually tells you, "this could never happen."

He's behind you!

The jump scare has been done time and time again.  The same idea, done in a different way each time.

• In 1975 audiences were screaming while watching Martin Brody harmlessly talking on the edge on his fishing boat.  When he takes his eyes off the water the audience does too, unsuspectingly unleashing the behemoth shark from the murky great blue ocean.  

• In 1960 a surprise was revealed when Norman Bates' deceased mother was spun into the audiences faces, providing many a scream to the delight of Alfred Hitchcock. 

• In 1995 the movie Se7en lures us into a false sense of security making the audience believe they are looking a seemingly dead person lying on a bed, the faux corpse then miraculously eludes the hereafter one last time to grant audiences permission for an underwear check.  

Fire face Scene - Insidious

Fire face - Insidious

A recent example of this jump scare technique would be the movie 'Insidious'.  A truly scary horror film which tends to mix creepy looking figures into their jump scares to make it all the more terrifying.  

While watching a particular scene I was trying to figure out just why the jump scene was scary and how I adapt it for my own.  The scene can be shown below via YouTube link.

The woman is telling a story in one shot, and the story can be seen in another shot which is building up in our minds as the setting for the scary outcome. 

We keep looking back to the woman in the kitchen as a point of refuge, then going back to the story scene with the tension ever mounting.  The twist in the jump scare lies with it appearing in the kitchen, outside of where the horror has been built up.




This is scary because the audience has been tricked into a false sense of security.  In their heads the kitchen is the audiences kitchen, it is safe.  Bringing the inevitable jump scare from uncharted territory to an everyday surrounding is what makes this scene work so well.

Jack in the box jump scare scene - The Conjuring

The viewer will know something is coming, what I need to do is make them think it's coming from one angle, then hit them from another.

Writing by Barry Sonnenfeld

While watching 'The Addams Family' recently I noticed that I particularly liked the font used in the opening sequence.  After researching this I discovered that the director, 'Barry Sonnenfield' tends to use this font throughout his movies.  

The Addams Family was merely the start of his crusade for using this unique and quirky looking text. I feel it is very eye catching and doesn't conform to the norm, using different fonts and sizes for each word in the title.  



He has also used this font similarly for the 'Men in Black' franchise.

On a black background this font looks great. It stands out and gives a very eerie horror look.  This is exactly what I'm going for with my potential horror film year film.