Intextuality in "Out of the Woods" (Lauren)

 Intertextual References (Lauren)

Intertexuality is an important convention to take into consideration when filming any genre of film or television show. It cross references popular culture and amplifies meaning within the media product. A show that utilizes this convention frequently is American cartoon Family Guy, that adds intertextual references for comic effect. 

Here Family Guy mimics a shot practically identically from the Thriller film North by Northwest, by Alfred Hitchcock in order to make the scene more humorous and attract a wider audience due to the 1959 release date of the film. Widening our audience is something we want to achieve with our intertextuality, hence using current immensely popular film, The Hunger Games, hopefully attracting a similar demographic of viewers.

Along with The Hunger Games, we also took inspiration from Inception and Sin City. Whilst studying the opening to Inception an idea was conceived in my mind to use an outdoor, daylight setting to film our Thriller, as well as having a character washed up either on a shore or a bank somewhere. Once we had established our plot it was decided this washed up character would be a corpse on the bank of a stream in making intertextual reference to Leonardo DiCaprio's character washed up and alive on a beach. The handheld camera shots used in this scene in Inception are to be mimicked when we film our Thriller opening, the canted angles intended to show confusion and disorientation. 

There are a series of shots we intend to lift directly from the opening of The Hunger Games and recreate for our Thriller with our protagonist. When we had decided upon the location, the woods, and that our character George would use these woods as a playground we had to establish what kinds of things he would be doing and playing with. Once I had suggested we cast my cousin as George, who coincidently does a lot of archery, the idea of him playing with a bow and arrow fell into place. In current films it is characters associated with forests and woodlands who utilize bows and arrows, Merida from Brave, Legolas from Lord of the Rings and of course, Katniss from The Hunger Games. Because The Hunger Games is a dystopian Thriller, it has similar conventions that we wanted to explore in our Thriller as well as a very similar location setting. So we lifted the following shots and aim to mimic them in order to attract a wider modern young adult audience.

Finally we took inspiration from Thriller Sin City, and the equilibrium and disequilibrium that is shown within the film, or more simply worded, the ordinary meets extraordinary convention often explored in Thriller films. An ordinary moment in the beginning of Sin City is when The Salesmen offers The Customer a cigarette on a balcony looking over the city. The extraordinary moment is that he then turns and shoots her for no immediately established reason. The ordinary we want to show in ours is obviously our character George playing normally in the woods, all light-hearted and happy, this contrasting with the extraordinary moment at the end of him finding the corpse. We also took influence from the colours used in Sin City, the colours of red and black particularly, hence the red scarf and red gloves we will use whilst filming. Red connoting danger.

Soundscape (Abbie)

Sound for Thriller (Abbie)

For our Thriller 'Out of the woods' we decided to use a soundtrack that would feel natural, we did this to compromise the setting of the woods and using sounds such as birds singing, a river flowing and wind. These naturalistic sounds lull the audience into a false sense of security thus making them feel like nothing could go wrong. As we have set the opening of our thriller in the woods we realised that we need some sound that reflect where we are

We used Murder of the crows - www.freesound.org/people/Frankie01234/sounds/214869/

The crows gave off a naturalistic sense but crows can also link to death symbolising what we see later on. This sound clip can be heard faintly making the atmosphere more creepy and working with the birds that were already in the background it created more of a sense of impending danger. We were going to use teddy bears picnic as that nursery rhyme shows the innocence of a child therefore making what he is about to find more scary. The happy melody of the song would of tricked the audience that everything was going to be okay but in the end we decided not to use it as it was not as effective as we first thought.

The main soundtrack we used - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GK9HkpbG9M#t=11

This is the soundtrack that we used throughout the thriller, the quick jumpy beat could resemble a fast heartbeat creating a suspenseful atmosphere. As the soundtrack repeats itself  this can lead to tension therefore making the audience want to carry on watching. The more artificial sounds of guitar also contrast with the naturalistic ambient sounds of the forest that were created making the thriller have a contrast of natural to unnatural which makes the audience seem off balance and uncomfortable.

The voices - http://www.freesound.org/people/tyops/sounds/235815/

The voices that we used were used very faintly throughout. This could make it seem like he is not alone in the forest creating more tension. Overlapping all of these sounds then creates a creepy atmosphere.


In conclusion what we achieved created a suspenseful atmosphere, also using sound that came from the forest to make it seem more natural so it contrasts making the audience uncomfortable.

Mise en Scene for Thriller (Emily)

Mise En Scene in our Thriller

Props:

A simple black bag with no branding or bright colours to make it seem boring, so it doesn't draw the viewers eye to the bag, and to also make it look normal/ natural.

This simple brown paper bag will be used to carry George's lunch in while in the bag. It is simple and also allows the film to be set in any time because there is no characters on a lunch box. A paper bag is simple and inside will be a cheese sandwich and an apple. It suggests how his mother might have made his lunch in the morning and let him go and explore for the day, showing how this is a normal routine.

The magnifying glass adds to George's curiosity and why he loves playing in the forest. It also allows the camera to explore the setting with George which allows the camera to establish the scene in more detail. 

The scarf is the first symbol of that something is wrong with the scene. Because of its quirky colours and odd and non consistent stripes, it makes it seem weird and disorientating. It relates to the plot and how in this part of the scene, the ideals change and their is a plot twisted. It will be hanging up lightly on as branch like how someone had hung it up rather than it falling off and being caught by the tree. This adds to the discomfort of seeing the scarf and it makes the audience feel uncomfortable looking at it. 

The second item of clothing that George will find is a red glove. Much like the red scarf he will be wearing to symbolise a hint of danger, this glove will do the same. The colour red can connote danger, stop signs and blood- all of which George is about to be confronted with. Only one glove will be lying on the bed of the stream, the other glove will be on the corpse George will see moments later. It will be draped across stones as if pulled off in a struggle.

The final prop is the bow and arrow George plays with. In one way it shows his boyish nature to kill things, but in a playful way, but also the idea that it is foreshadowing a killing/death. 

Make up & Hair: 

For the corpse, we will use very pale powder and some grey stage make up around the eyes to make it look more realistic, but nothing over the top to prevent it from looking fake. The actors hair is curly, so will lay around her face in a tangled way.

For George, he will wear no make up to make it look more innocent and childish and also allow any freckles to be clear on film. His hair is blonde and slightly wavy, so will be brushed and again, natural to make it look more real.

Costume:

For the corpse, she will be mainly in black to make it connote death and a non existent future. George will be wearing primary colours which reflect primary school and a normal child's life.

Shooting Schedule for Thriller Opening (Emily)

Shooting Scheldue for our Thriller

Storyboard for Thriller Opening (Emily)

Storyboard for Thriller

Inter--textual reference: Hunger Games

1. Mirrored shot in 8

2. Same shot in 9

3. Same shot as 10

4. Representation of what shot 11 will look like

Locations (Lauren)

Locations

We will be using two separate locations to film our Thriller opening, however in the film they will act as the same place. Tirrels woods will act as the woods as it will more practical for filming where as we will be filming the scene involving the stream and corpse floating in said stream in in the marshes in Flordon as this area has streams galore and is more practical as for filming the body in slightly deeper water.

Script (Lauren)

Actors and Costumes (Lauren)

GEORGE ACTOR

Josh Holt

13 years old

CORPSE ACTRESS

Lauren Bryant

17 years old

Title Explanation and Title Font (Emily)

Our title for our opening of a thriller is 'Out of the Woods'. The woods implies that it is an isolated place which is in the middle of nowhere which hints their is no help near and the boy is alone. This relates to the plot because it is about trying to get out of the woods and not being able to. It is short and snappy and reflects how the killings in the film are quick and unexpected.


CF One Two Tree

This font is very spooky because of the reaching branches from the letters. It connotes mysteriousness and the idea that something or someone is watching you. This would be a good font to use because it reflects the idea of the woods and the nature. However the font seems over the top and maybe too eccentric for a title of a thriller.


Nightmare 5

This font is very edgy and the random bigger words imply the jump scares that will happen in the film. The scratches through the letters could suggest someone has scratched it like a monster or a knife which connotes to normal thriller conventions. However, it is very similar to Bewilderwood (a childrens outdoor treehouse adventure park) which could connote a childish film which is the opposite of what we were intending the title to connote.

Black Asylum

This font is quite simple but is handwritten which makes it messy and rushed. It seems to be written with ink or a fountain pen which connotes traditional or old fashioned writing. This font would be good to use because it is simple, however it doesn't seem to reflect the plot or the meaning of the title in any way.

Street Art

This font reflects the title because it looks like it has been carved into wood or a tree. It also reflects the conventions of the splatters on the title which hint at blood. This font would be good to use because it fits with the story line and the idea of the forest. However the font maybe too complex for a title.

Our chosen font for the title is Street Art. We thought this was the best font to use because it connotes the idea of nature, while portraying a realistic thriller title. Also it can be integrated into the opening scene onto a tree which makes the idea that no one can get out of the woods when they go passed the title.

Thriller Plot Synopsis (Abbie)

The woods is where George spends almost every day, it is his home. But one day, out in these very woods where he feels so free and safe, he discovers something dangerous lurking in the undergrowth. After discovering a corpse, he finds himself trapped, unable to escape the depths of the woods. What exactly is stalking him, he doesn’t know; but what he does know is that he is incredibly lost and running for his life.

The Pitch (Abbie)

A boy finds a dead body in a forest. He tries to get out but can't and ends up getting lost and being chased by a monster.

Mind Map of Initial Ideas (Lauren)

MIND MAP OF INITIAL IDEAS

Here we can see the initial ideas we had whilst planning. After having analysed the opening to the film Inception as a research task it became apparent to us that a scene set in a daylight, reliant on camera angles in order to conform to a Thriller genre, was something we were interested in. But, we ultimately ended up feeling not incredibly inspired and without many ideas as to where would take the plot so we decided an idea based entirely on the intertexuality of Inception was not for us.
         After this we explored a stereotypical thriller story, dark alleys, stalkers, invaders, large urban settings or very isolated houses, this would mean we could really aim to use shadows and mise en scene to create a very atmospheric opening. After our preliminary task it was clear that we were not the best at filming in a night time setting. Although since then we have improved, we were still drawn to the idea of a daylight setting, at which point we thought of woods.
        Woods can be creepy and eery in daylight just as much as in the dark, and because fear and horror was not our aim for our thriller opening we began to consider the sub-genre that is a physcological thriller. With this we could explore the idea of your mind playing tricks on you when you hear noises within the woods, and what this could do to a child's imagination. This idea would lead on to be our synopsis for the whole film, but for now we could explore the child like innocence of playing in the woods whilst paralleling some of the shots seen in the opening scene of the Hunger Games of Katniss hunting thus giving our piece intertexuality. The opening of the Hunger Games does use a lot of clever shots to show Katniss moving about the forrest and this is something we wanted to draw from and use in the opening of our piece.

About me

Hello there,

I'm Lauren Bryant and this is my AS media blog. 
I chose Media because I would enjoy to learn about what truly goes into making a film good, camera angles, mise en scene ect as I aspire to go into acting when I am older.