The document provides inspiration and planning details for a found footage horror film project. It begins with inspiration from The Blair Witch Project and discusses using found footage and thriller genres. It outlines an "in medias res" opening showing dead bodies that later flashes back one week. Details include using low lighting, character names tied to themes of death, the title "The Tale of Demise", incorporating meaningful props like lily petals. It also discusses costume, makeup, and using foley sound effects to enhance the found footage style.

1. IDEAS
AS MEDIA STUDIES COURSEWORK

2. INSPIRATION: THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
• Synopsis: Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a
documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.
Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185937/
• Website: http://www.blairwitch.com/
• Genre: Found Footage Horror • Source:
http://www.imdb.c
om/title/tt018593
7/mediaindex?ref
_=ttmd_md_sm
Using the equipment we
will have to our disposal
(hand
held cameras) to our
advantage.

3. GENRE
• Genre: Found Footage Thriller
• Found Footage: Found footage is a plot device in pseudo-documentaries in which all or
a substantial part of a fictional film is presented as if it were discovered film or video
recordings.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_footage_(pseudo-documentary)
• Thriller: If the genre is to be defined strictly, a genuine thriller is a film that rentlessly
pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff-hanging at
the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax.
Source: www.filmsite.org/thrillerfilms.html

4. IN MEDIAS RES
• >In Medias Res:
• In medias res. In medias res is Latin for "into the middle of things." It usually describes a
narrative that begins, not at the beginning of a story, but somewhere in the middle —
usually at some crucial point in the action.
• Source: https://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/inmediasres.html
FILMING:
After camera shuts off, text will appear that
will say ‘ONE WEEK EARLIER’
(In capitals to show the importance.)
(The idea being like the Hustle Finale)

5. LIGHTING
• Using the lighting to our advantage:
• The lighting will most likely be low-key to represent the theme of the opening sequence.
This also helps us as the equipment we will have at our disposal will not be of extremely
high quality so there is no point in us choosing to film something that will need a lot of
artificial lighting (e.g. set lights, not artificial lighting in a class room)
• Chiaroscuro is an Italian artistic term used to describe the dramatic effect of contrasting
areas of light and dark in an artwork, particularly paintings. It comes from the combination
of the Italian words for "light" and "dark.“ (FILM NOIR)
Source: www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/chiaroscuro

6. CHARACTER NAMES
• >Josh: Detective Inspector Blake
• -Blake sounds similar to ‘Blair’ and also has connotations of black as well as light/dark.
• >Gray: Detective Inspector Raven
• -Associated with the Norse god Odin, whose name has connotations of fury as well as
connoting power as being the Allfather. Raven also has connotations pertaining to ill omen
and death.
• >Sophie: Lilith/Lily
• -Lilith means of the night and the Hebrew term lilith or lilit (translated as "night creatures",
"night monster", "night hag", or "screech owl") and Lily, the nickname, is a flower that
represents innocence after death. The nickname against the actual name gives contrast.
• >Freya: Thana
• -Means death

7. NAME OF PRODUCTION
• ‘The Tale of Demise’
• A definition of demise according to the Oxford English Dictionary is: ‘A person’s death.’
Our opening sequence starts with the death of three people.

8. PROPS
• At beginning a specialised prop will be seen, then at the end see protagonist/antagonist
wearing the prop/owning the prop so the penny drops for the audience: dead person
holding a specific prop like a badge and then in the two weeks earlier we see another
character wearing the badge.
• Lily petals, sprinkle lily petals over the dead bodies at the beginning because (as
mentioned before) the lily flower has connections to death as it means innocence after
death. In some cases it is referred to as ‘the flower of death.’.
• String (bulletin) board for the detective police story, that will be show in the ‘two weeks
earlier’ section.

9. COSTUME AND MAKE-UP
• Costume and make-up designer: Brooke
• Fake blood, for the dead bodies at the beginning of the opening sequence, as well as
make-up to make the idea of them being corpses more realistic.
• Possibly white t-shirts, to make the blood stand out even more

10. SOUND
• Foley Sound:
• >A sound effects technique for synchronous effects or live effects.
Source: http://filmsound.org/terminology/foley.htm
• >Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to film, video, and other media in post-
production to enhance audio quality. These reproduced sounds can be anything from the swishing of
clothing and footsteps to squeaky doors and breaking glass.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(filmmaking)
• Foley is most likely to be the only sound technique that we use as our film is supposed to be ‘found-footage’
therefore we need to keep it as realistic as possible, which includes leaving out unnecessary asynchronous
non-diegetic sound, although this is still up for discussion as we may want to add some on top to create
tension.