Group; Concept development

Our concept is based on our research into psychological horror, focusing mainly on the portrayal of Psychopaths.


Plot

• Jane Doe is sitting on the bench in the early evening at the train station waiting to meet her friends to get on the train with them for a night out. 
• She drifts reluctantly to sleep. 
• In her dream she is confronted with the character of *murderer*. Her deranged, distorted visions follow him on his relentless killings of her friends. The final shot in her dream is over *murderers* shoulder as he looks at a wall covered with newspaper clippings and photos of her friends and in the centre a picture of Jane herself. 
• The next shot will be Jane woken suddenly (her face same distance, in line with the previous shot of the photo of her face). 
• She then catches a glimpse of *murderer* standing looking straight at her on the opposite platform, just before a train passes.
• It switches to a reaction shot of her face then back to the (constantly moving) train leaving to reveal the empty platform. The title 'The foreshadowing' in bold red appears with a piercing (non-diegetic) bang over the empty platform. 
• The tension is still building as Jane looks intently across the tracks, completely frightened. 
• The cutting rate increases with the sound and then everything stops as Jane's friends jump up from behind the bench. Jane screams and they laugh. 
• The tone then relaxes slightly as Jane leaves with her friends.
• The final shot has *murderer* now sitting in the empty space next to where Jane was sitting on the bench. This is further pressing the question behind our horror, of whether *murderer* is real or not and if Jane's dream was a premonition of what was to come or a justification of her insanity.  

Location

• High Brooms Station at around 4-7 o'clock. 
• Station pedestrian tunnel. 
• Alleys 
• Garden shed/cellar/basement (dark and cold) 
• Tonbridge park
• Knockholt Forest 

Characters

All the characters are about 16 years old based on the truth that mental illness' like schizophrenia affects mostly teenagers. We are contemplating with the idea that our film is psychological and Doe may be schizophrenic meaning her mind has created the character of *murderer* or that it is actually a supernatural horror and the dream is Doe's gift to be able to see into the future.

• Jane Doe (Charlie Brooker) is to play the female protagonist. She is going to be a residual representation of the 'new woman/final girl' in horror films, so she will appear weak but capable of protecting herself. Doe is different from her peers (the killers other victims) she is smarter, watchful and level-headed. We will show how she is morally pure, has no interest in drinking, drug taking and sex. She is aware of the danger she is in and recognises a lack of morals in the other victims. She will foreshadow her masculinity in how she dresses in very smart, dark clothes and works well with practical maters. This will ironically position her as ally with the antagonist and set her apart from the other girls.
• Doe's Friends (3 female-Emma-Louise Richardson, Hannah Reynolds, Izzy Smith) They are portraying stereotypes of female teenagers, to avoid inappropriate themes (alcohol, drugs, sex) they have an obsession with appearance and popularity. They are naive unlike Doe, and having these immature priorities makes them in greater threat of danger. In the dream they are all killed in different, gruesome ways all inspired by the killers revenge for this group of girls. From our research into horror, it is evident that a successful horror is derived from themes surrounding the present cultures, that is what makes them so scary, because they address the problems in the audiences lives. A problem today is the obsession with appearance and technology etc and how it possesses teenagers lives. 
• The Murderer (Max Boyden) is an unstable, troubled psychopath who has gone on this carefully constructed murderous rampage against these five girls. He is the antagonist and as another generic feature of horror he will be the strong aggressive male. The dream focuses on his deranged psych forcing the audience to be positioned with him. This character is surreal but through his interactions with the other characters he is made scarily real creating horror. In the dream he shows psychopathic tendencies of being ruthless, manipulative, remorseless, lacking compassion and detached from any conscious.

Camera

• POV shots in Janes vision as she follows *Murderer*
• 180 degrees pan from *Murderers* face to the wall of photos. 
• Use the track and dolly to move down the pedestrian tunnel at the train station.
• Reaction shots of Jane to position the audience with her. 
• High angle shots of Jane and her friends to highlight their danger and contrast from the final low angle shot of the *Murderer*
• Zoom in on Janes face as she falls asleep so it is as if the audience is entering her mind

Sound

• Dialogue- No dialogue till the friends enter the narrative to separate what is real from what is not. If Jane were to converse with *murderer* it eliminates the idea that he may only be a figment of her imagination. 
• Sound effects- In the fast cutting rate sequence there is going to be echoing sounds that speed up and increase in pitch with the cuts. Diegetic sound of the train. Little sound in her dream but music and the sound of the weapons. 
• Music-No sound outside her dream except when the *murderer is in shot* as the non diegetic sound suggests he is not part of the world of the narrative. In her dream generic horror music and sound will be played. 

Mise-en-scene

• Costume- Jane and *murderer* wear similar dark plain clothes to suggest they are similar, the friends contrast by dressing in bright current clothing. 
• Lighting- The main light in her dream is from low key lighting, generic of horror-candles, torches and fading light bulbs. The existing light in the station is all that is used to convey the realism. 
• Props and Symbols- (e.g. weapons used by *murderer* generic of horror) 

Editing

• Fast cutting rate after the title sequence that ends when the friends enter the narrative. 
• The cut fades when Janes enters and exits her dream.
• Janes dream is saturated and her reality is desaturated of colour and vibrancy. 
• The dream is distorted with lots of black stills between shots.
• The editing is choppy in the fast cutting rate as Jane looks around to emphasize the rush that is going through her mind. 

Influences (films)

• Fight Club (Fincher, 1999)
• Seven (Fincher, 1995) An introduction that features the insane workings of a Psychopath in the form of a montage. It has a distorted style that is unclear in narrative, only gives foreboding clues to what is to come.
• Donnie Darko (Kelly, 2001) A teenage boy who suffers from schizophrenia, which allowed him to create the character of Frank through his deranged psych. Frank manipulates him to commit crimes such as murder. There is a scene where Donnie sleep walks and meets Frank for the first time, it is an alternative view point of a dream sequence.  
• Sixth Sense (Shyamalan, 1999) A young boy possessed with the ability to see ghosts, is haunted by them and eventually finds a way to deal with them by helping them. Only he can see them and everyone around him is oblivious.
• Woman in Black (Watkins, 2012) The final scene takes place at a train station and the antagonist ghost of the woman in black is revealed once more.
• Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984) Elements of the dream world intruding into the characters lives. About Freddy Krueger jumping in and out of reality from the world of the children's nightmares to haunt and kill them.
• American Werewolf in London (Landis, 1981) David suffers from violent nightmares featuring Nazis mutants, one of which is the double-dream (first instance) which is a dream inside a dream. He is also constantly haunted throughout the film by his dead friend, Jack, as he pops up repeatedly to talk to David.

Typography
Conventional horror title of a bold bright red title that appears suddenly in the opening sequence to contrast to the often bleak dull colouring in the dark narrative. Red obviously connotes danger and pain, foreboding what is to come later in our horror film. The is something we have seen featured in films such as Carrie, The Shinning, The thing, Nightmare on Elm Street, Insidious...
E.g.