Brutal Stalker - Directors Commentary

From the beginning of our opening sequence we really wanted the scary, spooky theme to come across straight away. That’s why we have credits with a black background and white writing as we felt it helped make the opening sequence seem much more mysterious as the white writing fades out into black. The spooky slow paced low pitch and toned music helps the audience establish that the film is a dark psychological thriller as it is meant to have a spine chilling effect.
Once the mood is set we move onto the first scene of the girl sat in a police interview. The bright white room we feel helps contrast with the flash backs of the girl being chased outside in a dark deserted park.
We tried to make sure the main character look confused and unsure of what she is saying. We see the girl talking to the police interviewer which was originally suppose to have sound on it but as problems occurred during filming and the microphone didn’t pick up the sound and as we didn’t have enough time to re shoot the entire interview scene and the teacher who originally acted as the police interviewer was unavailable. We then had no choice but to do a voice over. We feel the voice over works from the very start as it helps the audience understand what’s going on. Also the voice over is quite dramatic as Rebia who did the voice over did first had to get into character before recording the voice over in order for it to sound as intense and dramatic as we wanted the main characters played by Mariam, feelings to be represented.
The film was originally meant to be a horror but as we started to film we saw it was more confusing and the “stalker” seemed to be more psychotic then scary which made the film scary in the end, as we didn’t want our film to look cliché with a typical chase story line.
The flashbacks we feel help mix up the film as it isn’t in chronological order making it more interesting to watch as the audience will have to pay attention.
We feel the close up on Mariams face when she realises a strange person is following her is a really strong shot to show her emotions in this difficult time. We wanted the audience to feel sympathetic to her and the fearful teary eyed girl before them should enhance the sympathy from the audience towards her.
As we wanted the stalker to be the “evil villain” in the film we wanted the audience to feel scared themselves and even hatred for the character themselves. We feel that the shot of the stalker walking past the camera helps establish what they look like as well as the character looking into the camera. As if they were to look at the audience in an evil manner. It represents the fearlessness of the character as well as a slight cheek of them scaring a young vulnerable girl in broad daylight. We purposely wanted this character to slowly walk and take their time whilst following the girl. It helps show they are relaxed and almost calm about the whole situation, showing they are comfortable with it and it`s not a new situation for them. We feel in this scene alone we learn a lot about this character.
The high angle shot we filmed from above on a nearby bridge we feel helps show the girl in a very vulnerable light. The branches in front of the camera we feel make it look as if the audience if themselves looking from afar, almost as if they were hiding themselves. It makes the surroundings seem much more secluded as she then runs towards a smaller path which then leads to a tunnel the girl tries to hide in.
The black drop with no picture just the sound of the main character screaming we feel also adds a spine chilling shocking element to the opening of our film. It also denotes the girl passing out, as then we finally see the girl passed out in a dark tunnel alongside a stream. The lacks of music alongside the dim lighting and close up of the stalker looking down upon the girl and the eye line match of the girl lying on the floor we feel adds mystery into the film. We wanted the audience to form a negative impression of the stalker and want to feel as if he is quite creepy, as the audience does not know what happened in the short few seconds the picture. We feel the fading out from here grabs the audience’s attention we wanted to keep them guessing to what will happen next.

This last shot of just the victim looking down is a close up shot of just her, and the top half of her.
The fact that she’s looking down shows that she’s clearly upset about something, this therefore makes the audience want to know what actually happened that she “couldn’t remember”

This shot is overlapping with the next shot that further on, (the next scene) creates more suspense within the audience and what’s going to happen to the victim next in this opening. It’s also just a good effect to put in a whole and make the film look better.

This is a extreme long shot, but then over head shot as well at the same time, you can only see the silhouette of the attacker but not the victim, makes the audience aware it’s going to be more suspenseful. You can see the water in the distance, and then the branches from the trees, it creates a good scene from a typical horror/ thriller movie.

This shot establishes what is going on in this scene. The attacker is chasing the victim and the victim doesn’t know what to do or where to go clearly. The scenery around them also adds to the effect that this place is near enough the middle of nowhere, and no help will come for the victim anytime soon. The lighting is all natural as its outside, and there’s nothing covering direct light from coming onto both the victim and the attacker.

This shot is to get the audience to know that the attacker is following the victim through the same place that the victim went through just seconds ago. It’s a long distance shot because we can’t see the attacker’s features or anything, just the silhouette of him/ her going into the bushes. Overall the rainy effect makes this shot a lot better looking and spooky as if something is about to happen.

This shot is a long distance shot, however you can see the attacker slowly walking past to get to the victim. This tells the audience that there is something more to happen as the victim is walking into some bushes and trees, and clearly there will be further more to come.
The lighting of this is just natural yet dimmed out a bit. We took the weather into consideration and thought if we were trying to make it look spooky and rainy then it shouldn’t be too bright.

This shot is just when the attacker walks past the camera to give the audience a bit of an idea on what might happen next. It gives an idea on what is going on in the background and also what the attacker is wearing etc. The lighting that we have in this scene is just the natural lighting coming from the opening side of the tunnel. Give the audience a feeling that the attacker has just come from the natural light and walking to the other side.

Here is another over the shoulder shot, this time however showing a bit more of the surrounding things. For example a key prop such as the paper and pen that the police officer is using, this is vital in this scene as it shows what is going on. Again we have used the lighting on the window to shine down on the victim whilst she is talking, creating more attention on her.

This is another over the shoulder shot. Looking over the shoulder of the victim towards the person who is interviewing, we tried to make it as simple as possible by not adding anything else into the shot. All you can see is the pen that the police woman is holding and the victim’s right shoulder, the rest of the shot is directly on the police woman, this shows the audience that she is clearly vital in this scene, and without her the scene wouldn’t be able to be put together.

This is a close up shot of the victim, not really giving the surroundings of what’s going on outside or around her, or anything else. This shows her emotions and what she’s feeling about the fact that she’s being chased. It makes the audience want to watch it even further, lets them now her expressions on her face, and doesn’t really show the surroundings which make the bit you can only see even more important.

This is a long shot, but a establishing shot as well of the back scenes, it’s shadowy which create even more suspense between the attacker and the audience, its blacked out which makes the audience want to know more what’s actually going on, and how the film as a whole is put together. The lighting is dim because of the filming being made inside a bridge there is no natural lighting coming from the top but only from the sides, the opening and closing of the tunnel

This shot is the back of the victim, and is a mid length shot. You can see only a bit of what’s going on around where the victim is, and you can see the wall on the side, this shows that the victim is still trying to get out of where ever she was stuck, the lighting is still quite dim, with just the little bit of natural lighting towards where the trees and rocks are. This helps the audience to feel what the victim is feeling, confusion, lost?

This is a shot showing the whole of the victims body and then some area around the top and some at the bottom, just to show where the victim is, what the victim is doing, and what’s around the victim, we made sure there was the same amount of space above her head and then the same below her feet. We added the graffiti back bit into the shot just to show that the place she’s at is quite freaky, and something that’s about to happen would happen in a typical place like that.

This long shot it created to make the victim look like she doesn’t know what is going on, and to give the audience a feeling of what’s around the victim, the area in which the victim is in, you can also very briefly see the attacker, and then the surrounding scenes around the attacker. This adds more tension to the scene and give the audience an idea of what’s going on, we made sure the lighting was quite dim as it is a thriller and we didn’t really want sunlight in it.

This shot is an over the shoulder shot, from the police officer woman who’s asking the questions to the victim who is trying to talk about what has happened to her, we did this shot next to a window to allow sunlight to come through and shine on the victim to add more effects that the victim in the one speaking and the important person in this film. We made the police officer in the foreground also cut half of her out, just to ensure that we had the victim in full view. Also making sure that we can see the papers that the police officer is writing on. The date and time (text) makes the interview look more real, makes it look documentary type to show the seriousness of the situation.

This close up shot of the running feet was to create suspense, and make it look as if the victim is looking down on her own feet whilst she is running showing that she is confused, it shows random shots of her running forwards. The lighting that we had for this shot was just the natural lighting, we added water to the floor to make an effort of it being a rainy day, just to add to the suspense of what’s going on and the typical horror scene of the bad weather

Reviews On Our Film Opening

Views on our film opening
Person One: “I think your project is really good, it looks as though you have all put it a lot of effort to get it to the way it is now”

Person two: “I would like to watch the film so that I know what happens next, It looks quite interesting, and I would definitely want to carry on watching it if it was a full film”

Person three: “ the setting of the place is excellent, and goes well with what the film is about”

Person four: “ I liked it, but I think it could have been better, with the voiceover and the music”

Person five: “I think it’s ok, but you could have made it a lot better, by adding certain features and making it look more professional. Overall its okay though”

As you can see from the opinions of others, some say it was good however some say we could have done better. Overall we fulfilled the needs of our target audience by making the scenes more suspenseful as the film goes along. We have taken into account the opinions of other people, which is how we know where we went wrong when making this film.
If we were to do it again, we would change the music, to add better sound quality and make the voiceover more stronger and dramatic to link it to the film.

Script

We did a voiceover throughout the opening film.
Eerie music for introduction

“ It all happened on the way home from work, I don’t feel safe anymore”
“I had to go into the police station for an interview”
“I was asked to go through everything that happened, looking back all I can remember is”

A few blank, silent scenes

“I could see him from the corner of my eyes, but I was too scared to look back”
“I can remember standing there and looking really confused”
“she asked further questions, I knew NO answers”
“ I didn’t know where to go, the only place was in the bushes”
“I tried to hide, he walked towards me”
“I have no memory of what happened after that”

Heavy breathing and panting
Screams, fade to an end.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience is young adults / teenagers as it is quite realistic and involves teenagers of the same age and the audience for our film could therefore relate to the characters. It is quite fast passed and scary with a suspenseful feel therefore we feel a young audience is more appropriate as the fast paced loud music we feel appeals to the target audience. Which we feel would be a mass market as there are many other mainstream films such as "Nightmare on Elm Street" Which has the same target audience about an evil stalker chasing a young girl who will share many of the same emotions as the our main character. Such as the fear of an evil sick and twisted "villain" This was a scary film with a mass market both a male and female audience therefore we feel our film which has a similar story line and target audience would be a mass market if it was to be distributed.