Research into Similar Projects - Nehir (+ Penny)

Other cringy ghost reality TV shows - "celebrity ghost hunt" - Cringy moment of celebrities being scared

Presenter style - Dick and Dom - Dick and Dom montage        

Previous Hurtwood House sequences with TVs in the shots - Clover (2021) 

                                                                                                - Raze Up (2012)

Researching similar products to shoot our opening title sequence.,

 

Films I've looked at :

- The Poltergeist

- Ghost Brothers

- Cencor

 

We discussed as a group that it would be better to think of different ways to film our idea by looking at videos or movies. 

 

Poltergeist : 

 

Poltergeist Opening Title Sequence:

 

This particular shot is a useful reference to our idea because we plan to shot in a living room and we want to create a dark, scary atmosphere. The only light source in the room comes from the TV, which creates a kind of vignette and focuses our attention to middle of the frame. The. corners of the room are shadowy, and darkness surrounds the protagonist, making it claustrophobic.

 

 

As mentioned in our shot list, we plan to make direct reference to this shot from Poltergeist, framing the boy’s head within the confines of the TV screen. Total darkness around the TV will make him appear completely isolated from the outside world, like he’s totally transfixed and unaware of his surroundings. Again, the darkness becomes threatening and scary. What can’t we see? What might jump out at us?

 

 

The use of the lighting in this shot is a good reference for our close up of the protagonist. In Poltergeist the close up shot of the young girl watching  the TV is softly front lit and flickering to show the TV light on her face. 

 

Cencor :

 

 

 

The second picture below (from Censor) is useful because as we mentioned in our bullet point list, we plan to zoom into TV which. As below, we for the image to become a bit distorted as we get close enough to start to see the individual pixels.

The first picture is a extreme close up to the women’s face, this could be used as a reference to shoot kid’s reaction when the TV suddenly turns off, it can reflect his confusion to audience. Also the total darkness beyond the face continues to heighten that feeling of something threatening out of sight in the dark. It emphasises the feeling of claustrophobia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 These shots from the reality TV show Ghost Brothers are a useful reference for our fake tv show. The shakey, handheld camera will add suspense and frighten the audience, as they try to make sense of the action through the chaotic, messy contrast to the more controlled shots in the main sequence. For shooting this we will also use the room/basement, which will be dark. We might also edit this shots to appear black and white to give it the same night vision effect. This could be used as a reference when the presenters going down to the basement. Shots from different angles with a shakey camera might reflect how confused and scared they are.

Narrative Action Bullet Point List (First Draft) - Flora

- Starts with a establishing shot of a living room space, a tv is shown and a tv show is being played

- cuts to a mid shot of a boy eating popcorn laughing at a ridiculous show

- mid shot of tv showing what is taking place, 2 presenters are shown standing in front of a 'spooky house' 

- slowly zooms into tv, transitions into the actual tv show

- cuts to real life of the show, following shot of a man going into a house, video cam style.

- the presenters are quite obviously making fun of the whole situation, trying to spook out the audience 'did you hear that'

- they go down to the basement, behind the shoulder shot of following the 2 men down to the creepy basement

- diegetic sounds of fake screams can be heard in the distance.

- full body shot of a ghost who is obviously a man behind a white sheet, cheesy acting and fake screams, camera light 'stops' working

- cuts back to boy watching the tv laughing, distress men heard in the background, tv suddenly turns off, he is confused and taps the remote trying to turn it back on.

- boy gets up to try turn on the tv from the screen

- jump-scare of a man standing right behind him, eery tense sound.

- eery suspenseful sound/music

Narrative Action Bullet Point List (First Draft) - Flora

- Starts with a establishing shot of a living room space, a tv is shown and a tv show is being played

- cuts to a mid shot of a boy eating popcorn laughing at a ridiculous show

- mid shot of tv showing what is taking place, 2 presenters are shown standing in front of a 'spooky house' 

- slowly zooms into tv, transitions into the actual tv show

- cuts to real life of the show, following shot of a man going into a house, video cam style.

- the presenters are quite obviously making fun of the whole situation, trying to spook out the audience 'did you hear that'

- they go down to the basement, behind the shoulder shot of following the 2 men down to the creepy basement

- diegetic sounds of fake screams can be heard in the distance.

- full body shot of a ghost who is obviously a man behind a white sheet, cheesy acting and fake screams, camera light 'stops' working

- cuts back to boy watching the tv laughing, distress men heard in the background, tv suddenly turns off, he is confused and taps the remote trying to turn it back on.

- boy gets up to try turn on the tv from the screen

- jump-scare of a man standing right behind him, eery tense sound.

- eery suspenseful sound/music

Development and Choosing our Title Sequence Idea

Our teacher Tom gave us feedback on our ideas and whether they would be doable and how well we'd actually be able to film and present it. 

Tom's feedback:

he felt mine and Albie's ideas were the most achievable to film, and felt Ablie's would be quite fun to make, which we all agreed with and we were leaning towards it as well. But we felt Flora's idea about a reality tv show haunted house works better and would be quite fun to shoot and would give all of us a lot to do and equal jobs in the sequence and the idea. So now we have chosen to go for Flora's idea. 

We decided to go with Flora's idea, and our working title for it at the moment is "TV ghost show."

Her idea:

"the idea is a stereotypical paranormal reality TV show, very cheesy and funny and quite obviously not real. Starts with a boy eating popcorn laughing at the absurd show, zooms into the tv as the show comes to life, stereotypical things like fake screams and the scary house, as well as using night vision effect and a camera man style camera work. Slowly goes back to the boy watching the TV, the TV switches off and starts going static, the boy is confused and taps his remote wondering why the TV isn't working, a suspenseful eery music/sound is played as the camera slowly reveals a man standing behind the boy."