Narrative theory: Plot/Story

In the context of film, the plot refers to events that occur during the film. The plot is fairly simple in it's bare structure:

• Group meet to shoot documentary, 
• they set up camp and split up, 
• one gets murdered and the other runs, 
• they find two bodies and meet with the other survivor, 
• they are both killed. 

The film I intend to make revolves around a legend, so there is going to be a lot of backstory (i.e. events that took place before the plot that is referenced within the film). I believe that the story is what makes the context of the plot interesting rather than the plot itself (as is the case with The Blair Witch Project).

We learn about the characters with the others as they are meeting for the first time. Whilst they have spoken online, it is clear they have given very little information about themselves as the others do not know much about their personalities until they meet. Therefore, we learn with the characters what they are like within the plot and very little personal interaction has taken place.

The Legend: Dates

Today, Joe and I met to talk over details and changes to the film. I had some issues with the current story in that the killer was never found and is therefore presumed dead. We added a fourth body, that was unrecognisable and presumed to be the killer. This gets rid of my worries that the killer would be presumed alive and so it would be logical to assume he is dead.

I then told him we needed to sort out exact dates for the key points of the legend so we don't contradict ourselves in the props I made (scrapbook, newspaper articles etc.) The dates are as follows:

Moved to England July 8th, 1981
Alleged witchery August 21st 1984
Calls exorcist September 2nd 1984
Wife murdered December 15th
Man disappears December 15th
Autopsy December 17th
Vicar and two others murdered 30th March
Dismembered body of man found 30th March
First ghost sighting 1989
Last credible ghost sighting 1994
Last possible ghost sighting 1995
Five amateur filmmakers found in the woods October 3rd 2014

Scriptwriting: Day Two

I met again with Joe mainly to categorize the scenes in terms of importance. All text in red is considered important to the story, text in blue are scenes we do not necessarily need and we can cut if the film is too long. The scenes in pink are scenes we can tell the actors to improvise if they know he basic outline of the scenes and the parts in black are additions and ideas we have had since last time. A lot of these are ideas of whose camera this will be filmed from. I have told Joe I will be story-boarding the film before we get together again as I think the storyboard will highlight any problems with the story from a technical perspective. As the film will be found footage, every shot we see will have to be scripted.

This video is a quick recap of some other things we did on the day:
Scriptwriting Day 2 from Sam SheepDawg-OEight on Vimeo.

The Legend

The initial sketch Joe drew up for me as his idea for the killer.

Today, I met with my friend and writer on the project, and settled many things, including characters and dialogue, which are explained on this post. Another thing we discussed is the legend. We have to create a story for the characters to discuss and reference throughout. Joe had some ideas as to how the killer in the legend could still be alive and why he would kill. I tweaked his version of the story as there were some aspects that I thought were left too open. The story so far is as follows:

In 1981, a Norwegian couple moved to the UK and got married at a local church. They kept to themselves, keeping a small circle of friends and stayed away from community events. In 1984, rumours started to spread about his wife, people believing she practiced witchcraft. After being denied an exorcism by the local vicar, he tried to cure the witchery himself. After a series of calls to the police of suspected domestic abuse, she was found crucified in their home, and the husband was nowhere to be seen. In 1985, three bodies were found crucified in the woods, forming a triangle in the way they faced each other. Two bodies were friends of the man, and the third was the vicar.

So far, our combined efforts have given us a good basis to work finer details into. I have already discussed with Joe prior to the meeting a concern that I have in that the killer could still be alive and is therefore likely to be thought alive. We will discuss this the next time we meet.

Joe's inspiration for the killer, the painting 'The Murderer' by Edvard Munch

Scriptwriting: Day One

Today, I met with Joe Keeley, who is an A level drama student so I thought he would know a few things about scriptwriting he could teach me. We've been talking for about a week now about the project and he has become very enthusiastic about the project. I have decided to bring him on as a writer for the project as his experience with scripts will be invaluable to the film. He has been tasked with co-writing several scripts in the past and is an avid horror film viewer.

We got together today to talk in more detail about the film and the ideas that I had. I showed him an online storyboard I created and he grasped what I was going for very quickly. Joe was very focused on characters so we discussed their names and personalities (a part of writing I have no idea about) and came up with the names Trevor, Ray, Tracy, Alice and Ali. The names weren't something I was worried about but now we have them, we can reference specific entry and death scenes.

Then Joe began working on the dialogue and subsequent personalities, and I made sure the script was keeping to it's original idea. Joe was able to write dialogue almost effortlessly and build characters and by the end of the writing process, I had some very strong feelings about the characters, which is very assuring that the writing is solid. I'm extremely pleased with the decision to work with Joe as he was not afraid to come up with his own ideas and pitch them to me, but not too confident to not run them past me. We've been able to bounce off of each others ideas to come up with some twists that I'm extremely happy with (such as the change in main protagonist towards the end).

This is the first draft of the script, I am happy with the scenes but feel the film may be too long, but I have no way of timing how long the footage will last, so it could be too short or just right. We intend on meeting again soon to refine it.

First draft of script from sheepdawg08

Dialogue

Now that I have an outline for the plot, I have to start thinking about writing dialogue and a script. There are two ways I can go about this;

• Script all pieces of dialogue. This is the most conventional method as used by most film writers as then all dialogue is considered and rehearsed so there is little chance of breaking character.
• Outline the rough meaning to the scenes and what I want to happen in terms of dialogue and let them improvise. This is more unconventional but films like "The Blair Witch Project" are examples of the format working within the horror genre as it provokes more genuine reaction. This would also put less stress on me as I have little experience at scriptwriting.

I will try to write a script as I believe that it'll be much better for auditioning and for the story as a whole, but if I am not pleased with my attempts to write, I shall use the outline of the story and rely on the actor's improvisational skills.

Plot Development

Since plot 1 has been chosen, I have expanded on some of the death scenes etc. The plot for the film is now as follows:

Five supernatural enthusiasts gather to film themselves as they venture into the woods to attempt to encounter a ghost. They set off for the woods to set up camp and begin to film. Three members venture off alone with their own cameras. The other two film themselves outlining their intentions in the tent. This is when one of them gets stabbed through the tent. The other grabs the camera and runs from the tent. The other grabs the camera and runs from the tent. They realize the others are still in the tent and they have no idea that someone has been killed. The protagonist attempts to find them and runs the direction they thought the others were heading. They run into another of the members with a broken spike in their jaw and notices that their camera is still recording and plays the footage back, hoping there will be proof of the ghost. They see a man, staring at the lens. He leaves shot to reveal the person alive, impaled on a spike, which the killer then kicks and snaps, hence why the spike is broken. The protagonist discovers the legend is a human and runs, to discover another corpse hanging on a tree. They run immediately, not daring to investigate. They star to recognize their surroundings and they hear their name being screamed from behind them. They turn around in just enough time to see the last remaining partner killed.The killer then stabs the protagonist in the chest and inserts the camera into the wound and the film ends.

The plot is not a typical plot for most films as the protagonist is killed and the antagonist doesn't see any consequence, but is quite typical for the horror genre. The plot does follow Todorov's theory of plot (as seen below)

Todorov’s Narrative Theory from Die-fast-live-pretty

The equilibrium is the killer not being disturbed in the woods.
The disruption is the settlement of the people, trying to flush him out.
The recognition of disruption is the first killing.
The attempt to repair the disruption is the protagonist truing to escape.
The return to equilibrium is the final death.

Death Scenes

The murder scenes of a slasher horror film are what provide the shock factor, because of the blood and gore of the shots. For this film, I want to somehow have the deaths relate to the legend in some way, by referencing previous killings or something to a similar effect. I have a couple of ideas for as to how some of the characters could die. The first one was in the presentation, in which the person in the tent gets stabbed.



Another scene I have thought about is the killer impaling someone through the jaw and tying them up. As this would be a shocking image, it would be quite a conventional death of a slasher film.

Presentation

I have already thought quite far into the process as I am enthusiastic about the project. We were tasked with pitching the idea we had so far to the class, I presented this to the class :

http://prezi.com/u15qipv4bexd/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

I presented two plots and gave out forms to try and narrow down to one plot. I received answers back, every single one preferred plot one, so I am definitely using that plot. There was a joint majority decision between the second and third ending. People said that they preferred the intrigue and mystery of the second ending, but they thought the gore at the end will be a good way of continuing the theme of the film and is a good way of making the audience uncomfortable, which is what the horror genre attempts to do. I have therefore chosen to use the third ending, as I think it will be a good challenge on my current skills.



This is an example of the sheet they filled out after the ideas were pitched to them.