Planning: Casting

Correy Fox will be portraying the character James who is one of the three who is planning to recreate the events of the 1976 mass murder. 
Correy is fit for this role as he is of the age group that we are targeting for, Correy also has average looks which will then signify to the audience that anyone can be a killer and you can't tell what people are really like. Correy is also aspiring to be an actor so he will then be able to have a range of facial expressions and a range of vocal tones to help aid him in his role. This also means that Correy would be confident in front of the camera.
James is sarcastic, intelligent, sinister, reserved and a bit of a recluse. He is anti-social and tends to stay away from large crowds of people. Has been bullied prior to becoming a murderer.

Cameron Budworth will be portraying the character Ben who is another one of the teenagers who are planning to recreate the events of the previous killings.

Cameron is fit for this role as he is of the age group that we are targeting. Cameron is also a stereotypical teenager and will fit the role of delinquent/lovable rogue well. Cameron is confident in front of the camera and will be able to act as Ben very well.

Ben is crude, sarcastic, silent, more openly evil, known for being a delinquent, in and out of the Juvenile Detention Centre and always in the police station. Ben is fed up with authority figures and has a general dislike to people in his home town.

Taylor Tillin will be portraying the character Abigail who is one of the victims of the mass murder.Taylor is fit for this role as she is of the age group that we are targeting for. She is also studying Drama and will be able to convey emotions, facial expressions and vocal tones to help aid her in this role. This also means that Taylor will be confident in front of the camera as she does Drama.Emily is a kind and caring young woman who has just started working part-time at a hair dressers and plans on going to college to get a degree in midwifery, but was then brutally murdered by Elijah.

Ashley Paddick will be portraying the role of Elijah who is the original murderer, who's killings are being recreated. 

Ashley is fit for this role as he is of the age group that we are targeting for, he is confident in front of the camera and he studied drama at GCSE level which would aid him as he would have had to have used a range of facial expressions and vocal tones to convey emotion.
Elijah is a mentally unstable person who has been abused and bullied since he first went to school, as a result of being beaten at home and bullied constantly at school, Elijah developed a split personality which then subsequently took over control of Elijah. Elijah's split personality has a superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, he is a pathological liar, he has a lack of remorse, he also has an emotional shallowness, callousness and lack of empathy. His split also has an unwillingness to accept responsibility for his actions, gets bored easily, he is cunning and manipulative. His split also has an unrealistic long-term goals, he is impulsive and irresponsible.

Planning: Writing A Treatment

The opening starts with a black screen displaying the titles "RAGGED CRIMSON PRODUCTIONS presents". It will then cut to an extreme close up of Eleanor repeatedly cupping a lump hammer. This will be followed by a long shot of her sitting on her bed, mischievously brining the hammer up to her face, whilst staring directly forward. The titles "a film by Vincent O'Grady" will appear on the lower left corner of the screen. Eleanor then proceeds to put the lump hammer down to her side, followed by a swift movement of her picking up a range of  previously cut up images. As this happens, the title "Leah Mitchell" will fade in and out from the top corner of the screen. Eleanor gets up from the bed and begins to walk forward, revealing a wall full of gory images and news articles from previous murders and crime scenes. "Taylor Tillin" will then appear on the side of the screen. You will then see a selection of images from different angles, forcefully being placed on the wall by Eleanor. The titles "George Denton" and "Daniel Angus" will appear at different times whilst the images are being placed on the wall. There will then be an extreme close up of Eleanor caressing photograph of a character called Abigale, a previous victim of a serial killer whom Eleanor has been researching. The camera will track this image as it is placed onto the wall. The text "production design by Jack Whittby" will fade in from the corner of the screen. As this is happening, non diegetic sounds of ghostly whispers will play. The camera will then begin to slowly track out, revealing the full arrangement of images. "Costume design by Margret Donaldson" will fade in from the bottom right, followed by "and Veronica Allen". There will then be a cut to a mid shot of Eleanor admiring her work before she turns to pick up the hammer and walks out of her bedroom door.

 As this fades to black, music will change as a chase scene beings, starting with an establishing shot of Abigale running away from a potential threat. This scene will be in black and white to represent that it is in past tense. As Abigale is approaching the remains of an old building, the titles "Produced by Frederick Trager and Johny Gideon" will appear. Abigale then trips over a pile of bricks as she attempts to run to safety. As this happens, the feet of the serial killer will come into view, showing that he is close behind. The titles "a story by Tony Lucas" and "screenplay by Sharon Donovan" will fade in one after another. The scene then continues with a long shot of Abigale running away from the killer, who appears to be getting closer. Moments later, there is a close up point of view shot of the killer, along with a non diegetic loud thud. The screen will then fade to black, followed  by the title of the film "Day of The Maniac".

Abigale then attempts to escape by running away, but falls to the ground as a result of tripping. She then struggles and fails to get up, before the killer becomes in reaching distance of her. There will then be a point of view shot of the killer hitting Abigale with his weapon; a lump hammer, causing blood to spay up onto his face.

A close up of the killer will show his amused expression as he stands covered in his victim's blood. The camera will then slowly pan down to reveal an extreme close up of the hammer dripping with blood. The screen will then fade to black.

Changes To Location Planning

We were originally going to film a section of our film opening in a field near Ise Lodge, however after some consideration we decided that the quarry would be more of an appropriate setting. Our reasons for this were that it made more sense for the characters to be there because, although it is a rather secluded area, there are noticeable places near by in the distance. We thought that this would create more of an effect, as it shows how Abigail was so close to safety, yet not close enough. We also thought that the old building would provide us with a greater opportunity to get interesting camera angles and shots. 

We have also changed the house in which we plan to film the first half of the opening, due to a character change. This way, the mise-en-scene is more accurate. 

Planning: Location Planning

Location Planning is a vital process in the pre-production stage of filmmaking and commercial photography. Once scriptwriters, producers or directors have decided what general kind of scenery they require for the various parts of their work that is shot outside of the studio, the search for a suitable place or "location" outside the studio begins. Location scouts also look for generally spectacular or interesting locations beforehand, to have a database of locations in case of requests.
We will be filming in a bedroom, of an average house, which would empathise how a teenager lives, such as clothes over the floor etc. and how the character who lives there has a stable home life. The house would be that of the one of the three teenagers who turn murderous, so that the audience would get an insight of the murderers lair.
This will be filmed in Correy Fox's house as he is one of the actors in our film and is a typical boy of the targeted audience.  

Another location that will be used is a field near Ise Lodge at dusk to empathise how there would be no where to run and no one to see any danger. We will film here because not many people go there and if we film closer to night time then no one would be out as it is dark to interfere with the filming and this also empathises how no one would be around to help the person in danger.

Planning: Target Audience Feedback

We decided to do some research in order to get an idea as to whether or not our film would appeal to a teenage audience and gathered 50 responses. We did this by creating a survey, consisting of open and closed questions on SurveyMoneky.com, which we then forwarded to every student in years 9 to 13. As a result of this, we gathered a lot of responses, the majority of which were very useful.  

The overall data that we have collected has helped us to really think about what would be a good idea to include in our opening scene because it gave us an insight  into what other teenagers are interested in.

We first asked people what age group they were to gain a better understanding of who our main target audience is. We also wanted compare the results from the follow up questions to see if they varied and if those variations highlighted a pattern linked to their age group.  This would have assisted our decision making on the content for the opening scene of our film.

From the table above, you can see that just over 90% of precipitates were aged between 15-18.

We then thought that it'd be a good idea to find out if they actually enjoyed watching horror films and how often they watched them to see if it's the genre itself that's popular, or if it depends more on whether or not the overall storyline generates interest.

Our results show that the majority of people only watch horror movies if the plot intrigues them. Because of this question, we wanted to know what they like about horror movies and what makes them interesting to see whether or not our film would entice a teenage audience to watch it.  A lot of people said that they don't enjoy watching horror movies at all, which would obviously affect how often they view them. Looking back on the questionnaire, it would have been a good idea to find out what those people don't like about horror movies. This could have given us the opportunity to rethink or slightly adapt our plot to appeal to more people.

For those who do enjoy watching horror films, we asked what it is that they like about them. The question could have possibly been improved when it comes to the wording of it; however we were still able to gather the information that we needed.

We originally decided that the plot for our film would be gory, but considering the fact that the data evidently shows that gore is the least popular subgenre, we thought about including suspense and tension within our opening.  As an option, we added 'other' and asked people to specify what it was. It appears that the responses for this particular question were from those who do not like watching horror films and a few people stating "all of the above".

Since the purpose of the survey was to see how much potential our idea for the opening had, we typed out the plot for the entire film and asked what people's initial thoughts and opinions were and if they would watch it.

Plot: In a small town 40 years ago on the 29th February 1976, a mass murder was committed by a psychotic killer, who skilfully dismembered bodies using a range of different weapons. However, he later committed suicide as he felt that his job had been done. On the 29th February 2016, a group of troubled teens take it upon themselves to recreate the events leading up to and on the day of the original massacre. After years of planning how to creatively kill their victims, they finally decide to go after the remaining relatives of those who escaped the 1976 massacre for what they deemed as "a good laugh". Would anyone survive this time?  

What was your initial response to this synopsis? Would you watch this in your own free time?

Bellow, I have included screenshots of the feedback we received: 

We gained a lot of mixed reviews regarding our idea for the plot, most of which were positive. However, we did come across some constructive criticism, which since then has helped us to improve our ideas. For example, we realised that we had got the dates slightly wrong and therefore, in order for the story line to make since, we had to recalculate them. We also came to realise from these responses that different people have different opinions, meaning that it would be difficult to create something that would impress everyone. Despite this, many of the respondents did in fact say that they would watch it if it was made into an actual film.

The follow up question for this was "Do you think that 'The Leap year' is an appropriate title?” Our reasoning behind this title was that the group of teens wanted to recreate the crime on the exact date as the original murders, which happened to be a leap year. This in turn makes the date have substantial significance to the plot. 

After reading the opinions of those who answered, it appears that the title doesn't give a clear indication as to what the film is about, without an explanation. People have also said that when you think of the words 'leap year', it doesn't make them automatically think of a horror film. Because of this, we thought that it would be best if we were to change the title to 'Day of The Maniac'.

The last thing we wanted to know was what ideas people had for the opening scene, and what they would expect to see within those opening few minutes.

A flash back to the original murders was something that came up in the comment section quite frequently, which is why we have decided to use that idea for our film opening.

Overall, the feedback from our target audience has immensely helped us as it has highlighted the strengths and also the areas in which we could improve on to make our idea appealing to its audience.