Paranormal Activity

Paranormal Activity (2007)

Paranormal Activity is an independant American horror film written and directed by Oren Peli, and follows a homemade video diary of a couple suffering from supernatural events. Though made in 2007 on a very small budget of $15,000 and finally released in public cinemas in 2009, the film has recieved a gross revenue of $141,870,499 and an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 172 reviews.

To promote the film successfully, film taken from an American screening showed the horrified auidience, proving that the film was genuinely scary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSSqxrh5kp8

This film strongly relates to our horror film as it was produced on a very small budget using amateur camera and filming.

PROMO POSTER

Here is the promo poster for our film, which features the tag line and year of release, along with the production company names and age certificate. The final poster will feature the title and a more detailed release date.

Little White Lies is a bi-monthly, independant movie magazine featuring writing, illustration and photography related to cinema. The style of the mag is quite artistic with the entire mag style depending on the main feature. The front cover uses bright colours with a poppy style, however a few issues have used darker colours, with black as the background to perhaps show a darker mood to relate to a featured film. For those who have missed an issue the Little White Lies website features a free digital edition of back issues, with an option of purchasing the mag.

I decided to use Little White Lies to feature our film on because the mag is stylish and makes gives a different impression on films, making it appear more than an art rather than just a low-budget film. The mag has previously focused on films such as This Is England and Sin City, which was an influence towards the style of our film. For my own issue of the magazine, I shall use black for the background and follow this darker image style, with an cartoon style image of the main character from our film. I plan to make the shot of the characters head quite small and create the mood of isolation, continuing with the 'psychological blue' colour theme.
Here is my finished magazine cover.

SILENT HILL 2006

This poster is quite iconic as it has been made to appear as a portrait, which has been distorted by removing the girls mouth, with a cracked paint effect overtop. This combined with the type face suggests that the genre of the film is around supernatural and horror, and works well as it is a very simple poster yet shows quick info about the film.

Slingshot Studios

Slingshot is a British film company that is dedicated to making good films, differently.

"Our contention is that the digital revolution fundamentally transforms the old rules of the film industry. If properly harnessed, digital enables the making of more interesting movies, and permits new and better ways for those movies to find their audiences." -Slingshot

Slingshot intend to make 2-3 films a year with strong intentions towards supernatural, horror, comedies, thrillers and teen stories. They have recently released Tormented (2009) into the cinemas worldwide, which recieved mostly positive reviews, holding a 78% rating and an average rating of 6.0 on Rotten Tomatoes from 27 reviews.

TODOROV AND PROPP'S THEORY

Tzvetan Todorov’s model of equilibrium and disequilibrium, films that have a simple and complex story line. E.g. rom-com’s follow a simple storyline, where as films like Fight Club are more complex. He also suggests all narratives follow three parts. The formula can be applied to virtually all narratives, the formal way of beginning,middle, and end. Our film will break this as we don't plan to create a conclusion to the story and possibly leave it open to question. This relates to our influences to Quentin Tarantino and films such as Sin City.

Vladimir Propp invented a theory that all narratives have a certain number of characters. However our film will go against and challenge this as we do not have all the characters.
Hero- Leads the narrative, looking for something (a quest)
Villain- Conflicts with the hero
Heroine- Is usually some sort of prize or reward for the hero
Father- Authority figure
Helper- Helps hero
Donor- Prepares the hero or gives hero something
The Dispatcher- Sends the hero off

Our only main role is Frank (as the hero) as we want to create a strong sense of isolation, however including a few other characters with small roles, such as the mysterious figure who appears occassionally to torment Frank.

FILM PITCH