Script for My Evaluation Questions 2, 3 and 4 - 'Tales from the Crypt' Podcast

Here is the script I've written for my horror podcast, which will answer evaluation questions 2, 3 and 4. 

Q2, Q3 and Q4

ALEX: Welcome to the latest edition of ‘Tales From the Crypt’, the award-winning horror movie podcast. This week were focusing on slasher movies and we’ll be looking back at the sub-genre’s ultimate heroine, the final girl alongside discussing the Scream franchise. But, before that, lets give a huge welcome to the director of the new slasher movie, ‘One by One’ – it’s Joseph Fadlun. (APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT). Welcome to ‘Tales From the Crypt’ Joseph!

JOSEPH: Hi, it’s brilliant to be here. I can’t wait to talk to you about ‘One by One’.

ALEX: I’ve seen the trailer, it looks great. So, Joseph, who’s the audience for ‘One by One’?

JOSEPH: Horror fans who love gore. No, but seriously, my target audience is likely to be to be the 15-24 demographic, teens and young adults that are typically targeted by the makers of slasher films. ‘One by One’ is a low-budget, B-list slasher film in many ways, and would probably have had quite a niche market, but with Warner Brothers picking it up for distribution that has changed. 

I think it will pick up lots of mainstream horror fans as well as fans of British horror or low-budget films like ‘Shaun of the Dead’, ‘The Woman in Black and ‘Doghouse’. 

It’s a slasher though so anyone who loved ‘Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey’ or old-school classics like ‘The Evil Dead’ and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ will love it.

ALEX: That’s a seriously eclectic mix of horror films. So with that audience in mind, how does ‘One by One’ go about engaging them?

JOSEPH: It’s all about creating mystery and tension, and making the audience the investigators who solve the puzzle. Right from the start I create enigma, a series of puzzles, ramping up the tension through the use of suspenseful music and unsettling sound effects and musical stings. 

You’ve got to hook them from the start. I want the audience to ask lots of questions. Who’s the killer? Which of the characters will be killed first? Where has the body of the teacher gone?

ALEX: The opening certainly achieves that sense of mystery. Did you make any choices with the mise-en-scene and cinematography, or the characters to create meaning for your audience?

JOSEPH: One hundred percent. The setting of the school was important as it’s a place my target audience would be familiar with. 

At first, the school looks normal – though the music instantly makes it appear ominous and suggests the threat that lies within. And the students are typical high school kids, each a stereotype familiar to fans of slasher films, like the jock and the nerd, who can be identified by their body language, their costumes and the props they have. 

These decisions, the idea of having the opening scene in a school during the day, where there are people outside but the kids are trapped inside, can show that there are two sides to every building and every person. 

I also took the decision to use black and white cinematography as I felt this created a more classic aesthetic. It really allowed me to consider lighting to create atmosphere, casting sinister and unsettling shadows, which I emphasised by altering the contrast. This creates a realistic aesthetic and makes the narrative events that the film covers all the more powerful. And it looks great!

ALEX: What about the impact of sound on the audience?

JOSEPH: Sound is so important when creating meaning for audiences in horror films. Obviously the music needed to instantly reflect the genre, and the danger that the characters were in. But I also though about other aspects of sound. 

The reason why I have used a voiceover from the teacher’s perspective in detention, with that narration playing over several shots of the different teenage characters was so that their reactions would immediately characterise them for the spectator. The voiceover also gives the audience access to the teacher, with his hints that ‘he doesn’t want to see them again’ perhaps suggesting that he may be involved in their deaths. We see his body and assume he is dead, but when his body disappears it opens up the possibility that he may be behind the deaths that occur throughout the film. 

I wanted it to appear that the nerd quickly realises that something fishy is happening and could possibly be the “final girl”, so I foregrounded her responses in the opening scene, to position the audience with her.

ALEX: ‘One by One’ is out soon. What’s the release strategy for the film?

JOSEPH: As my film began as a low-budget horror film, we originally expected a limited release pattern and for it to play in independent, art house cinemas, and for it to be simultaneously released on a streaming sites, such as Netflix, Tubi or Mubi, where it is more likely to find its natural audience. 

But that has all changed since Warner Brothers have agreed to distribute the film. We’ve now got a huge marketing campaign including character posters and lots of different trailers and TV spots. I am still really interested in creating an unusual viral marketing campaign though because I think that will be most effective at targeting my audience. Hopefully the film will pick up positive reviews which we will be able to use.

ALEX: Thanks Joseph. We’re just going to take a quick break but we’ll be back with Joseph to learn more about ‘One by One’ after this.

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ALEX: Welcome back to ‘Tales from the Crypt’, the award-winning horror podcast. We’re here with Joseph, the director of the new slasher movie ‘One by One’. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the making of the film. How did you find it?

JOSEPH: Pretty tough to begin with. When I first started the film I only had very limited production skills, which I had picked up taking Media A-Level and Film GCSE. I had used a video camera before but I wasn’t initially very confident that my shots would come out the way I had planned on my shot list and in my storyboard. 

Storyboard for 'One By One'

I filmed a lot of test shots to get a sense of which angles worked and how the lighting should look, and that really helped. But there was a lot of trial and error. 

Test Filming for 'One By One'

I also had some basic editing experience but it was my first time using Premier Pro for editing, so that was a challenge. Once I had created my shot lists, and revised them a few times as my ideas developed I filmed some practice shots on the camera to familiarise myself with camera movements such as pans, tilts and tracking shots, filming lots of scenes from outside of the school looking in. I actually didn’t use any of these in my final film, but I was really useful in building my confidence with the camera. I found that the pans came out very shaky when filming handheld and zooms were unsteady, so I decided to use the a tripod for most of the shots in my finished opening scene and kept any camera movement to a minimum. Practicing high and low angles meant that I knew exactly how to achieve these by the time I came to my real shoot.

ALEX: Was it helpful using a digital camera?

JOSEPH: It made such a difference. Using a digital camera meant that I could look at the footage immediately after I had filmed it, which helped me save a lot of time when it came to re-shooting footage. 

There were a few times where this happened but I was able to achieve this quickly. The camera’s large memory was also useful as I was able to film lots of alternative takes, capturing everything in long, medium and close shots, so I had more choice when editing. which meant that I would have needed to stop recording to then see the video that I had recorded. During editing I placed all of the shots I used into various different bins, divided up by different characters but also the different sections of my scene such as establishing shots, classroom shots and walking shots, to make it easier to find the shots I needed when putting them together on the timeline. My filming and editing skills really developed over the course of this project, so much so that I felt very confident when it came to filming my shots and editing visuals and sound for my trailers as part of my Film Marketing Project for A2.

ALEX: Finally Joseph, can you tell us a bit more about the hardware and software you used? And also any websites that were particularly useful?

JOSEPH: Well, I suppose the main pieces of hardware I used during this project were the Panasonic digital video camera to film, and a PC and a laptop during editing. As I’ve mentioned the digital video camera had a large memory, so I recorded lots of extra footage, and could watch the footage back straight away. I think I would have needed to come back for at least an extra day’s filming if I hadn’t been able to check my shots immediately. I used a PC at school to edit and also my laptop to go onto blogger and complete my research and planning blog. 

Blogger was a brilliant piece of software as I was able to put videos, test footage, audio recordings and photos on my blog posts, which really helped explain my thought process. Blogger also benefited me because it allowed me to log as much information as possible and edit my posts if I wanted to add anything extra, like new drafts of my shot lists or extra images to help explain clearly what I was doing during planning. 

Other software I used included Adobe After Effects to add motion to my titles, though this didn’t make my final cut, which I had created using the text and font tools in Photoshop. I used Adobe Audition to edit the music that I used in my opening scene, to add sound effects and to edit the audio of the teacher speaking. I also used voice memo and Adobe Audition to create the audio for my director’s commentary and podcast evaluations. 

I used Spotify to create a playlist of all the possible songs I could choose for my opening scene, after I had found those songs by searching on Spotify, YouTube and Safari. Other websites that were crucial to the research and planning of my work included the BBFC website, to research what certificates were appropriate for my film, Dafont and Font meme to look up what font best reflected the genre of my film, and IMP Awards to get images of the posters I wanted to put on my blog. The experience of using the hardware, software and websites mentioned above, has really helped me with my A2 project as well, giving me the confidence to be really creative, and come up with some more challenging shots and ideas.

ALEX: That’s fascinating Joseph, thanks so much for joining us today. After the break we’ll be ranking the films in the Scream franchise and discussing its legacy…