The Trailer, Planning

We started out our project by looking at the key elements of the slasher genre. This helped us to write the final synopsis which we would base our publicity campaign on.The synopsis; Ex- mental patient David Slash is a broken man in more ways then one; after escaping from well known mental facility 'Ward 13' he is hell bent on returning to his hometown to kill his enemies. The film is set in suburban London with David hiding out in the woods where he played as a child. He is wearing a cream straight jacket denoting the fact he has escaped from a mental hospital. He is also seen wearing a white mask hiding his face from his victims, this is iconic to the idea of a horror movie with a stereotypical villains trying to hide there true identities. The mask; a normal white art mask will have the number thirteen engraved into the forehead connoting the films name 'Ward 13', a constant reminder of what the viewer is watching. The protagonist of the film David Slash, uses a old cutting knife in order to kill his enemies.

Our initial idea for the trailer was to focus on only shots involving the films protagonist teen mental patient, David Slash and the weeks following his escape from "Ward 13". Our first storyboard included most of this but became to long for a short teaser trailer. We then cut this down to produce the final plan;

When we had story boarded our trailer it was time to start planning the rest of our production work. Here I have included a copy of our production sheet and shooting schedule;

-Production Sheet-

-Shooting Schedule-

Location

Choosing the filming locations was one of the most important aspects to planning our trailer. We wanted the locations to match the ones in the films synopsis and because of this they had to be just right. For the establishing shots of a hospital we ended up picking two different locations, the Whittington hospital and the Archway campus . For the park scenes we chose Hampstead heath a location close to our school.

-Hampstead Heath-

-The Archway Campus-

Props

We then looked at props and what would be the appropriate costume for the killer. In our synopsis we wanted the killer to wear a white art mask with the number 13 engraved into the forehead. We managed to buy a mask like this in a local costume shop but found it too hard to cut 13 in the forehead. We also bought a large fake knife for the killers weapon.

-Props-