Lost Soul - Script

Lost Soul script

[First two shots of two institutions]

[Mid shot of Ana explaining the story of the haunted grounds]

Ana: Theres a rumour going round that the grounds to Alcott Manor is haunted by a girl. She was supposedley dared to stay a night there. She was with a group of friends that were supposed to stay too, but  they left her during the night leaving her to stay there alone. She never returned home. Some say that they have seen her walking the ground, but you can't believe everything you hear..

[Panning shot until shot 5] [end of dialogue] 

Hannah F: I dare us all to stay one night.

[Silence]

Hannah E: Let's do it.

-they set up the tent whilst talking amoungst themselves-

[They are asleep in the tent]

-they see a dark figure-

[They all scream] - They all run away in different directions.

[Montage of clips] - There is screaming mixed with deep breathing.

[Final Shot]
Hannah holds up torch to her face and shouts "boo!"

Hannah: BOO!

Edited Revised Voice over script

To break our trailer up, we will edit a character's voiceover as another layer over shots of Alcott Manor (Polesden Lacey). By doing this, it shows our knowledge of using Adobe Premiere Elements and adds another filming style to our trailer.
We have tried several different ways of filming this, such as in a conversational tone, but we feel that it would be better simply as a descriptive voiceover, informing both the characters and the viewers.
The main things we need to include in this voiceover are the rumour, the location and what supposedly happened. We have taken inspiration from the thriller film The Woman in Black (2012), in which a young, female voice recites a poem throughout the entire trailer. We aim to do a similar thing, except the voiceover will be said over the shots of the fictional Alcott Manor and will not last the entire duration of our teaser trailer. The script will be in an informative style instead of in a poetic form.

Before the image swtiches to Polesden Lacey, the actor (Ana) asks the thee friends (Hannah, Charlotte and Hannah) "have you heard the rumour about Alcott Manor?" To which they reply they haven't.

The voiceover: Rumour has it, the young girl died in a bathtub, her wrists sliced until she bled out. No one was around for miles and she was found three days later, her skin stained red, neck deep in blood. Now, her soul is vengeful and she haunts the grounds. Every few years, a young girl dies in the exact bathtub left outside.

Following the clip and voiceover, it will cut back to the character played by Ana and she will simply say "I dare you to stay there". 

Props - Research and Planning

 In our trailer we will most likely have small props that are stereotypically found in horror films. The main prop that we will be using is the tent that the characters stay in at the beginning of the teaser railer. It can act as the 'safe' point for the characters and become a meeting place whilst the girls are being hunted and haunted by the ghost. The characters will also have sleeping bags, but these will be irrelevant to the story, they are simply being used to create convincing mise-en-scene.

Other props will be much smaller and more compact, making them easy to carry. These objects will be sweets, phones, water etc. and they will be held in a bag owned by the characters. These will be referred tp by the characters within although they will hold no purpose to the story.
 

The phone, probably a popular iPhone or Blackberry, could be used by the characters to call for help, only to find out there's no signal, rendering it useless. Another object will be a torch which the characters will rely on when they try to run and hide from the ghost. Whilst running from the ghost, the characters will have to rely on the torch to give them light; they will be too scared and panic and in a panic to collect any other items, making them more useful for mise-en-scene.

Animatic - Research and Planning

This is our animatic for our teaser trailer. The shots are described in more detail but are liable to change should a shot prove to difficult to film or not work as well. Shots will also be added in when filming or during editing.
'Lost soul' animatic

Moodboard - Research and Planning

Moodboard - Ghost - Research and Planning

Shot List - Research & Planning

This table shows the shots we intend to use when filming our trailer - it may change if there are any complications or we feel another shot works better.

Shot #	Shot Description	Audio and Dialogue
1	Graphic shot of Institution #1 (Alliance)
2	Graphic shot of Institution #2 (IM Global)
3	Mid-Shot (MS) of the female character explaining the story of the haunted house.	Character tells the story – the shot shows her start but it becomes a voiceover in the next few shots.
4	Zoom in to a High Shot (HS) of the gate/wall.	Quiet, eerie music as the shot is shown and the character voiceover is heard.
5	There is an Establishing Shot (ES) of the house, which then becomes a Panning Shot (PS) of the house, possibly at a low angle to show its superiority. It then leads on to a PS of the grounds – showing isolation.	These shots have a voice over of the female character’s voiceover explaining the story and the history of the house/grounds in depth.
6	There is then a MS of one of the characters, who has just heard the story, who looks around at the others and dares them to spend the night in the grounds.	One character dares them all to stay the night there. There is a silence except for diegetic breathing.
7	Then a Close-Up (CU) of another character who accepts the dare.	Another character accepts the challenge.
8	A MS of the characters standing by the entrance with their sleeping things and a tent.
9	A Long Shot (LS) shows the characters settling in to their tent.	There is general conversation (diegetic) and are taking their situation in a light-hearted way.
10	The same LS, but a short while later when the characters are asleep.	No non-diegetic sound until the shadow of a ghost girl is reflected on side of the tent – there is a loud bang. A Few characters stir.
11	There is then a MS of the characters running from the tent, their faces then becoming CUs as they run towards the camera.	Diegetic sound – screaming.
12	A female character runs through the grounds, a MS shows this and she keeps looking back. She stops running and hides in a bush (CU), behind her the ghost girl appears and she is dragged in.	Non-diegetic sound: fast paced, suspense-filled music as she runs. Diegetic sound: heavy breathing as she hides away, then a scream as she is dragged into the wilderness by the ghost girl.
13	One character runs across the bridge and the camera zooms onto the opposite over-path to show the ghost girl.	Non-Diegetic sound: low and slow as she scans her surroundings.
14 - 20	There is then a montage of shots – merged together from the different locations at Polesden.	Non-Diegetic sound: continuing on from the previous shot – the music gets faster and higher in pitch. Diegetic: screams, few words, breathing
21	The shots fade out and the screen turns black.
22	Title card quickly fades into the screen	‘Lost Soul’
23	Vague titles fade in.	‘Coming Soon’
24	One final shot; one character holds the torch to their face, scares the group then laughs.	“Boo!”

Storyboarding - Research and Planning

Location Photos - Research and Planning

The setting of Polesden Lacey will fit the horror genre well because it's very isolated. In our teaser trailer will make this clear by panning the surroundings of empty fields and cast amount of farmland. On another side there is a woodland and foresty areas, which will also go really well with the horror conventions; such as the Blair Whitch Project. The photo on the left shows the road which represents the one way out for the group. The hillside will simply echo their calls for help, rendering them alone; another typical horror convention.

Location Photos - Research and Planning

The grounds of Polsden Lacey will provide us with several different scenes and sets to film on because of the variety of the houses' grounds. As we are producing a teaser trailer, from earlier analysis we can see that they often incorporate montages of short and quick-edited shots from a variety of points throughout the film; using the many places in Polesden we will be able to achive the montage that we aim to prouduce.

Location Photos - Research and Planning

There are several different objects, such as houses, shelters, bridges etc, within the grounds for us to be able to incorporate into the teaser trailer or maybe even into the story. Filming these will add depth and diversity into our teaser trailer and will make it seem like many scenes from tge 'finished' film have been used. Also, the road seen in the left and right top photos are easily accessible which will make it very useful when we're filming. 

These location photos were taken on 19th November 2011.

Location Photos - Research and Planning

A common loaction in a horror film is a graveyard. There is a graveyard at Polsden but it's fenced off, therefore not useable to be able to film in. We will film these scenes seperately at St. Mary's Church graveyard in Leatherhead. The old gravestones and stone angels make it a perfect location for a horror film as they are creepy. These surroundings will look perfect in the dark because dark and misty graveyards are often feared by people. If we are unable to film here, or the surrounding area's don't work as well as we want them too, then our second graceyard choice will be bookham.

These location photos were taken on the 21st November 2011.

Location Photos - Research and Planning

The church will serve as a good backdrop when we film; which will add another typical horror convention to our trailer.

These location photos were taken on the 21st November 2011.

Location Photos - Research and Planning

Our first location to shoot footage would be the National Trust Park of Polesden Lacey. This place makes a great horror film location because there is an unlimited amout of space. They would be in the middle of no where which stops the characters from running for help and the grand, old house can be the base and centre of the horror story, to which first attracted the teenagers to stay overnight in the first place.

From a filming perspective, the grounds of Polsden offer a lot of visual oppertunity because around the grounds there are several different areas that we could incorporate into our teaser trailer and because of the space being unlimited - the only thing we would have to watch would be framing, making sure we don't get any other people or unwanted things that would ruin the effect of the teaser trailer.

 

This is the house which we could incorporate into the trailer. However, we will not be able to film inside it so the shots of the house will used as establishing shots. It is the centre of the story but not the film synopsis, which claims the grounds are haunted rather than the usual horror conventions of the house being the source.
These location photos were taken on November 13th 2011



Audience profiling - Research and Planning

For our film we have been looking at similar horror films that we have got inspiration from such as The Ring and Scream 4.

From looking at these two tables my group have decided that the age for our film will be 18+ This is because there will be a limited violence and bad language. This age seems to be the best age range for this genre. The gender for our film is a mixture. With the research and our own knowledge we know that horror films can be for males just as much as females, it'sjust stereotypically  directed towards males.

Costume - Research and Planning

The group of friends will be wearing similar clothes. These clothes are the typical stereotypical clothes that teenagers are currently wearing.

The actors that star as the teenagers will either be wearing a hoody or a cardigan. They will be wearing one of these because they are a quite popular clothing items. We get inspiration for this because as seen in The Blair Whitch Project the female protagonsit is seen to be wearing a hoody because they film overnight.

They will also be wearing either jeans or leggins.

The shoes that the actors will be wearing will either be boots or converse shoes. This is because these types of shoes are worn a lot in horro films.







My character is a ghost. So I will be the only one that has a seperate costume. Because the character is a dead girl that haunts the grounds, she will be wearing school clothes such as a white blouse and black trousers/leggins. So when you see her shes a typical horror character. We will add dirt and blood onto the white shirt so it looks as if shes been dead a long time. We will also make my face really white/pale so it looks like im dead aswell as adding scars and blood on my face so it looks like i was once attacked.

Actors - Research and Planning

The actors in our teaser trailer will be Hannah Ford, Hannah Evans, Krystal Sayers, Ana de Jesus and myself.

Hannah, Hannah, Krystal and Ana will play school friends and I will be playing a ghost.

This is Hannah Ford and she will play Caroline

 This is Hannah Evans and she will play Elena

This is a picture of me and I will play the 'ghost girl' 

 This is Ana de Jesus and she will play Vickie

This is Krystal Sayers and she will play Bonnie