Final Proposal

Introduction

The purpose of this report is to pitch and sell an idea to the producers to get the film made. In this report I will be presenting my primary and secondary research which I used to gather information to structure my short film. This includes researching the target audience, news article, short stories, short thriller/horror films etc. The name of the film I be making is ‘Charlie.’ and the genre of the film will be Horror. The production of the film will cost a low budget of £50.

Film Synopsis

The film is about two boys hanging out together on a random Saturday night. They are casually scrolling through their Twitter until they see a trend for a new scary game challenge. As they don't think it's real, one suggested they should play this little "game" which then gets out of hand. They are end up being stalked and taunted by an unknown presence named 'Charlie'.

The hook is the two boys playing a legitimately terrifying “game” (which was a Twitter trend that has teens trying to summon a demon named Charlie). The twist is the two boys end up being haunted by a demon. I thought of many different taglines for my short film such as "Charlie wants to play...", "All hell breaks loose when Charlie wants to play" etc.

I was influenced by the movie 'Ouija', Ouija is known as a scary sleepover game which led me to think about other scary sleepover games like 'Bloody Mary’, ‘Sandbags’, ‘Candyman’, ‘Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board’,’ Cat Scratch’ etc. Then this made me think back in May 2015, I remember there was this scary game that was trending on many social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. This scary game was known as 'Charlie Charlie Challenge'. This led me to come up with the concept for my short film.

Film Rating

If the 'British Board of Film Classification' were to examine and age rate my short film, I think it would be classified as 12A and not 15 or 12. The reason for this is because there won't be much strong violence in the short film and or any strong language. Some horror films pass the 12/12A category because their tone is not disturbing and the horror sequences are not repeated many times. But the tone in my short film will be dark, unsettling scary tone which might disturb the younger audience so it is less likely to be passed 12A and will be pushed up a category from 12A to 15. There won't any problems because my short film won't be rated by BBFC as I will be uploading it to YouTube.

Primary Research

To able to find my target audience, I will need to go through the comment section and click on their profile to find out their age and gender. These two screenshots above show you the short film "2AM: The Smiling Man" has over 3.7 million views, 29K likes and only 2K dislikes. And also to show you how many comments have been posted on this video, it has nearly 6,000 comments. As I was searching through the comment section on a short film, I clicked on couple profiles as you can see in the screenshots below. 

Benjamin Kelly - Male - 21

Daniel Zelada - Male

Sarah Bee - Female 

Due to my research I found out that the usual age for audience to be watching a horror movie is 15+ as it includes violence which can be disturbing to younger viewers. The young audience usually want to try new things and experiment emotions and feelings, they want to experience life for themselves and make their own choices and be excited by many things. Horror films usually excite young audiences more than older audiences, the audiences are often a groups of friends rather than just themselves. Males are more likely to a fan of horror movies than females, they tend to like the thrill of violence, blood etc. Three films that is similar to my short film I picked are all rated 15 by BBFC. This research has helped me because it has given me answers of who should be my target audience for a horror short film. My main primary target audience will be 15 to 24 years old and my secondary target audience will be 25 to 40 years old as they may watch horror films as well.

I was also looking through the comments for some feedback that may help me on what to do for my one minute short film. I screenshot some examples, 'Bob Parker' prefer little girl than a man as Bob think it will more scarier. This made me think that maybe I should include a little girl as 'Charlie' in the short film to make it more scarier and creepier as Bob Parker think it will be creepier. Although Charlie is a male demon, the name Charlie also can be a girl name so it still make sense. In another comment, 'fraud1980' said that the costume was took some horror off as the suit was bright, this will make me try to avoid loud costumes that would take off horror so it wouldn't ruined the film. Last comment by '5upernova Music', he said that the jump scare at the end made him jump, this make me want to include jump scares in my horror movies. But I can't make it obvious and easily expected otherwise my audience wouldn't even flinch at all.

Secondary Research

My idea was based on a scary game trend back May 2015 so I did some research on three films that are similar to my idea. The first film I looked at was 'Ouija'. This film is the same genre as I am making and it both have a popular scary game scene, the storyline are quite similar to each other as the characters were being chased by 2 unknown presence, one with his mouth sewn and the other with black eyes and a gaping mouth. The film was released in 2014 on Halloween and had a budget of $5 million and made almost $20 million on the opening weekend and made $102 million overall worldwide. It did receive more negative reviews more than good reviews, some say the acting, storyline and the scares were good and some saying it was the worst horror movie they've ever seen. Apparently 'Finding Nemo' were scarier than 'Ouija' which according to a super reviewer from Rotten Tomatoes. So this made me think, to make my short film to meet the reviewers' standards, I will have to make my short film dark and unsettling scary tone to keep the audience on their edge of their seat with unexpected jump scares.

The second film I looked at was 'Paranormal Activity 3'. This film has the same genre as the short film I am making. It has a popular scary game scene somewhere in the movie. This popular scary game is known as 'Bloody Mary' which is a terrifying scary game. The storyline is almost very similar to each other because in 'Paranormal Activity 3', a invisible demon terrorises two little girls after playing a scary game challenge 'Bloody Mary'. The film was released on 21st October 2011 and made over $52 million with the budget of $5 million. It grossed out over $104 million just in the USA. This film is the highest grossing film in the Paranormal Activity series, it received more positive reviews than negative ones. Most negative reviews complained about the scenes in the trailer which were not in the final cut of the film. Many thought it was the scariest movie they have ever watched, it was a film that scared them and kept them more tense and on edge. The trailer editor used this method as a trick by not using the scenes in the trailer to make it scarier for the audience. The audience would know when things were going to happen as they seen the scary parts in the trailer and ruined the scare for themselves, so in this movie when they are watching it. This is what make the movie scary as they made jump scares more possible and not expected. To make it scary for the audience, I will try not to make the jump scares easily expected in my short film to make it tenser so it would put the audience on the edge of their seat.

In the final film I looked at was 'The Possession' which came out on the 31st of August 2012. The storyline is not very similar to my story at all except both having a demon in our film. I chose this film because it has the same genre as the film I am making. During the release on the 31st August 2012, they made over $17 million on the opening weekend with the budget of $14 million. They made $85 million overall worldwide, made $48 million in the USA alone. The movie weren't for everyone, some hated it and some loved it. Some say it was the best scary exorcism film they have seen, well written and acted but unfortunately the movie received more negative reviews than positive. Some said it was boring as the story line is slow and the demons weren't remotely scary. They said the movie wasn't scary as it was obvious that they could tell what was going to happen in the next five minutes. They said it was a waste of money, they were laughing at the part that were supposed to be scary they thought it was comedy. They also thought the music in the background wasn't good. Even though the storyline is completely different to mine, the negative reviews could be the same. To avoid this I would have to make the demon much scarier and creepier, make the story line unpredictable so the audience wouldn't able to tell what is going to happen next and find the horror suitable soundtrack for my short film. As my short film is 1 minute, I will have to make the storyline fast and not boring which mean no backstory.

Unique Selling Point

USP stand for 'Unique Selling Point'. They attract new customer by offering them something their competitors can't or don't offer. For example, Domino's "30 minutes or it's free" promise. We use USP in our pitch to increase our chance to get our producers to promote our film and hopefully they will fund us successfully for the film come to reality.

I am confident that this film will be successful because it will be reaching my target audience’s expectation. As my audience are teens and young adults, this short was based on social media's trend so they will remember the trend back in May 2015, the game that was played by thousands of young people where they tried to summon the devil. This will be the first 'Charlie Charlie' movie, I also will include the hook and the twist in this film. The structure I will be using is non-linear and the style of editing will be continuity.

Budget

As I will be able to borrow a camera and tripod from the school's media department, this means I don't have to buy a camera and equipment along with it. I also will not need to pay to hire a editing suite too because there is a mac editing suite in school which I am allowed to use anytime during my free lessons and I also have an editing software at home I can use which is similar to 'Final Cut Pro X'. This editing software is known as 'Sony Vegas 12'.

£50:
£25 for Props & Makeup
£10 for Transportation (Although we have a free bus pass, we will use the £10 for something else such as props or food if not needed for travelling)
£15 for Food & Drink (99p Store, Poundland etc.)

The £50 will come from my own pocket money.

Regulation & Certification

As my one minute short film will be uploading to YouTube and won't be shown in cinemas or onto DVDs, this means that the BBFC will not regulate my one minute short film as they don't regulate YouTube videos. But if the BBFC were to regulate my short film, I will say it will be 15 because the tone in my short film will be dark, unsettling scary tone to build suspense and put my audience on the edge of their seats. This will disturb the younger viewer so therefore my short film will be rated 15.

Distribution

I decided to submit my short film at 'FilmOneFest as it is the suitable short film festival because it does one minute short film only. It is also easy for me to submit as all I have to do is to go on their website and I will able to see "Submissions are now open for FilmOneFest 2016". It tell me when the festival takes place which is the third Saturday of July (16th July 2016). It also tell me how to submit and when the submission deadline is (May 15th 2016), I have plenty of time to submit my short film.

At the moment, I am not ready to show my short film on Netflix as I am not professional yet. Even if I was professional, I would still have get 'Distribber' to help me put my film on Netflix but it could charge me the fee up to $1,600. So for now I will stick to YouTube as it is free for me to upload and is another international distribution so I am able to show my work to range of people.

References:

http://www.imdb.com/
http://filmschoolrejects.com/news/ouija-trailer.php
http://fox5sandiego.com/2015/05/25/twitter-trend-charlie-charlie-challenge-has-teens-trying-to-summon-demon/
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/12a-and-12
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/15
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u6Tt3PqIfQ
https://plus.google.com/u/0/
https://twitter.com/
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/unique-selling-point-USP