Synopsis of My Idea

My idea for the opening titles of a horror movie is 'Dead Funny'. A film based around a psychopathic clown that terrorises and harasses neighbourhood folk. On first thought, the idea of a clown-based horror seemed risky and hard to pull off but after some elaboration of the idea, me and my group decided that if we were to head in a certain direction with this, then it may work. The two directions in which the film could have gone were, a horror comedy or a very sick and twisted horror that is full frontal terror. We decided to go with the second option, despite the comedic title. The title is a contradiction in itself and the two words juxtapose obviously.

The story

 

Our plot consists of two characters: The victim and Trunco The clown. (Trunco being Latin for mutilate). The victim which will be a female to show more of an dominant personality to the clown as it is stereotypical to people that women are more venerable to men. The male against female
oppression is a good way to show fear in the opening title.

 

The clown will be terrorising the woman in her own house by first calling her in her house and asking her if she 'Wants a balloon'. We took this inspiration from the movie 'SCREAM'. We liked the opening few minutes of that and we thought that it could be cooperated into our opening sequence. So we've taken that as our inspiration and we've also taken inspiration from the  movie 'IT'. We liked the sadistic nature of the clown and we liked how everybody is creeped out by them even if they are supposed to be entertaining and funny.

 

After calling the young woman, the clown will proceed to harass the young woman in the 'comfort' of her own home. This is to basically suggest and imply that there is no safety, even when you're in the haven of your own home, Trunco the Clown will still get you! Whilst in the house, the woman's radio will produce static and change to the song 'Send in the clowns' which we think will produce a tense atmosphere because the song is slow and old fashioned. After the radio scene, the clown will appear at the window of the kitchen where the woman will be standing. This will hopefully scare the viewers and give a short insight of what is to come in the movie in terms of horror. We're trying to get this movie as sadistic as possible to try and freak the audience out as much as possible because after collecting results from our questionnaire, we found that the majority of people that watch horrors, enjoy being scared.  Using this information, we've decided to incorporate this into our film.

 

After the window scenario, we have decided to use a balloon and add that into our sequence because they are stereotypically a clown's prop. We also took inspiration from the film 'IT' as when the balloons pooped with blood. We liked the sick and twisted idea of the loud bang, followed by a splatter of blood. We thought this was very dark and therefor used it in our film. After the balloon had exploded blood all over the woman, we decided we should have one more scare before we cut the titles off, so Trunco will be standing behind the woman in the dark, staring over shoulder with an evil grin.

The Mise en Scene

 

For our movie, there will only really be 2 settings for the most part: the street and the house. The street will have little lighting, only street lights and the moon as actual forms of light (possible some house lights as well). We are hoping to get it as dark as possible to put across the idea that Trunco the Clown only comes out at night, and to really emphasise his horror. In the house, the light will be much brighter, as we're going to use normal lights to make it seem more safe for the woman when actually, no where is safe. We're really trying to put across that NO ONE is safe from this clown. The kitchen will be lit up brightly, and the outside will be dark, we're hoping to get this contrast right so that when the face appears at the window, it will be coming out of pure darkness. As a kind of symbol of evil.

The sounds used in the film will be used to create tension and presence emitted by Trunco. Sounds like the song 'Send in the Clowns' and the sound of the balloon popping will produce a scary atmosphere inside the film, however outside the filming and while we edit, we're going to be using loud noises when the face pops up and also static when the radio cuts off. We hope that these edited noises will project tension into the film.

 

Authenticity

 

Hopefully, we're going to make this movie as sadistic and scarring as possible because we strongly believe that with a horror movie, the viewer needs to have that 'hide behind a cushion' feeling all the time. That feeling is what i believe to be the key to horror movies. This movie will not be so different from others but we hope to en corporate every other great horror theme into this film so that if we get the mixture and recipe of themes spot on the it will provide a sickening yet entertaining atmosphere that will not be forgotten.