Meeting minutes (Tilly Trinder)

Monday 25th of January 2010 (2 Hours)

During this lesson, we simply had discussions about our 2 minute sequence. We also worked on our Preliminary Task.

In our own time

We completed our Preliminary Task.

Wednesday 27th of January 2010 (3 Hours)

During our night class, we took pictures of our location and cast members and began to work on individual tasks, that were due to be posted on our blogs for the following week.

Thursday 28th of January (2 Hours)

During this lesson, we continued to work on our individual tasks.

Week 3 (Anju Tamang)

We completely finished our Preliminary Task and posted it in our personal blog. We had to shoot our preliminary task more than three times. We also formed a new group Liridona replacing Tiily. Tilly chose a role of "Director" and decided to make script of 2 min opening sequence.

Title of the Film (Sustika Limbu)

"Cherry blossom" when you first read this name, who would have guessed that it's a horror movie?

Why??? title name 'Cherry Blossom' because it refers to the name of our antagonist (Sakura). They closely link with each other. The name of the flower and colours favour the certain aspect of horror at the same time. The mixture of red and white: where red connotes danger and white connotes peace, like flower, our character Sakura is the mixture of both character, she is innocent on the one side and danger which is completely opposite.


At first, we decided to use "A girl in white" as our film name. Later, we changed it to "Cherry Blossom" because in Japanese Sakura means Cherry Blossom which is also named after our antagonist (Sakura).As our target audience is both Asian and English.The name of antagonist and the title is a replica of each other. The reason behind choosing sakura as our character name is because Japanese and china is one of the most popular asian country and most of the people are familiar with the name. In addition, majority of the English and Asian people know that sakura means cherry blossom in English.

Logo (Sustika Limbu)

While making this logo,I didn't use any resources. Instead, I sketched it by myself. Later on, I used picnik to edit it and pasted the production name with my sketch.

I have used red colour while writing our production name because red connotes danger, blood and love whereas black and white connotes dark,mystery and peace.

To emphasise the eyes on the sketch, I have given the boundary darker shade. The black and white colour used in our production logo are somehow interconnected with our storyline.

Draft of Production Logo (Sustika Limbu)

At first we decided to put this as our production logo but one of my group member dislike it. So we had to redo it again to come out with more better logo.







Draft of our second and final logo


This is the draft of our second logo that everyone agreed to use it.














This is the picture of our final piece of our production logo.

Production Schedule (Tilly Trinder)

Production Schedule

Meeting minutes (Tilly Trinder)

Monday 18th of January 2010 (2 Hours)

During this lesson, we decided that we would follow the codes and conventions of a Horror. In doing this, we thought that it would be necessary to research in Horror and its sub-genres, into much more detail. Taking notes during the process and later posting them on our blog.

Wednesday 20th of January 2010 (3 Hours)

During our night class, we decided to set dates for tasks to be finished this week.
- Audience Research (20th of January) - Anju Tamang
- 2 minute opening sequence (20th of January) - Anju Tamang
- Brainstorming (21st of January) - Anju Tamang
- Script (21st of January) - Tilly Trinder
- Character Profile (22nd of January) - Anju Tamang
- 90 Minute synopsis (22nd of January) - Sustika Limbu
- Production schedule (23rd of January) - Tilly Trinder
- Production Logo (24th of January) - Sustika Limbu

Thursday 21st of January 2010 (2 Hours)

During this lesson, we brainstormed the possibilities and ideas of our chosen genre and took into consideration the key aspects of the 2 minute sequence. In order to post this on our blog, we created an account on www.bubbl.us, which enabled us to display our brainstorm in an aesthetically pleasing way. We also worked on our individual tasks.

Synopsis for Feature Film (Sustika Limbu and Anju Tamang)

A Girl in the white

The story begins in a Havering College where a group of girls lock up their geek classmate Jennifer Hudson,a young 19 years old girl in a photography room to have some fun. Later when Jennifer realises that she has been locked up, she cries for help, but no one answers her, she gets scared and sits in the corner. Then she takes out the phone from her pocket and tries to call up her parents but it turned off. Soon, after that she sees someone in a white passing by. She panics with fear and tries to open the door. Eventually, the door opens by itself. She runs towards the corridor. The half part of the corridor is dark and she sees someone in the dark. Once again, she’s drawn to look at the same place. She looks more closely and sees the little girl(sakura) in a white all covered with blood. Jennifer runs towards the main door to escape from Sakura a 15 years old young girl(a girl in a white). Soon, we can hear her screaming.

The film then introduces Sakura's step-sister Kate Miyazaki,a 21 years old young girl, a 2nd year University student in Central London. Although they were step sisters, they were completely fond of each other. They used to share everything with each other and were best friends. Since the day Sakura dies, Kate sees Sakura in her dreams, crying out for help. One day, Kate finds out that another teenage girl named Jennifer Hudson, is also been missing from her college since last 2 days. Kate becomes suspicious. So in order to find out the mystery Kate Miyazaki goes back to her parents’ home in Essex.

Kate starts her research on the missing case of Jennifer to get some clue. One day while returning from Hornchurch library, it suddenly begins to rain. She runs towards the bus station and takes 256 to Hornchurch train station. There is no one on the bus except her. She lean her head towards the window. Suddenly, the bus light goes off and driver disappears too. She sees the vision of a girl in white, on the last seat. She screams and wakes up to find that it was only her dream. As soon as the bus stops, she runs towards the station and directly head towards her home.

Next day, she decides to go to Havering College where she and her sister used to go. There, she discovers that a girl named Jennifer who had been missing since 3 days used to be bullied by some of her classmates. The day, she went missing was the day that her classmate locked her up in a photography room. She asks for permission to go in photography room but the photography room seems to be restricted for everyone. She is willing to do anything to discover the truth because she has been feeling closer to her long dead sister Sakura after such a long time. Kate returns home without any success. However Kate has different plan in her mind. The same night Kate hides herself in the art block from the security guards. After guards left she unlocks the door and enters the photography room. She somehow gets herself locked in the photography room. It becomes very quiet for a moment and Kate opens the door. She looks back in the room and smiles.(what transpired in the room was Kate’s discovered all the truths about her sister and become possessed by Sakura)

Character Profile (Anju Tamang)

Protagonist

Name: Kate Miyazaki
Gender: Female

Character description: Kate is a stepsister of Sakura whom she loves very much. She is currently studying in University of Central London. She misses her sister everyday. She comes back to know the truth of her sister's death.

Age: 21
Hair: Black short hair
Mise-en-scene: (costume) casual dress



Victim

Name: Jennifer Hudson
Gender: Female

Character description: Jennifer Hudson was born in Hornchurch; she is from a middle class family. She had many friends and loved by them. She was a top student from her class and teacher’s favorite. Jennifer is currently a student in Havering College who recently passed her AS level and continuing with her studies.

Age: 19

Complexion: Pale white
Hair: medium length blonde

Mise-en-scene: (costume) T-shirt, pant and jacket




Antagonist


Name: Sakura
Gender: Female

Character description: Sakura was born in Japan; she was from a very rich family. Her father was British were as her mother was Japanese. Her parents were divorced and she was living with her father. She was a spoilt child and a student of Havering College. It was her first year in the college and she was studying GCSE. One day she suddenly disappeared from her college, nobody knew what happened to her or where she was??

Age: 15

Face type: Baby faced

Hair: long and black

Mise-en-scene: (costume) White dress

Textual analysis (Anju and Sustika)

We are analysing a 90 minutes Sequence of an American version movie The Grudge 2004.In this textual analysis, we will be writing about 4 technical aspects. Mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound.

This film was directed by Takashi Shimizu.

This movie starts with the title sequence and follows with the written text "When someone dies in a greap of a powerful range ..... a curse is born" the word "Curse" is highlighted in red, the screen fades in black for a while and again appears with other written text " The curse gathers in that place of death" again the word "Death" is highlighted in red. Soon after that, other phrase takes place "Those who encounter it will be consumed by its fury" the word "Fury" is highlighted in red again. The reason behind highlighting these words "Curse", "Death", "Fury" are interconnected with the storyline of the movie whereas red connotes danger.

The movie starts with establishing shot which shows the location and camera tracks towards the character's face whose worrying facial expression is visible to see. Few minutes later, a brief introduction of 1st character Professor Peter, his short lived scene ends which automatically ends after he jumps from his balcony which happens to be witnessed by his wife. The new character, a social worker is introduced who is assisting the ill woman Emma. One day her assistance, Yoko Maki hears a sound from the room while cleaning. She wonders into the rooms to find the source of sound. She hears the sound coming from ceiling upon careful inspection. She sees that that the passage to the attic when she opens the cupboard. She climbs the ladder through the cupboard. stretches her body to get the proper view inside the attic. Therefore, she burns the lighter and looks around there. She sees the ghost (Kayako), the main antagonist of the sequence. After this event, the main protagonist is introduced.

Karen Davis


Karen Davis is the main protagonist of the film. She goes to assist the same person Emma, in the place of Yoko Maki. While working, she finds a closet being barred by the tape. The cat like noise comes from it. Out of curiousity, she rips off the tape and finds a little boy. She asks her to come out of closet but he refuses. She asks him his name of which she gets prompt reply of his name being Toshi. This get interrupted as Emma begins to chatter alone. As she calms Emma, the dark, long hair flows above the ceiling which terrifies Emma. Kayako reaches to Emma while Karen continues to stare at her. Karen lose consciousness from fear. Finally Karen's boss Alex appears who witnesses Emma's death and finds Karen in a state of shock. Karen is taken to hospital and another character detective Nakagawa is introduced. The detective interrogates Alex about the other family members of Emma. Finally the detective interrogates Karen. She tells her part of the story, indicating the appearance of the boy. Over the next few day she is distressed by Kayako. Frightened and stressed, she begins to research the history of the house. Eventually Karen discovers that the house had been embroiled by the murder case. This gives her more initiative to investigate on her own. She meets Peter's wife Maria and questions her about connection between Kayako's house and her husband's suicide . Unfortunately, Maria doesnot have any clue to help her so she allows Karen to search through the old photographs. Looking every photograph in detail, Karen gets a hold of photograph with Kayako in the background. It indicates that Kayako had been following the couple without their knowledge. Karen tries to talk with her boyfriend Doug but he has already left to investigate situation on his own while trying to get hold of Karen. Karen returns to the house searching for her boyfriend where she gets the flashback of Peter's visit. She experiences the event that took place after Peter finds the corpse of Kayako and Takeo's hanging on the noose by Kayako's hair. The flashback allows Karen to see a brief, final moment of his life: him murdering his wife, Kayako and his son, Toshio. Overwhelmed by revelation about the murder,Karen wobbles on the way down to the stairs.Doug has been crippled so he gets dragged towards the door by Karen when he grabs her ankle, but Kayako's ghost suddenly appears upstair. Kayako crawls down the stair towards them. Karen gives a kiss of death to Doug. She bangs the door and kicks over the gas can. She tries to burn the Doug's lighter and fires it onto the gas, as suddenly Doug turns into Kayako. The screen goes white and shows the ambulance taking Karen.

Later she learns that the house has been saved and mourns the death of his boyfriend,Doug. Suddenly, Kayako's hair appears beneath the sheet that covered him, she soon realizes it was just a figment of her imagination because it turns out to be the normal sheet. Kayako, then appears behind Karen. As Kayako utters her death groan, the movie ends with her eyeshot.


Kayako is the antagonist of the film. She was killed by her husband after he finds out that she fell in love with an American Professor(Peter) in Tokyo. Takeo, Kayako's husband beats her up and while escaping she crawls down the stairs in futile as he kills her and packs her in the white, transparent bag to hide her dead body above the ceiling. Then, Takeo kills their child Toshio by drowning him inside the bath tub, full of water. Later, Takeo hangs himself.

Since the day Kayako was killed, the each and every person who comes to live in that house or those who steps inside the house are cursed, gets haunted by her and the curse spreads.

Script (Tilly Trinder)

A Girl in White - Script[1]

Brain Storm( Anju Tamang)

Outline For Opening Sequence (Sustika Limbu and Anju Tamang)

CHERRY BLOSSOM



Jennifer O'Neill comes out of her ICT class. Her class mates sees her and one of the girl push her into radio room. Jennifer gets locked up in a radio room by her classmate because she is a geek and a loner. When Jennifer realizes she is alone in the room and has been locked out, she leans towards the door and cries out for help. No one answers to her cries. She takes out the phone from her bag and tries to call her parents but her phone turns off. When she turn around she sees a image of a girl in the mirror of the room. Her first instinct was to run away and hide.so,she hides under the table, all frightened and sweating with fear. She becomes more aware of her surrounding when she sees the same girl sitting next to her. She runs towards the door and this time door open itself. She reach the corridor and see the girl again. When she tries to step back, she realise that half part of the corridor lights are turned off. She again sees a vision of the same girl covered with blood. As soon as she sees her, she steps back slowly but the light starts to turn off one by one. She run towards the main door in order to escape. The whole building get engulfed by the darkness. Only, the chilling voice of a girl, screaming is heard.

Sub Genres of Horror (Tilly Trinder)

A sub genre can be defined as a ‘category of artistic, musical or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form or content. It is a category of work that forms a specific class within a larger genre.

Horror can be broken down into many sub genres such as:
· Psychological – this sub genre relies on ‘character fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot’

· Supernatural - consists of manifestations or events considered to be of supernatural origin, such as ghosts.

· Slasher - involves a 'psychopathic killer stalking, and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a chainsaw or sycthe'

· Gothic - this genre feeds on a pleasing terror. This related the Gothic fiction, the combination of horror and romance.

· Asian - it involves the psychological theme as well as an anticipation for something, which involves the supernatural.

· Comedy - the combination of comedy and horror, making the plot humorous.

Our 2 minute sequence follows the codes and conventions of Asian Horror. This sub genre covers many different aspects of horror, which shows a versatility.

Target Audience (Anju Tamang and Sustika Limbu)

Age: 15+

Socio economic group: C1-E

Sex: Both

Ethnicity: European and Asian

Intersts : Educated, experiencing new stuffs, exploring the world

We decided to target these audience as they would be a perfect audience for our movie. We also chose Asian audience as we are inspired by J horror(Japanese horror) and the storyline of our synopsis is similar to J horror movies. The main target audience of our movie is 15+ teenagers as now-a-days most of the films are produced targeting teenagers. The reason we decided to target teenagers as our main audience is as they are the most loyal audiences. The target audience would like this movie as it is set on college with students. The target audience are most likely to understand the storyline as the story is easy and based on teenager girl who was locked in classroom and haunted by a ghost.

Genre , horror (Sustika Limbu)

According to wikipedia horror Films are the movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers. Their plots frequently involve theme of death, the supernatural or mental illness. Early horror movies are largely based in classic literature of the gothic/horror genre such as Dracula, The phantom of the opera etc. It is a genre of fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle and horrify the audience. Historically, the cause of the "horror" experience has often been the intrusion of a disturbing supernatural element into everyday human experience.


Horror is a genre which gives a feeling of great shock or fear and designed to frighten the audience. It normally relates with dead people, good/bad spirit and supernatural.


Lots of the Asian country makes horror movies, Korean and Japan is one of them. Their movies are easy to stereotype, Most of the antagonist (ghost) in their movie have pale skin, long black hair with a white dress. Lots of American horror movie production makes a films that are similar to Japanese and Korean horror example: The Uninvited (American movie)directed by Michael Grillo which is a remake of South Korean horror, Tales of two sister directed by Kim Ji-woon.


I had done some research in Asian horror and here is some details .

Category: Japanese Horror
As we are mostly focusing on the Japanese horror it is important to find out its origin. Japanese horror focus on the psychological horror and contain themes of many folk religion such as: exorcism and shamanism. The main origin of the Japanese horror seems to be influence by the Japanese folks tale and the era influence by ghost tales. e.g a film called Ju-on: The Grudge

Category: Korean Horror
Korean horror is mostly inspired by the Japanese horror where we can see a similar antagonist (a girl with long black hair wearing a white dress ). Most of the Korean horror film's storyline is connected with the school girl's life.e.g Tail of two sisters and Whispering Corridors.

Category: Thai Horror
Most of the Thai horror focus on the black magic and voodoo. Most of the Asian horror fans prefer Thai horror because they are different and they have got a whole new storyline. They always come up with a new ideas. e.g In a movie called Shutter from the first half of the movie main character start to have a neck problem and at the end of the film we finds out that he is carrying the whole weight of his ex-dead girlfriend over his shoulder. where as in a movie called Art of Devil whole new set of storyline has been introduced which is all about black magic and voodoo.

Codes and Conventions of a Horror (Tilly Trinder)

CODES AND CONVENTIONS: They can be separated into three groups; technical (camera technique & shots), symbolic (clothing, objects & colours)and written and audio (music etc). This combined, gives the text meaning and determines the response of the viewer - Answers.com

- Visual:
• Isolated settings
• Violence (Blood, Gore, Killing, Death)
• Villain (antagonist) – monsters, ghosts etc.
• Victim (protagonist)
• Weapons (Chainsaw, knife etc)
• Bad weather (Darkness, storms etc)

- Audio :
• Eerie music
• Rock music (Heavy, Metal, Punk)
• Screams
• Footsteps
• Animals

Stereotype Of Horror (Tilly Trinder)

When discussing the genre Horror, we must consider the purpose/intention of the plot. The Director has to ensure that:
• It will captivate and entertain us
• The audience will be fearful and in a state of panic
• It also leaves a feeling of dread
• It will leave the audience in thoughts of their worst fears
• It must end in a ‘terrifying, shocking finale’


In most Horror films there are the ‘stereo-typical’ characters which usually has the connotations of good versus evil, showing the conflict between the two. The ‘good’ character who the main focus is on, usually results in being the survivor. The ‘bad’ character has a consistent way of killing, which is commonly known as the killers trademark, this usually involves a weapon or the deaths of characters that have a similarity. In most cases, the good guy is usually shown to have defeated the bad guy.

Considering the wide diversity in an audience, there are many fears that can be dealt with within a Horror film, such as:
· Vulnerability
· The ‘unknown’
· Death
· Alienation
· Nightmares
· Sexuality
· Loss of identity

Research (Tilly Trinder)

'Horror can deal with the mundane or the supernatural, with the fantastic or the normal. It doesnt have to be full of ghosts, ghouls and things that go bump in the night. Its only true requirement is that it elicit and emotional reaction that includes some aspect of fear or dread.' - This is taken from the Horror Writers Association.

When discussing Horror as a form of entertainment, it is most definitely the least complicated, as its main objective is to produce fear and terror within an audience unlike drama which demands many other emotions. 'The basic concept of Horror is; the hero must fight against horrific forces for his life - and ften his soul', this remains the same 'whether the antagonist is a monster, a ghost or a feral animal'.

Week 2 (Anju Tamang)

We have decided to make a 2 minute opening sequence, following the principles/ codes and conventions of a Horror, for our coursework. We researched this genre, to gain a better understanding and posted it on our blog. As a group, we planned the opening sequence and referred back to our Media teacher. In doing this, we brainstormed the idea and posted it through means of bubble.us. Sustika and I took the responsibility of creating/ writing the synopsis.

Meeting minutes (Tilly Trinder)

Monday 11th of January 2010 (2 Hours)

During this lesson, we created our blog and discussed the possibilities for our two-minute opening sequence. We thought that we should research, the difference between a Horror and a Thriller, so that we could decide which genre to base our film around.

Thursday 14th of January 2010 (2 Hours)

During this lesson, we continued to research Horror and Thriller as a genres, so that we could gain a better understanding of what each genre entails.

Welcome to our blog post (Sustika Limbu)

Hey guys welcome to our blog.Here you guys can get the answer about every question on horror movie. If you are curious about Asian horror films then this is the right place for you. If you want to know about how to textual analysis of the film then this is the right place.
If you guys have any questions then do write it in our comment box.

Week 1 (Anju Tamang)

We joined our group and created a blog we needed. We hyperlinked our group blog to personal blog. We chose our role in the group.

Sustika has taken a role of "Editor"
Tilly has taken a role of "Director"
I have taken a role of "Camera Person"
In this lesson we also learnt that for our coursework we need to write a synopsis, script and shoot a 2 min opening sequence.