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found footage horror/slasher

P

peter917

ok so i have been in the stump on an idea for a while now, and i was thinking of maybe doing a found footage style slasher film, here would be the basic premise and obviously in the very early development stages.

2 brothers have always dreamed of making a film, and just love it in general. They live with only their father and out some what away from the city, in more of the country. there father comes home one night with a present for them, which happens to be a video camera for them, as he is about to leave on a business trip. They await the arrival of the babysitter while messing with their new camera(from this point on everything is in the view of the one brother controlling the camera) when they think the babysitter has arrived, they begin being terrorized and stalked by 2 men in masks.

its just a basic idea, but yeah :P i have more planned and what not but anyone else's ideas ill consider and taking into account.
 
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How many minutes are you planning on putting into the finish cut of this "found footage stalker slasher" project?
And for bonus, what are your intentions with the final product?

What I'm getting at is that no matter how superb your production values are that particular combo has been DONE. TO. DEATH.
DEAD.
Dead beyond cliché.
Dead to derision.

Your time effort and energy may be better spent working on a project with considerably less hokum and a bit more heart.



An off the cuff idea, run through the above scenario as fast as you can, push a minute to two minutes doing it, have one of the protags shoot one of the antags with Dad's pistol, the other runs away abandoning his fallen comrade, the boys drag the shot bastard inside and then the real story begins.
Debate on calling 911 as the guy bleeds out.
Ask/interrogate him as to WTH was he thinking?
Ask him about his buddy that ran away. WTH kind of friend was that?
Have your boys get the emotional and quasi-moral upper hand on the bastard.
Final outcome is all yours: live or die. Maybe inconclusive.

GL


Ray
 
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yeah i know its been done a lot, i just haven't really seen once don't based on a home invasion type scenario yet. I mean i have other ideas but horror is one of those things where its hard to be original with it. ya know? and only about a 15-20min short
 
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im not to good with drama, and horror is what i love no matter how cliche a lot if it might be, either horror or action/sci-fi, but action films can also be super repetitive. and 15-20 minutes.

and found footage, i just think for this project would be a little interesting, some cool stuff could be done with it. see how people would really re-act in this situation, more realism into the script.
 
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15 - 20 minutes, eh?
Figure an hour of on-set time for each minute of final edited product.
Figure another hour to hour and a half editing for each minute of final edited product.
Figure another hour for audio editing for each minute of final edited product.

That's a good full work week and then some.

Hmm...
What's been pop in horror lately...
http://www.the-numbers.com/market/2011/Horror.php

You know, your initial description mostly reminded me of THE STRANGERS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strangers_(film)

Lot of "reaction" in that one.

You looking to differentiate this project from that, right?
 
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yeah, i love the strangers and a little inspiration came from that, mostly the whole mysterious reason why whoever is doing this is doing what there doing, but i planned to put a reason for whats going on so it turns out not so random. but any more help would be greatly appreciated, i know a lot of this stuff has been done before, but still horror is what i love.
 
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Good deal.

So, did you just want to do a found footage, shaky-cam variation of THE STRANGERS?
Or something... slightly off kilter from that?
A genuine variant.
 
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well, i want it to have a more genuine feel to it and not super low budget looking, more of a cinematic feel to it. but the strangers has really nothing to do with it. Just the fact that its some what of a home invasion, but there will be a story behind it, not just random events and people being killed. Unless you have any other ideas or suggestions? you seem to be a lot more knowledgable than me.
 
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I'm more of a story person than a horror person (I only know enough about horror films for casual conversation), and so far for this story I gather kids inside, bad guys outside, some spooking, some slashing, and found footage implies all die.

Anything else?
 
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maybe a twist..on the all dies aspect. but i love telling stories too. this is more of a fun project than a super serious one, I'm also working on a action/sci-fi short, which has a lot to do with character and story, if your interested in reading what i have sometime this weekend once i finish the basis of it?
 
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Sure.
You have a screenwriting program?
Save it as a PDF and upload it to google docs.
We can all take it out to the woodshed and beat it! :)
It's usually brutal, (especially if you resist! :lol: )
 
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hahah, yeah i use final draft 8. I love the program, and i don't know how well this would work, but how could i incorporate custom music and what not into a found footage type film, but still give it that found footage type feel? question sounds stupid i know, but music creates a lot of atmosphere.
 
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Yep.
D@mn near feel it instead of hearing it.

Ever have someone in the car with you determined to engage in a conversation while you have the radio playing, you turn the volume waaaaay down short of off, but then they just keep on blabbin and blabbin and- screwwit, you just turn off the radio off!
Then the car is like... missing something, even though the volume only went from barely on to off.
Still, you notice the background humdrum is absent.
Only the sound of the engine, tires on pavement, and the passenger that won't STFU.

Same thing might be best to handle a found footage project which obviously isn't supposed to be choreographed and scored.

Wha'd they do in CLOVERFIELD? Was that scored?
Yup.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloverfield#Music_and_sound
See how they played that card.
Homework!
(Bummer, dude). :lol:
 
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I'm not really a fan of found footage myself, with a few exceptions. But I do love horror. Here's a twist for you: rather than people filming themselves, do it as a "security camera" type film (though I'm not sure it would work in a regular home). Occasionally have non-found-footage scenes of a mysterious figure watching the security cameras. Make his relationship with the events unclear and unexplained. Is he working with the killer? Is he just there coincidentally? Is he human? Is he somehow controlling things?

That'd give you enough "film excuse" to both use the found footage style and have film conventions, like a musical score. If it worked out, you could conceivably do a whole series of films, all of which this character is watching, not even necessarily all horror/slasher. At the very least it would be a different twist on the found footage thing.
 
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