Film Opening Pitch By Rebecca, Rhiannon, Will and Josh

Genre

The genre we have chosen to do is a horror, but we as a group have decided to focus upon the subgenre psychological horror. This is when horror is playing mind games and makes the audience think more about the film. It therefore lets the audience have more interaction with the film and ensures they are engaged throughout.

Target Audience

The primary target audience for horror films are females under 35 and the secondary target audience are males under 35. This shows us the group of people that we need to focus on are typically under the age of 35. When we did some interviews with the target audience most people said that their preferred subgenre was psychological horror, meaning we needed to focus more on this aspect of horror, also many of the people we spoke to said they didn’t really enjoy horrors that are predictable and similar to many other films within the genre. This signifies that we need to be original, creative and unique with our film.

Name

We have decided to call our film ‘Parental Figure’. This is because the main character is supposed to be a respectable and responsible father figure, but he is the complete opposite.

Synopsis

There is a man, called Joel that lives segregated from society because the death of his wife, Alice and daughter, Bonnie, left him depressed and mentally ill. Joel has a flashback of how Alice and Bonnie died at separate times in horrific ways and then we find out that it was actually Joel that killed his daughter and wife but when he realised, it was too late.

Film Opening

The first two minutes is of Joel sitting in the corner of his run-down house, muttering things under his breath. He looks up and sees a girl, who he believes to be is his daughter walking past a door way. She then runs out of the building and he gives pursuit, shouting her name as he goes. She takes him out into the woods to a clearing, where there is a noose hanging from a tree. He then begins to put it around his neck, the screen goes black and fades out whilst the sound of a giggling girl can be heard in the background.

Similar Films

There are numerous films that are like ‘Parental Figure’ such as; Sinister House at the end of the Street Cabin in the woods Mama

Unique Selling Point (USP)

The USP of the film is the storyline itself. This is due to the fact there are not many similar films out there in the genre that contain a similar and twisted storyline such as the one seen in Parental Figure. Throughout the whole film – during the flashbacks, the audience never sees the murderer and so there is plenty of enigma throughout the film from start to finish. The film is not very predictable and so doesn’t follow the typical expectations of a horror film.

Use of Micro Elements

In the film opening we will use micro elements to add to the mood of the film. These elements include; Mise-en-scene Performance of actors Editing Sound

Casting

For the lead role of Joel we aim to have an unkempt male who is of average height and build. This is because the main character is living isolated in the woods and away from civilisation and so has no means of communications with the outside world and necessities such as toiletries. However, in contrast to this for the daughter role of Bonnie she needs to be clean and wearing innocent clothing such as a plain dress. She also needs to be relatively small for her age group, this is to show her vulnerability.