Influences on our film: Setting, Time, Other films

Our initial plan for the film was for it to be set in two main locations of a mental asylum, and a forest, and the plan was for the film to switch between the two settings through flashbacks. However, after some deliberation, we decided the opening sequence would be held in a 'mental asylum' mainly, which we will create our self from an empty room, and will have short snippets of the girls childhood, in a garden. These images show the sort of ideas which have influenced us in choosing the setting of a Mental Asylum.

However, there are going to be two views of the room in which the girl is in in the opening sequence, one as an every day psychiatric hospital room, matched with the same room looking similar to the images above. The aim of this is to show the target audience two sides of the girls mind, how one side of her is completely normal and regular and the other is inane and dark. The fact that the opening sequence is going to be flashing between the two settings will create enigmatic ideas for the audience. 

This is an example of how we want our 'regular', 'every-day' hospital to look like. Even though this looks extremely awful for an every-day hospital, this fits in with our film being set in the 70's and contextually, the lifestyle and standards in psychiatric wards were not very good, and they were treated very badly, which is what we want to get across in our opening sequence: that the life of this girl was faced with constant neglection no matter where she went.

We want the lighting of the room to be extremely low-key and dark, to reflect the neglect which the child has faced. It will also reflect all of the darkness and pain which she has gone through and will immediately make the audience feel sorry for her before making a judgement on her darker side: they might simply feel sorry for her. However, they will then question the girl when they see her in a more disturbing setting and think that she deserves to be neglected if she is locked up and she is a danger.

Because the film is set in the 70's, there are many props that we have taken from the 70's fashions and want to use them in the settings of our opening sequence. 

The use of props like this will show the audience what time the film is set in due to the associations which surround the props and they will establish that the film is set in the 1970's. It adds to the feeling of the film being an old fashioned horror film which explores psychological films: the fact its set in the 70's makes it more of a enigmatic film to the target audience as the time and themes together add to the sense of horror. 

Other films influences

There are also many other films which have influenced our idea for our opening sequence such as "Girl, Interrupted", the Ring, Insidious and the Blair Witch Project. Each of the films involve some aspect which we have taken inspiration from whether its setting, costume or even certain lighting and sounds. For example, in Girl, Interrupted, the setting is a mental asylum, which obviously we have taken influence from, Additionally, the film also explores psychological themes which shows there are some similarities between that film and our opening sequence, which is why I did my research into that film specifically. The images to the right are taken from the movie itself "girl interrupted" and they both reflect our idea of the mental asylum which we want to appear in opening sequence. It was also set in the 70's which shows how the setting should look in that time period, rather unclean and majorly lacking luxuries.