Main Task- Final Synopsis

My production is called 'The Second Personality' and very much well bases itself on two films, Halloween and Trick or Treat. I watched both of these films and liked them so this is why I decided to try and import ideas from both of these films into my production.

The Narrative

The film will start off in Matt's bedroom where it will show him sleeping, the camera will then cut to the stereo system which will turn on (music starts playing), the camera then cuts back to Matt as he wakes up and makes his way to the en-suite bathroom in his room.

He goes to wash his face and as he stares into the mirror a voice is heard (Matt's Second Personality), he is talking to Matt about how pathetic he is and reminding of memories from school where Tom is bullying him. We then see flash-backs of Matt's life at school.

In these flash-backs it shows Matt getting pushed into the locker and falling to the floor looking both upset and angry. The camera then cuts back to Matt who leaves the bathroom, picks up his bag and makes his way to the kitchen. In the kitchen there is some toast on the surface, and Matt uses a knife to cut the toast, we then see a flash forward of Tom lying dead in a woodland area, he then looks at his watch, puts the knife into his bag and leaves the house.

As Matt walks out of the front door and into the woodland, he starts to hear footsteps behind him, and an over the shoulder shot shows that Tom is walking behind Matt, as he shouts abuse at Matt. Matt then turns around, and at this point his second personality shouts at him, 'Do it Matt'. He puts his hand into his bag, and then the camera shows a close up of Matt's face. A loud scream is heard.

Characters

The main character in my production is called 'Matt' and he is very much well an intertextual reference to Trick or Treats character main character 'Eddie'. Both of the character are into 'Heavy Metal Rock Music' and both have problems with bulling in school. In the film 'Trick or Treat' I like how much it focuses on the main character in the opening two minutes so I will do the same in my production.

The bully in my film is called 'Tom' and he was inspired to me by the characters on Trick and Treat who bully the main character. For this reason I needed the actor of Tom to be tall, as this is how I wanted to establish my character.

The third character in my production is 'Sophia'. She is a typical blonde character who you would expect to see in a horror, and due to her flirting with Tom in the opening scene, to an audience who watch a lot of character they should be able to denote that she will be killed, as for in most horrors the sexually-active blonde always gets killed, almost as a 'punishment'.

Intertextual Reference

My film has a intertextual reference to Trick or Treat for many different reasons. As I have already pointed out, the characters in my film are very much well inspired by the characters in the film Tick or Treat, but this is not the only intertextual reference, the setting of the film, where it starts off in his bedroom was also inspired by Trick or Treat, however we where unable to create some of the mise en scene that Trick or Treat managed to for their film.

My film also has a intertextual reference to one of the scenes in Trick or Treat. In one of the scenes in Trick or Treat, you see the main character smile as the girl hen has a crush on walk towards him, but then a long shot shows her walking past him, and the main character stops smiling. I will re-create this scene in my production.

Fitting our film into it's Genre

As my research has shown me, there are many different ways in which you can make sure that the audience is sure of then genre of your film without you telling them, and I have added in some of these aspects to the opening of my film.

Firstly, because my film is a Slasher, there is a lot of reference to the knife that would be used to kill the victim, infract the opening shot is based around how the main character gets the knife, and where he puts it. Because of the sighting of the knife this tells the audience that my film is a Slasher.

As common conventions of the horror/slasher genre clearly state, if their is a women in the film, who is blonde and sexually active, then it is very likely that this women will be killed by the villain. We use this theory in our film, however the audience do not know yet that she will be killed but there are very strong signifiers telling the audience she will be, because she has annoyed the main character who has a knife, and she is sexually active with his worst enemy.

BBFC Rating for Second Personality

Based on the research I carried out into ratings by BBFC, I think that my whole film would fall under the 15 criteria, because although you do not see it in the first few minutes there will be a lot of violence in my film, and the rating states that only a 15 would get away with showing blood and gore.

As far as sex, nudity and drugs are concerned, there would be no reference to these in my films that would mean that it would have to be looked into.