Research and Planning

We first begin with different types of fairy tales that we could adapt, starting with ‘Beauty & the Beast’. ‘Cinderella’, ‘Snow White’, and ‘Goldilocks’. From here we decided upon Little Red Riding Hood.

The fairy tale my group has chosen as a production team is Little Red Riding Hood. We have chosen this and we are going to adapt the story. The story in actual fact was an innocent way of presenting paedophiles raping little kids, so we have decided to really present by using the thriller genre. The thriller genre consists of excitement, suspense and tension as its main elements, in addition to this the primary sub elements are mystery and crime. We felt that the thriller genre and the story go hand in hand; there are many parts of the story where a lot of suspense, excitement and tension have been created. Another thing in which I and my group have decided is that we shall create a trailer.

When allocating roles I was allocated the role of the producer. The role of the producer is to initiate a project and oversees it from the conceptual stage through to completion. As this is my role I will be in charge of making sure we follow story boards. Making sure we have the correct equipment we need i.e. camera, costumes and scripts.

We have decided to keep the same characters, and in their original form. We felt that ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, should be a white girl of about 17 in age. We decided to this because we didn’t want to change the narrative of the play too much, as we aim to adapt the story, we didn’t want to loose the initial storyline. Also when discussing costume, we decided to use a red dress rather than a cape, because we want to modernise the story but still keep the colour red a main theme in the trailer. We decided with the other characters we will keep them the same, because we didn’t want the story line to change too much, we wanted to double the thrill within the story. Rather than using a wolf, we decided to use a witch, the thriller genre aims to heighten suspense and tension and we felt it will be better executed using a witch. Through research I found an adaptation of the story Little Red Riding, whereby the wolf had the power to be human during the day, and through a full moon

By using a non-linear narrative it will heighten suspense and excitement. It will heighten the adrenaline in the audience. It will require them to focus more whilst watching and keep their attention on the screen. We decided to do this because we believed the normal linear narrative will be boring, and will follow the typical conventions of the thriller genre, we believe that the non linear narrative will create more suspense and mystery.

When looking at scripting, we didn’t want it too much dialogue from the characters, we wanted the narrator to narrate the scenes as they go along because we felt the suspense will be more effective that way. We assigned each character important dialogue for the audience to understand the basic narrative of the trailer. We prefer to use a voice over narration because we felt it would be more exciting.

We wanted to modernize Little Red Riding Hood, we decided instead of using a red cape, we would rather use a red dress, we felt that if we did this, we could create more suspense due to the connotations of the colour red. By using the colour red, the audience can establish the characters

status, personality and job. By focusing on costume we aim to modernize the way in which all the character are dressed so the audience can establish the time period of the play. Certain types of costume are identified closely with the individual genres, for example the witch dressed in black.

By manipulating setting the audience will build certain expectations and then the action takes a different turn, in the scene were we have a shadow creeping on the wall and then it turns into a scene were we see the huntsman displaying his strength this will be particularly effective if the setting goes against what we would expect from this genre.

Lighting can aim to give a particular scene a very realistic look or bring out the dramatic nature of it and we associate these different lighting styles with different genres. The use of dim lighting in different scenes will create suspense; the use of luminous colours will create a mythical effect to the scene. Also by highlighting important characters such Red Riding Hood and the Huntsman would draw attention towards them by using a bright light source. Again the connotations that colour carries is an important influence, when using scenes where the witch is in the frame, using darker colours would create a scary effect on the audience, whilst using brighter colour on Red Riding Hood it would have brighter connotations.

When thinking of camera shots, we decided to use a range of shots, such as medium shots, close ups, establishing shots, over the shoulder shots, just to mention a few. We decided to use many shots because we felt to capture the genre it would be best represented by the shots we used. By using a range of distances means there are different emphasis placed on expressions and body language according to the type of shot. Again when using different camera shots we can pay close attention to body language, body language will be a clear indication of how the character feels and what they are thinking. By situating Red Riding Hood in the foreground in the shot we automatically assign her as being important.

We have looked at many different locations which can best create our mythical effect. When looking for locations we decided we wanted to use an older house, whereby it can still have the same spooky effect as a thriller film should have. We also looked at different forest like environments and we have found one in Streatham, with a little pathway similar to the one describe in Little Red Riding Hood.