In Film, we spent the last 7 months working on our Senior Narrative. First, we pitched our longline and ideas to the class for feedback. Then we paired up and wrote a draft of our screenplay. After our table reads we revised and produced a pre-production packet. In the new year, we cast, found, locations, and began filming. For Darya and I, we took about 5 weeks to shoot When a Killer Strikes. Then we spent 4 weeks editing it. Below is everything we produced when creating this EPIC project.

Logline & Synopsis

A house, a group of friends, a killer, who will survive the night? 

Opens at the house, we see Stella standing looking up at the house. Kendall and Chip are unpacking the car and bringing their belongings into the house. Stella walks through the house looking around. She sees antique artifacts, paintings, and pictures. We then cut to them playing games and sitting on the couch. An amber alert pops up on one of their phones that says “Convict escapes from Mimison County Prison.” Group looks at each other and dismisses the alert and continues playing games. After a while we hear a loud crash outside. Chip goes to investigate. The girls hear commotion from outside, but they think it’s just Chip messing with them. They later hear the noise stop, and it’s been quiet for a while so they go outside to go check on him. They find some legs hanging from the roof with blood dripping down the legs into a puddle. It’s Chip. The girls scream and run inside. 

Back inside, the girls lock the doors and go upstairs to a bedroom and hide in a closet. Everything is silent. After a while they decide to emerge from their hiding place and investigate. They start in the living room, they hear tapping on the windows, and a bloody hand reaches out and slams on the window. They scream. They turn to the door as the killer rattles the doorknob. The door doesn’t budge. Then he uses his wrench to break the lock and slowly open the door. Meanwhile the girls run through the kitchen and into the garage, where the car is parked. Stella looks for the keys on the key rack but they’re gone. Kendall tries to hit the garage door button, but it doesn’t work. The lights start flickering and the power goes out, they run to the basement to turn on the generator. As they are running down the stairs, (kendall is running in front), kendall trips and we see the bloody hand dragging her down the stairs. Stella stops in her tracks as she sees the masked killer beating her friend to death with a wrench. 

Stella hears the footsteps coming closer, and runs out of the basement to the kitchen to grab a knife. She hides behind the door and doesn’t hear anything. She goes into the doorway and we see her silhouette and as she turns around the killer is right there. She screams and cuts him, and he stumbles to the ground, Stella kicks him in the head as he tries to reach for her legs and drag her down with him.  Stella uses his stumble to get away, she runs back to the living room and grabs lighter fluid from the fireplace.  She runs outside, pours it on the porch and lights the house up trapping our killer inside. She stumbles out of the house and slowly turns around. We see the reflection of fire on her face and we see her silhouette as the house burns.

Screenplay

Shotlist

Schedule

Stripboard

Reflection

I loved that I learned so many new skills throughout this process. I worked with so many new people and I am excited to continue film work with my Zenith project and my future.

On-Set Gallery