Since the beginning of this year, I started to plan what I want to do for my Final Major Project. I wanted to do something to end my last year at the college with a bang by creating a horror film. While I was thinking about what I wanted to make for my film, I looked back to an old idea I had from a decade ago about a giant mutated creature that attacks Wales. I was a sucker for monster films from the 1950s and 1960s and I always wanted to create my own. Many monster films I’ve seen as a kid spark my interest in filmmaking ever since I first saw the Original King Kong and the same with the work of Ray Harryhausen. I also started watching other horror and monster films from the work of Roger Corman, Bert I Gordon, and Edward D Wood Jr. Especially, Godzilla and other Kaiju films from the Showa era. When I see some of the monster films, they took place in different countries like Japan, America, Britain, Italy, and France. Which makes me think to myself, what about Wales? There were a few mentions in those films that it takes place in Wales but not too much, the only film I know of, taking place in, is the 1941 horror film from Universal, the Wolf Man, but not an actual kaiju. And this is where my idea for this final major project comes in…….probably.

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My original idea for my final major project is to make a short film on a topic that I personally liked. I reused my old idea from my notebook “The Thing Called Mutant”. I really loved the name of the title and I’m hoping to use it probably for my monster film.

The film was planned to be an experimental rocket returning back to Earth, crash landing in Wales. One of the surviving astronauts gets horribly mutated due to the radiation from Space. He was later transformed into a mutated cephalopod creature that escapes and goes on amuck through the Welsh countryside until his climax in Cardiff City.

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It was very heavily influenced by “The Quatermass Experiment” with its story, but seeing if I can make something new with this project. This is still one of my drafts I’m trying to make it sound more interesting. The same goes for the creature model. It went through many changes from a cephalopod into a humanoid-like reptile. Hoping to see what looks better.

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I don’t really want to see the title “The Thing Called Mutant!” Go to waste for a brief short film. I thought I might rewrite the story and change the titles like “The Thing Called Mutants” until I settle down to “War of the Mutants”. In this new and different draft, I planned this to be more like a homage to the Kaiju films from the Showa Era but to be moved by stop-motion animation. It would be about a prehistoric reptile that has been mutated on the island many years ago after being used as a nuclear testing site, some of the explorers capture the creature and takes them back to civilization. Meanwhile, a mysterious rocket from space crash lands, releasing a giant mutated human creature that attacks people in its path. The Climax would have been two mutated creatures meeting each other and having a massive brawl throughout the city. It’s something to spice up the story to make the film look fun.

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However, after half term, I started constructing the model for the film. I took some test photos for it and I have yet to create a test footage. But it’s very unlikely for me that this project, that I’ve been working on will never happen at the end of the year. This is because, I’ve been working on the dissertation, working with other projects, time and even having some lack of interest. When I wrote the script, hoping to get it made. Unfortunately, after getting some reality checks from the tutors, they wanted to make a short drama that last for six minutes.

There is one script I did type which I’m hoping to make in college, which was a short story from the mind of H P Lovecraft, The Terrible Old Man. But they still want me to type up something original for a six-minute drama. Again, I looked into my notebook and there was one idea I have for a horror slasher film. This idea is called “The Butcher of Cauliway Moor”.  I describe this as a slasher film but taken place in Britain to see what if the Old English Butcher man was a serial killer and sells human meat.

I was considering it at first, but at the time, of making my drama, I decided to use it as my final major project. The Same with the test photos.