Research and Planning

This essay will cover a detailed analysis on Horror Films.

Disturbing and designed to scare and panic the audience, horror films are often entertaining and captivating.  They tend to raise our hidden fears:  vulnerability, fear of death, fear of the unknown, loss of identity, fear of the dark, and my hidden fear – supernatural/occult beings. They commonly include a nail biting finale, which in my opinion causes the film to be more enjoyable, although terrifying!

Different film genres carry specific codes and conventions, which allow each film type to be differentiated from one another. This helps the target audience identify the genre of the film. Every horror film illustrates similar features that set these codes and conventions, however, some attempt to challenge them making the film original. I also think that this causes the film to be unpredictable and more impressive. Nevertheless, I believe that they should be challenged to the extent where these codes and conventions are still visible and the media genre is still recognisable.

There are many aspects of film that create the genre of horror, including the setting, characters and lighting. Settings are important in any media genre as they can instantly convey what is occurring in the film and allows the audience to identify the genre. They also illustrate a specific mood or atmosphere. Often, in horror films, large roomy or spacious environments are used. I believe that this is because it causes the characters to feel more exposed but also allows the characters to explore their surroundings in a more adventurous way and they may have more space to hide. However, some films may invert this and include some scenes in a cramped area. For example, “The Conjuring” (released July 19^th 2013) contained scenes in confined spaces – a wardrobe and parts of an underground basement.

I believe this was effective because some people would have had claustrophobia, and therefore these scenes would have been even more terrifying than a spacious scene. Horrors are also commonly set in rural areas, away from the city, in the middle of nowhere. With this isolation, more chilling and terrifying events can occur where the mass population would be unaware. This is effective since the audience will feel as if the characters are more vulnerable. There is normally an old abandoned house in these isolated areas, which in films containing supernatural/occult beings are a prominent feature in the horror genre. I think the fact that a house is used, enhances the eeriness of the film since everyone can relate to houses and it causes the audience to feel uncomfortable in a place where they are meant to feel safest. Horror movies include a range of other settings, such as forests, churches and other sinister surroundings with the appropriate lighting.

Lighting is used to create a specific mood or tone in the scene. There are many different types of lighting used for different purposes to create a certain impact on the audience.  Horror films usually demonstrate three main types of lighting: Under lighting, Low key lighting and Back lighting.

Under lighting is when the light is being emitted from below the scene and creates a warped effect. This is used to create uncertainty in the audience, as they do not know what is in the dark areas - “fear of the unknown”. Furthermore, we are familiar with light coming from above our heads (light from the sun), rather than below. The use of lighting from beneath confuses our brains and creates fear. In scenes with low key lighting dark shadows are accentuated. This causes the overall atmosphere of the scene to become gloomy and since the subjects are hidden, the viewer may feel more distressed.

 

Back lighting/Rim lighting is when the light is shone from behind the subject creating a silhouette. If a person were to be the subject the back lighting will cause them to be represented as an evil, sinister character due to their hidden identity. Sometimes the lack of light can be considered ineffective as we might not understand what is happening in the shot.

Short Essay
 

Quite commonly in horror movies, there is a constant battle between innocent and evil.  There is always the antagonist who creates the majority of disturbances in the film. The antagonist could be anyone from a supernatural being for instance in “Paranormal Activity” or a deceptive child, for example, the young girl from “Orphan”. These characters are often determined to get revenge, create terror or send a message to the person they are distressing. Some horrors display characters with masks. I believe this can be very effective since it hides the identity of the character and plays on the “fear of the unknown”. In addition, supernatural beings such as demons and witches play on the “fear of unknown” as we do not have definitive proof that they exist. The protagonist is the victim, and is usually innocent. However, some films reveal the protagonist as the antagonist in order to shock the target audience. This is effective as it makes the narrative more interesting as the audience expectations are challenged. Sacrificial Lambs are very common in the Horror genre. These characters play the unfortunate role of the victim to die first. They tend to be female, who is incapable of saving themselves as they are weak and vulnerable. The general use of females as sacrificial lambs emphasizes the traditional representation of the gender. The use of a female dying first is intended to appeal to the male target audience, according to Carol T clover. She suggests that in the early horror films, blonde woman with big breasts and who dressed provocatively were the first to die and it was almost a pleasure for the male audience to see her murdered. Furthermore, these characters were portrayed as dumb and annoying to the point where the audience would want them to be killed. I believe this is effective since it builds tension and suspense in the scenes where the audience anticipate the Sacrificial Lamb’s death. Demonised children in films such as “The Unborn” are another type of character that cause horror films to be more effective. The fact that they are evil contradicts with the innocent and pure nature of a child which is unsettling to the audience.  Originally, the creators of horror films thought about the ethical issues that may be raised when including children in horror movies. They believed that it would be too upsetting for an audience to witness the brutal murder of a child. Therefore they decided instead to make the child possessed which is not as distressing as witnessing the murder of one, however upsetting enough to still make the film scary. There are many other key characters in horror films, such as the Non-believer who is usually a cocky male who is often killed in the film, and the Psychic who is commonly a female and helps the protagonist with the spirits/demons – this character plays an important role in structuring the narrative.

Bibliography

http://www.slideshare.net/04freej/codes-and-conventions-of-horror

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179904/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrificial_lamb

Film Openings

Quantum of Solace

I believe this film was very successful as it included the codes and conventions of an action film while captivating the audience and encouraging them to watch more. Institutional information was included in the beginning with the production company ‘Columbia’ and then merges in with an establishing shot of what appears to be a large scale mountainous island with an ocean/sea surrounding the entire land. The sea could represent being in the ‘deep end’ meaning that what is imminent will be beyond what the audience could imagine. The rigid surface of the region could symbolise the unease of the situation as the camera begins to build speed as it zooms towards the island, in turn building suspense. The music is low paced and classical which also builds suspense as the audience will expect the music to become faster paced as the camera progresses faster. Classical music could also suggest class and affluence and audiences who have seen previous James Bond films will infer that Bond is in the scene.

We first see close ups of an Aston Martin. The audience do not know for sure the identity of the enigmatic character driving this vehicle however the Aston Martin represents wealth. A flash of bullet holders cross the screen for a second which begins to define the genre of the film – action. The use of bullet holders unsettles the audience as it foreshadows death or violence. It could also represent this mysterious character as someone who is in danger or feels unsafe, therefore needs weapons to protect themselves.

There is a highly effective close up shot of the eyes which builds tension. We can tell a lot about a person just judging by their eyes. This character appears calm and someone who is fearless.

Bond is revealed with the damage to the car and the damage could symbolise the damage to bonds conscience. He is wearing a suit which represents him as a suave, sophisticated and affluent man. From here I will consider looking into analysing a horror opening sequence.

The Ring

The mise-en-scene consists of a blonde white female in a white T-shirt who due to her could be considered a sacrificial lamb due to her appearance. The white shirt can represent her as pure and innocent however due to her short skirt this purity is in some way corrupted.  The lack of music helps to build tension in the scene as the silence is enthralling. The conventional use of low key lighting creates a dark atmosphere in the scene and causes the audience to anticipate something horrible to occur. The slow movements of the blonde female also helps to emphasise this as she curiously plugs out the television. The fact that she had bare feet assisted with representing her as vulnerable in turn possibly causing an audience to feel sympathy for her. The use of the 'jump scare' technique at the end of the sequence was really scary in my opinion and the demonic face of the girl helped to emphasise the horror.

Jump Scare: A tactic used in horror movies to scare people.

- www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Jump+Scare

Propp + Todorov

Transcript of Propp & Todorov - Written by Lemar Barrett and Yan Toby-Amisi

PROPP AND TODOROV: Character Profiles and Binary Opposites

Vladimir Propp - His Theory

There are seven character profiles; one is the villain (the bad, bad person, if you don't know what a villain is..), who struggles against our hero, who is our PROTAGONIST. By this logic, the villain is our ANTAGONIST (hence antagonising our hero).

The last 6.

There is the donor (who gives the magic), the helper (think of Alfred for TDKR), the princess (the main girl), the false hero (who's good at first but is actually evil), the dispatcher (M from James Bond?) and finally, the hero, our protagonist.

But how will we know, sir?

It's everywhere! While prominent in superhero genre movies and action movies, they're also in rom-coms and a ton of other things! Do this; watch a movie and try to apply this theory to the characters that you see on screen. It's easy peasy lemon...lemons are very sour. But applying this theory is like applying a fresh juicy mango to your thirsty tongue...

Ummm you promised us Todorov, sir!

Yes, I did, old sport. Now what about Todorov? Ah yes, our dear old friend invented the narrative structure that EVERY (and I mean EVERY) Hollywood follows; watch a movie and try to use the following method to identify what happens to the equilibrium.

Todorov - His Theory

 There is an equilibrium (everything is normal, balanced and generally clam (#casjj)), and then suddenly... a problem/disruption breaks the equilibrium! After this, the characters then realize the problem (called recognition of the disruption), and then they resolve to fix the problem, which is another important plot point. The final link to this theory is the restoration of the equilibrium or a new equilibrium is created (any movie that has had a hero die to save the "World" and then everything is safe after would be a new equilibrium). Some directors choose to change the order of these narrative points to make the film more intriguing and enthralling to an audience!

 Who are these people, Senór Lemar?

Well, I'll tell you, old sport. In the world of film (as well as TV), there is always a character profile and how a story is told through a narrative structure; Todorov and Propp were effective in this method of telling stories. Let's start.

Now, let's do some BINARY OPPOSITES!

Binary Opposites is a term used to describe an opposite to a character profile; for example, if there is a hero in a movie/TV show, there will always be some form of opposition in the form of a villain. Whereas, in a simpler term, the protagonist always has an antagonist to oppose them.

Reflection

From this comic script we have come to the realisation that these theories are very successful in the film industry and should be used in our future sequences. However, in my opinion I think Prop's binary opposites and Todorov's narrative structure should only be used subtly in our horror opening sequence since one could argue these theories have been over used, therefore it may cause our film to grow less believable and more predictable. As the films predictability increases; the level of audience scare decreases, unless their expectations are challenged.

Silent Break - Written by Yan, filmed

 

by Zhavane & edited by Lemar

In this project we wanted to experiment with a more classical editing method; Silent Film, that has over the years seemed to have been shadowed by the introduction of new technologies such as colour in film and advancements to vfx and sfx. These new technologies have allowed filmmakers such as us to create films with greater quality however we felt that this confiscated the authentic feel the film and therefore decided to revisit this obsolete technique by conveying a simple love story in this style. We wanted to test whether emotion could be better when a film a lacks dialogue and to see whether the production could remain as understandable as one with dialogue. Horror films such as Nosferatu and The Man Who Laughs where very successful silent films and can be considered one of the most terrifying of the 20's.

We kept the film black and white, firstly as a tribute to the classic format of the silent film and also to reflect and ideology that we share, 'The world is all without colour and the purpose of life is to find colour'.  Considering the story line was simple and conveyed a situation in which the morality of  the girl's actions were questioned and somewhat seemed wrong, the lack of colour showed the inevitability of her not finding her 'colour'.

In this shot we wanted to create a sense of enigma as to who the girls new boyfriend could be. The darkness of this character is emphasised though the silhouette he adopts in which he is represented as a possible antagonist. Furthermore, the girl is walking from the 'limelight' towards the dark shadowy alleyway which further evokes her corruption and lack of 'colour'. She could be considered a falling angel and the transition from light to dark emphasises this. 

We used the inter titles as another tribute to the classic silent film. This also helps to glue the storyline to the visuals as although there is no sound the text allows for an audience to make greater sense of the narrative. The inter titles also reflect the simple idea that a few words can explain a mass of emotions and complex thoughts that could be diluted by a character speaking, thus making it more harder hitting. Moreover, we dicided to make the typography more simplistic to make it more legible and to further convey the ideology that a few simple words can evince more encapsulating and intellectual.

Overall I believe the silent film genre was quite effective and could be a possible technique to include in our horror opening sequence; considering we have scary music.

Nosferatu (1922): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013442/

The Man Who Laughs (1928): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019130/



Audience Research

Interviews:



From interviewing a random selection of students aged from 15 - 21 we uncovered that the majority preferred to see a 'serial killer' as an antagonist. Therefore we will consider using a serial killer in our final production.


Research on Shot Types:

There are countless shot types that are used in film to create desired effects on an audience, to emphasise different objects or evoke the status of a character. Having an understanding on the impacts of different shot types will allow for our films to have a greater effect on the audience.

There are six generic shot types used in film:

Medium Shot

Close Up

Extreme Close Up

Long Shot

Very Long Shot


Birds Eye Shot:
Usually used to emphasise the focal point and could be considered a shot which causes the characters to be represented a submissive. Also this shot allows to establish setting.





Establishing Shot:
These shots establish the setting and could possibly helps to create a greater sense of verisimilitude or just allow the audience to anticipate what could happen - for instance if the mise-en-scene consists of a rural setting of a field, the audience could infer that the characters may be isolated.





Canted angles:
Canted angles are tilted angles usually used to create a sense of disorientation. This would be effective in a horror film as the audience will feel a sense of unease and unbalance.



There are many other shot types; however I believe these selected ones were shots we will definitely consider in our horror film.



Film Distributors Research

 

From the film distributers association research, we have uncovered the essential need for a certificate for our film. We believe that the general certificate rating of 15 as films could contain 'adult themes, hard drugs, regular use of foul language and limited use of very strong language, strong violence and strong sex references, and nudity without graphic detail.' Moreover we believed that our distributer would be 'Hammer Films'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Board_of_Film_Classification




Hammer Films



 Horror of Dracula: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051554/

The Mummy: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053085/

Fear in the Night: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068577/


Looking at Hammer Films, they seem to evoke the ideology of our group that horror can be induced through anyone; from an obvious antagonist - such as the vampire in Horror of Dracula to a character who you wouldn't expect to be a chaos inducer - such as a disabled man in Fear in the Night.



Storyboard

During The Main Task we created a fairly detailed storyboard of the final version of ParaSight;  and also created a risk assessment form to reduce any chances of injury. We believed this would be essential as we have planned to film at night; 22:30, and planning with a storyboard will allow us to use the time we have effectively. Furthermore, we focused on costume design in the final version to make the film more believable.






Alexandra Palace

We visited Alexandra Palace and listed all the possible settings we could use in the area. We discovered that it was very flexible as we could film numerous different scenes to create different moods and the iconic palace building could further attract our audience.  Once visiting 'Alley Palley' we thought that this could be the ideal place to film with our limited time; as it supported our storyboard to a great extent.