First taste of filming

My group and I have recently had a taste of what it's going to be like when we actually starting filming our horror trailer. This was done by us using the equipment provided by the media department (e.g. video cameras and tripods) to go out and film some of the scenes used in our story boards (as well as experiment with other shots) just so that we could get a rough understanding of what the trailer could look like and the process of creating it. At first we were rather excited about this since we could get to grips with the technology and how to use it correctly so that we can capture the best shots possible. 

It turns out the filming was more difficult than we anticipated since even though we took a lot of shots and they weren't hard to film the actually end result didn't turn out nearly as good as we thought it would. There are many reasons for this but because of these reasons we now know what we have to avoid so that the trailer is of high quality. The first problem we had was lighting, since we were filming in the morning the lighting was far to bright and didn't give off a scary atmosphere, also when we used electronic lighting there were several instances where the reflections of the ones filming we seen in the windows and it look awful, granted we had a limited time to film the shots so we could shot at night but this was still a valid mistake and our teacher said that "you can use this bright lighting to your advantage since it can create very strong shadows". 

Another mistake we encounter is that a lot the shots consist of to many pans and shots that lasted far too long. The main problem with this is that in most films, pans are useful for establishing the scene/setting, however in a trailer this is not advisable since the shots only last about 2 seconds and there isn't much point of using pans since pans often last a rather long time and when we watched this we could see that it would make the trailer seem incredibly slow, plus often the pans were quite blurry since the camera was constantly moving and couldn't fully focus. To redeem this, our teacher advised us to use more still since we could cut away from different shots much easier and it is easier to focus on a single point which would get rid of blur problems we had with the panning.

The last problem we had with filming was the mise-en-scene. Now this was mainly to do with the fact that were had a limit time to film and couldn't use our desired locations but it still as issue I must address. The mise-en-scene in some scene didn't fit with what we were trying to establish since when taking the shot of the church a car was in the way which was rather distracting and looked out of place and also the shot where we were practicing the blood scene with the sink didn't fit together at all since the sink looked way to modern (since we used the facilities in this school for that since instead of inside of a church) and didn't look the least bit scary, also in that scene we stupidly left the fake blood tube on the side and it was caught in the camera (misplaced prop).

We also had a problem with playing back the record shots from our camera since the camera was automatically set to play back using AVC HD video program. In order to make it possible for use to view our videos on any computer we had to use Transcoding (basically means video conversion) to change the AVC HD settings to Microsoft AVI PAL in order for it took work. To do this we simply had to use Adobe media encoder to Transcode all of our shots in the require format so that it could play back on any computer. In then end even though we ran into a lot of errors and the shots didn't turn out how we wanted them to, we still got a good feel for and understanding of how to use the camera and take the appropriate shots thanks to the feed back we got from the teachers and observing what went wrong in our shots.

Story boarding process

Before starting to create our horror trailer my group and I had to first storyboard how the trailer would play out and how we would show of our film (e.g. showing off the best bits or key scenes). When deciding how the trailer should play out, we had to look at other horror trailers and how they are structured and the techniques they used, after observing various horror trailer (e.g. Grave Encounters, Woman in black, Jeepers creepers 3 etc) we could see that the majority of them used very fast edits with a large variety of shots (roughly 60 for just a minute and a half), fades and text appearing during action sequences. Also it was interesting to see that a lot of the time the trailer weren't shown in a linear fashion (they didn't tell the story from beginning to end) which was mainly because the trailer was to show off the best bits of the film. 


The first stage of creating the storyboards was to highlight the key scenes in our narrative that should be shown in our trailer since they are what we thought to be the best scene and would entice the audience to see the film. After selecting the 10 best scenes we had to decide how they should play out so that it follows the structure of most trailer (i.e showing the narrative in a way that gives the audience a general overview of the plot without giving to much away). This was one of the more difficult step through out the entire process since there were various different ways in which we could portray our narrative and everyone in the group had the own opinion/idea of how the trailer should be structured, plus even though we were heavily influenced by other horror trailers we didn't want to copy them completely and show a lack of originality.


The next step was to decide on each shot that would be used within out trailer. For this exercise the other members of my group were responsible for deciding what the should be in each shot as well as the music/dialogue, the camera movement/edit, and the description of each shot as well as the reason for this type of shot. My job was to draw out each shot based on the description given by my other team members, in total we came up with around 60 shots that would be used in the trailer though admittedly we have may have to create more in case those shots don't fill up the necessary time gap or just aren't enough to make the trailer seem compelling enough. 


Finally I had to draw out each shot. When creating the trailers I had to use quite a lot of template images from the internet in order to draw out how they should look since a lot of the characters movements were from different angles and it's difficult to draw these type of actions from memory. I got the template images from the internet and it made it much easier for me to draw the images accurately, also I had to go over all of my pencil drawings in black fine-liner pen so that I could scan them into the computer and save them as JPEG images so that we had back ups of the images just in case something happened to the originals. 

 

Deciding our Horror title

When creating the title for our horror film myself and the people I were working with came up with 10 potential names for the film. They are: 


. Perdition
. Damnation
. Condemnation
. Destruction
. Malediction
. Domination
. Possession
. Repression
. Profanity
. Absolution 


Each of these film titles have some connection to religion or religious connotations because the film is about devil-ish possession so these title seemed fitting. Also all the titles are simply one word and this is because we thought that one word titles were more powerful that longer ones since some of the scariest titles for horror films have been simply one word (e.g. Halloween, Scream, Psycho, Alien, Carrie etc). In order to decide on which title would be best we had to get audience feed back on what they thought was the best title, so we diced to only had out cards for people to tick, we also put the question on survey monkey to try and increase are overall feedback and have more reliable results (though admittedly I thought that absolution was the best title). 

After tallying up the results it turned out that the top 4 title that the audience chose were: Damnation, Condemnation, Domination and Perdition. In the end we deicide to go with damnation since it got the most votes and personally we thought it best suited the type of film were are going to make. So now that we have chosen a title we also have an easier time on choosing a tag lines but what's different about our tag line is that we can link it to both the meaning of the word to the meaning of the film since most tag lines reflect the film rather than the film title which happens a lot with horror films (e.g. Halloween's tag line is "the night HE came home"). 
 

What makes ‘Halloween 1978’ so scary?

After watching John Carpenter’s Halloween I have chosen it to be the second greatest horror film of all time (next to ‘Alien’) which is quite interesting as it’s a independent film and it has very little blood in it. There are many reasons as to why it is so effective as a horror film but there are three reasons in particular which make Halloween such a scary and effective horror film.

The first factor is the music. The score created for ‘Halloween’ works perfectly for creating tension and suspense throughout the film. This is because the main theme is used constantly through out the film whenever Michael Myers is near or present in the scene, this helps to build tension because the audience knows he’s there. The music itself is very creepy and gradually builds along with the tension it’s creating, also the second piece of music which is used when Michael attacks someone is incredibly creepy and uses high-pitched notes similar to Psycho’s famous ‘Psycho strings).

The second factor is the atmosphere. The film takes place on Halloween night which helps to set the dark and creepy mood of the film, and identify all the iconic imagery and themes associated with Halloween (e.g. jack ‘o’ lanterns, skeletons, death, blood etc). Also the location is rather scary but also rather different to most horror films because it takes place in a quiet neighbour hood which isn’t exactly isolated but it’s not exactly an open environment ether. The neighbour hood setting gives the film a strong sense of realism and helps the audience connect to the film more since they could live in a similar type of location.

The final factor which makes Halloween so scary is the killer ‘Michael Myers’. What makes him such a great killer is that not only is he a human killer (which makes the film seem more realistic), but also his lack of motives or goal which makes him a very unpredictable character. What’s really scary about Michael is firstly the fact that he appears various times with in the film yet we don’t know when he’s going to strike, for instance there is one scene where Michael is standing outside the door and Laurie’s friend has her back turned yet he doesn’t kill her until she gets in the car and he appears out of nowhere. Michael’s appearance is also rather menacing because the mask he wears has a completely blank expression and it makes him look like he has pitch black eyes. Another factor that makes Michael so scary is that he doesn’t say a word. This makes Michael seem like a silent killer and could strike at any time and the only noise he ever makes is his incredibly deep breathing.     

At the end of the day there are various reasons why Halloween is so scary but I believe these three factors are the most important and it's because of these elements that Halloween is considered to be one of the greatest horror films ever, since horror films are about scaring people and let's be honest "every one is entitled to one good scare".

Horror Movie Questionnaire results analysis

In this post I will be showing the result of the on-line questionnaire that I conducted and the result/answers from the questionnaire which can be used to construct the basic elements of my horror movie trailer (e.g. the type of genre, the scariest elements of horror etc) since it will feedback to the general opinions of those who watch horror films.


Question 1 

I was rather surprised with the response to this question since horror films are often viewed as being more male oriented type of film due to the often large amounts of violence and the very often used male gaze. This just goes to show that cinema is no longer a male oriented type of media which shows a great contrast between say 20-30 years ago to now. 












Question 2

I did rather suspect this type of answer since these people are now the right age to watch horror films where as they were previously to young. This helps to narrow down my target audience and understand how I can use various different types of media within the construction of my horror trailer and poster in order to connect more with this particular audience (e.g. posting both my trailer and poster on popular websites like Facebook and twitter etc). 








Question 3

These results show that horror movies aren't something that is view on a regular basis and is more of a cult sensation rather than mainstream viewing. Because of this I have to try and make my trailer stand out so that it can raise awareness about horror films in general but also so that it doesn't get over-shadowed by other horror films or films of other genres.












Question 4

These results have presented me with a very difficult decision since the top rated answers (psychopathic horror and ROM/COM's) are completely different types of film genre and I can try to meet them in the middle since psychopathic horror is often very serious were as ROM/COM's are just for laughs, the decision about which of these genres to use for my trailer will be determined based on the result that will follow. However what's interesting is to see that these days horror films are seen as both very serious but also very funny which is and odd contrast since horror films have got more realistic but also sillier. 


Question 5

I wasn't very surprised about this type of answer since the majority of horror films these days use this type of killer (e.g. paranormal activity, devil etc) which shows that audiences are more inclined to being scare of what cannot be seen or defined. This helps to understand what type of narrative my films show have since this type of killer often plays against the character within the films and makes them act strangely which means that the narrative and tone of this trailer will more than like be a serious one since it's not a case of escaping a killer, it's more about understand what's trying to kill them. 


Question 6

I honestly didn't know what to expect from this answer what scares people can vary greatly depending on the type of person. What these results show is that most people find the tension trumps other aspects of horror films since it helps to put the audience on edge and then when the scare arrives it has more of an impact (e.g. Halloween, pyscho etc). This means that in my trailer have to build the tension through out the viewing of the trailer and the end gives the audience the scary moment which show result in a more powerful scare and help to make my trailer stand out. 


Question 7

This answer seem the most plausible since the main purpose of a horror film is to scare people with the type of chills that are often felt in real life. This means that like with the previous question I have to try and make my trailer as scary as possible since it will entice the viewers and will again help my film to stand out  which will be achieved through the use on tension with the trailer. 












Question 8

This answer plays into the answer to question 6 and this basically means that I need to use the music within my trailer to add to the tension that I will be aiming to achieve. This can be done in various ways (e.g. psycho strings or being non-existent/silent) but I believe the best way to achieve this type of tension is to have the music gradually build as the trailer progress since it will help to tie into the speed of the trailer and it's a technique used within various horror films like Halloween and in my opinion it works very effectively. 




Question 9

This type of answer didn't strike me at all since the previous answers all tie into this type of narrative and often the scariest horror films are based on real life events or have realistic elements to them (e.g. Halloween, Texas chainsaw massacre, psycho etc). This shows that my trailer has to have a sense or realism to it since something supernatural or just plain strange may strike the audience as being out of place or just plain odd which will make it more than likely from them to nor take the trailer seriously.






Question 10 (Final question)  

The purpose of this question to see what I should avoid doing within my trailer in order to make the trailer seem like a serious films rather than a ROM/COM or horror parody. Over the top violence seem like the most likely answer since violence isn't something than is taken as seriously as it was in the past been we have been over exposed to it (relates to the desensitisation theory) and using to much violence can over-shadow the tension and atmosphere that the film has which often makes violent horror films less scary and more like thrillers instead of horror.

Rationale Research

I aim to gather an over view of people’s opinions towards horror films and what they believe makes a good horror film. To do this I will conduct a survey and an interview and these will be used form the majority of my research. From this I will be able to get feedback from people and what they believe makes a good horror film. This will help me to avoid using horror convention that are ether old or just not frightening so that the trailer actually looks like a serious horror film instead of a parody or cheap knock-off . The survey will simply be a set of questions asking people about various factors that link to the majority of horror films like: what makes them scary, how music should be used, the more favourable genre etc. This will help me to get a general idea of what to include in my horror trailer and will more than likely make up the smaller aspects of the trailer rather than using this study as the basis for the trailer.

The purpose of the interview will be to get more in depth answers as to the questions asked in the survey so that I can uses this as a basis to construct the horror trailer around since the answer will help me to better understand what factors help to make horror movies and trailers stand out and actually scare people, and what makes them boring, choppy and poorly received by audiences, as well why these particular conventions work in a certain way and how the effect can be used to my advantage. The people I plan to interview will be those within my school since they are of a specific age group (in this case age17/18) and I can even choose evenly between male and female interviewees which will help to make the results from the interview more fair and reliable as well as being able to get more varied opinions.

Link to my survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9B7N8TX