Archive for December 2015

Character surveys

Since we have decided to make Plot 3 our focus for our film opening, I decided to do some research on the characters which will be in it.

The Victim

I presented two pictures to some of our friends of me dressed up as a typical final girl, and a typical female victim.

This is me dressed as a typical final girl. Here I have minimal make up, my hair is tied back in a ponytail, minimal mascara, and I have a red dress on.

This is me dressed as a typical female victim. Here. I have my hair down, blue/silver eye shadow, pink lip balm, slightly heavier mascara, eyeliner, plus sunglasses, however I'm still wearing the same red dress.

The Final Girl theory refers to the last woman alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in many films including Alien and Halloween. The term was coined by Carol J.Clover in her 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.

> A common plot line in horror movies is that the killer has a series of victims they'll kill one by one, usually increasing in violence, until the final victim ,which is commonly female, exterminates the killer and/or escapes.

> The Final Girl is most likely to be sexually unavailable or virginal, she also dressed modestly with minimal make-up. According to Clover, she also will have a unisex name like Sidney or Laurie. Sometimes, the final girl will have a previous relationship with the killer. She is also described to be intelligent and vigilant.

> Based on the final girl theory, my expectation was that most people will choose the girl victim image (Picture 2) over Picture 1 when presented with this question:

"Which person, presented in these two images, would you expect to be the first to die in a horror movie?"

However, out of the 8 people I asked, all 8 voted for the Final Girl image as the person they expect to die first in a horror movie.

So, I asked why they would think that (without explaining the theory):

⊙"She looks far too naïve and timid to defend herself against a killer"
⊙"People who wear red normally die first"
⊙ "If there is no connection between the killer and the girl, then it's because she looks the most gullible and easiest to kill"
⊙ "The nice girl would be the most significant death, because the other girl dies in horror movies first all the time."
⊙"It will mean that the killer is more twisted and mentally unstable if he or she kills the nice girl, because she hasn't done anything obviously wrong, (from face value)"
⊙ " Maybe if the killer was a cannibal or something, he or she believes that the 'pure' and 'innocent' taste better than the 'tainted' "
⊙"Just because it would be interesting, and confuse most people as to why the killer would kill an innocent instead of a party girl"

⊙"Perhaps the killer's motives for killing the nice girl are very complicated, like he or she feels that innocent people should be "saved" or something"

Non-diegetic Sound Research

Following my research on the use of sound in film, I've decided to test out some Non-diegetic sounds/soundtracks for our own film opening. Typical non-diegetic sounds found in horror films are dependant on the subgenre the movie is portraying, for example,

The Woman In Black- Gothic Horror

-> Typical Non-Diegetic (ND) sounds include music boxes, xylophones etc.

Jaws- Nature and Animal Horror
-> ND Sounds include a full orchestra i.e the jaws soundtrack has a use of string sections, brass sections, percussion etc. for the full effect.

I've had some practice creating songs/soundtracks last year for GCSE Music, so it seemed easier than editing in stock sounds, as it's more effective.

Here are some examples of movie theme songs which play throughout the movie, and become easily iconic, as sometimes they can be identified by the movie theme song, even without seeing the movie. It is coupled with Diegetic Sound (DS) to create an effective diegesis, so that the movie being presented is believable to audiences.

The movies listed here are:

Dead Silence-2007

The score for Dead Silence was composed by Charlie Clouser. Closer has composed for many movies, some include the score for Saw (2004) and Resident Evil: Extinction.

Jaws-1975

The score for Jaws was composed by American composer, John Williams. This earned him an academy award and ranked 6th on the greatest scores by the American Film Institute.

The main "Shark" theme alternates between two notes, E and F, and F and F-Sharp. John Williams wanted to create a suspenseful mood, and the shark was meant to represent the shark being mindlessly aggressive.

Williams described the theme as "grinding away at you, just as a shark would do, instinctual, relentless, unstoppable."

The piece was performed by tuba player Tommy Johnson. When asked by Johnson why the melody was written in such a high register and not played by the more appropriate French horn, Williams responded that he wanted it to sound "a little more threatening"

The Exorcist- 1973

The most recognisable theme (Tubular Bells) from The Exorcist was composed by Mike Oldfield, which became very popular after it's release.

Other pieces within the score were composed by several other composers such as Lalo Schrifin, who had his working score rejected because it was too scary for audiences due to the combination of sounds and sights.

Psyco-1960

Bernard Hermann was the composer for the main theme in Psycho. He wrote for a string orchestra, rather than a full symphonic ensemble, due to the low-budget of the film. This worked to his advantage, however. He thought that the single tone colour of the stringed instruments reflected the black and white cinematography.

The strings play con sordini (with a muting device placed on top of the strings) for all of the score except the shower scene, which creates a darker and more intense atmosphere.

Halloween-1978

The score for Halloween was composed by Director and Composer, John Carpenter.

The score lacks a symphonic soundtrack, but instead consists of a piano melody played in 10/8 time (or complex 5/4 time). Its simple and unsophisticated, yet it becomes one of the movies strongest aspects.

It took only 3 days for John Carpenter to compose the entire score for Halloween.

Plot Ideas

Now that we have done some research into the horror genre, similar films, and conventions, codes, make-up and costume, we came up with several plot ideas which we've roughly storyboarded.

We decided to keep our plot lines simple, because from our research we found that simpler, straightforward plots were more effective in achieving their given conventions, rather than over complicated plots, or stereotypical ones. From here, we'll ask other people what they think and which is the most popular plot, which will become our final idea.

Plot 1

> Starting with an extreme close up of the eye
>There's a slow zoom out plus increasingly longer snippets of a killing
> When it zooms out to a long shot, there's a woman seen struggling
> The killer kills her, and the sequence ends abruptly.

+This plot is inspired by Psycho (1960)

Plot 2

> This plot involves a baby
> Starts with different shots of a house, plus a nursery
> Shows a close up of a mother humming and rocking a baby cot
> An over-the-shoulder shot from the mother's POV then a pan into the cot, where a baby doll is seen
> Slow zoom in to the doll's face, a baby laugh is heard, then cut to black (The laugh is heard till the end)
+ This plot is inspired by The Woman In Black (2012)

Plot 3

> Close up/ Extreme Close up shots of meat, and blood
> Shots of the person infatuated with the food
> Every so often a muffled sound is heard, but not clear enough for the audience as of yet
>Eventually the scream is heard, then the person stops, (Classical music reaches a climax)
>The person goes down to a basement (or where ever)
> The person drags the screaming person to the kitchen (Screaming person is tied up)
> A mid shot of the kitchen door, then it's closed behind the person.
+ This Plot is inspired by Silence of the Lambs (1991)

In addition to coming up with 3 different ideas, we asked our friends and other people 3 questions about
what they thought of the plots, and their opinions on what we can do to make an effective
horror film opening. Plot 1 had 18% of the vote, Plot 2 had 46% and Plot 3 had 36%

This question was important, as we would like to keep our main plot as simple as possible, because less is more
with Horror movies. Plot 1 was voted as the easiest to carry out with 55% agreeing, followed by plot 3,36%, then plot 2 with 9%. (Partially because of the gothic victorian theme).

For our final question, we asked which one would scare them the most, if it were a real movie. Plot 1 had 18% of the vote, Plot 2 had 36% and Plot 3 had 46%.

Horror movies often utilise colour symbolism (though not very apparent) for a variety of reasons. Whether it's for mise-en-scene or simply just the effect, many of these films rely on colour to evoke a response or emotion from their audience.
The primary colour used is red; a colour symbolising anger, aggression, passion or even the dark image of blood. Red is one of the main symbolic colours used in horror movies, though as seen below, other colours can be used to get the same reactions.

As seen here in "The Masque of the Red Death" (1964) the use of vibrant colours in contrast with the dark nature of the scene creates an obscure and unsettling atmosphere.

Stills from "The Masque of the Red Death" (1964)

Italian filmmaker Dario Argento utilises a wide variety of colour in his films. The trippy and fluorescent use of colour in his movie "Inferno" (1980) stimulates a large number of senses from the audience, and illustrates how vital experimentation with colour can be in a movie.

Stills from "Inferno" (1980)

Though colour is important in film, props are too. Depending on the movie, you'll find that there are an enormous amount of props being used, from Jason's hockey mask to the Gremlins themselves, props cover a large amount of items and can in some movies, be of high significance. Below is a look at the work that went into a few of the animatronics of "The Thing" (2011). Animatronics also count as props, and as you'll see, a lot of work can go into them.

Less extravagant props include Hannibal Lecter's brown asylum mask from The Silence of the Lambs, and any weapons a character may use; such as Jason Voorhees' iconic machete or Freddy Krueger's bladed gloves. Props can either make or break a film in this sense; if badly made, a prop can fail to look realistic and therefore have a weak effect compared to its intent. For example, if a movie produced a film with a blatantly rubber knife, it would be unconvincing to the audience that it could do any real damage; breaking the film.