Planning: Initial Ideas

In this task we were asked to write down our initial ideas for a horror movie storyline and title. We wrote down several ideas on some paper in a spider-diagram form with a lot of ideas stemming of it all the way from Aliens to Haunted Houses. We thought of some of the iconic horror movies over the years that had good ideas and wrote some down to use as inspiration.

Once we wrote down a lot of different ideas for what horror movie we could create we picked one that we are going to use. We chose a Haunted/Abandoned house style of movie, as shown in the picture below (circled), where the characters spend the night there and they are killed off one by one mysteriously, we think this is a good first idea.

The working title we have chosen is 'The Last Night'.

Research: Essay: Codes and Conventions in WT, DM and DW

When you watch horror movies there are a lot of different codes and conventions that are used and you may not even realise, you break down these codes and conventions without even thinking about it which is what makes a horror movie as scary as it is.

There are two different types of codes:

Technical Codes:

The technical codes are basically the camera techniques, for example; the different camera shots used, the angles, movements etc. and also it is the titles, editing and sound that are done for effect during a horror film. Technical codes are used to make the film more professional, with a range of different technical codes it feels more professional than if you only used a couple of different technical codes.

Symbolic Codes:

The symbolic code is mainly mise-en-scene, this is the type of costume, make-up, setting and props that the film will include which are used for effect when trying to set the scene for the viewer. An example of this would be if there is a character with make-up to make them look worn-out and clothing that looks very worn also it gives the viewer the impression of what sort of person this character is and makes them think about their background - getting the viewer involved.

Conventions:

What is a convention?
A convention is a set of things that are expected to be seen in your movie and they differ for each genre.
An example of a convention, for a horror film, would be that the victim almost always makes the wrong/stupid decisions such as running upstairs to lock themselves in a bathroom instead of running through the door to safety. Another example would be a glance of hope in a horror movie - victim running away from the killer and they see their car that they can escape in however they trip at the last second and are taken away.

Three Openings

The opening for each of the three movies 'Dead Mary', 'Wrong Turn' and 'Dead Wood' differ slightly however they are pretty much the same with the same effects (use of the same codes throughout).

Wrong Turn:

The film starts with a boy and a girl rock climbing together and the man is taking lead and beats her to the top and tells her to hurry up then all of a sudden the man is hit and knocked out then the woman sees him thrown over the edge to his death. The woman is then made the main victim and is chased down, as she tries to escape she runs through disorientating trees with maniacal laughter following her and she trips over to then look up and see her car with a sense of freedom but is then dragged out of shot by the maniacal killer.

Dead Wood:

At the start of the movie there is a calm and relaxing shot of the woods then a sudden jump scare happens when the man puts his foot in a puddle as he is running away, through the wooded area, from the attacker. The man then finally reaches what he thinks is his camp to become safe again but comes to a small cliff between him and his camp site, there is a false sense of freedom as he attempts to jump across the gap but falls short and falls down to his death.

Dead Mary:

The film opening starts with shots of the sign with how far the gas station is away and gives us a hint as to what is going on when the shot cuts to the woman in the car with her feet up on the door window feeling relaxed and in control, then there is a shot of the car from inside the woods almost like a P.O.V of someone looking at her. She tries to look at her phone but there is no signal and then tries the radio and again she cannot get signal - giving a sense of being secluded and in danger without anyone around to help if needed. Then the woman looks in the glove draw and finds a flare gun which signals that she may need to use this later in the movie (foreshadowing), she may be in danger. There is then a shot of a figure walking towards the car, very blurred, so the audience doesn't know who it is and there is a fake jump as he puts down the gas canisters.

The use of editing is done extremely well in all three of the horror openings. The opening to the film 'Wrong Turn' is a great example of how editing is used for effect on the audience, right at the start when the boy and girl are talking to each other the cuts are very slow mainly showing each of the characters faces as they are not yet in danger, then as it caries on and the man is hit and thrown off the edge the cuts get quicker and quicker and the camera shots vary from close ups to long shots but very fast to give a sense of danger and it being very intense. The next opening of 'Dead Mary' is very different when it comes to the editing of the opening - the editing is all at the same speed as there is no sudden sense of danger and she is still in control for the whole of the opening and she has no idea that there is any danger. There are a few edits of her checking her phone and playing with the radio etc. but other than that there are no techniques used by the editors to try and tell the audience there is some sort of danger. The last film being 'Dead Wood', this film opening uses editing techniques very similar to 'Wrong Turn'. The opening starts off with a very slow shot that is very long across the forest to tell the audience where they are located then when the victim splashes in the puddle as he making his get away the editing of the shots get faster and faster to try and let the audience know he is in huge danger and the killer is getting closer and closer.

The camera movement that is used for all three of these film openings are great and are used to create great effect. The opening for 'Dead Wood' and 'Wrong Turn' both have crane shots at the beginning with very slow panning shots of the characters location, both in the woods - a very secluded location. This first shot gives the audience a feeling of the unknown and uncertainty then suddenly the shot for 'Dead Wood' become very shaky following the victim through the woods as he tries to escape the crazed killer. With the 'Wrong Turn' opening it is very similar as it also begins with a crane shot that shows the location they are at (which is also a secluded location, a forest) then the camera slowly comes down to show the boy and girl rock climbing together from above as they have no power - this is a establishing shot because it shows the audience the location where all of the horror will take place shortly. Throughout the opening the shots vary from close ups of each of the characters to long shots of the whole rock climbing wall - most of the shots are from above the characters because they have no power. For 'Dead Mary' the shots were all very much the same with a range of long shots and close ups, because no action happens at the start there is not a range of camera movement that needs to happen to create effect.

All three of the horror film openings make use of convention very well. The first convention that I will be talking about is that the victim almost makes it to safety - when the girl who was rock climbing with her male friend was killed and thrown over the edge in a desperate attempt to escape she cuts herself free and runs towards her car to make the escape, she was very close to her car and she saw a glimpse of it before being tripped by a trip-wire and dragged away almost making it to safety. Then there is a shot of the car before cutting away to signify again how close she was to making it to safety. The same convention happens in the opening of 'Dead Wood' but this time with a male victim, he is running through the disorientating woods trying to escape the crazed killer. He actually trips over whilst trying to escape however he recovers but comes to an even bigger obstacle which is a big jump to make it to safety which is his camp site, he is so close and takes a minute to prepare himself before making the jump - he takes the jump and is extremely close but hangs off the edge and there is a camera shot P.O.V of him looking at his tent to emphasise how close he really is to life but death is waiting below him as he falls down. This convention is used in most horror movies mainly because it goes hand-in-hand with another convention which is death in the first 5 minutes, people use this to create tension and suspense for the audience as the film goes on. The 'Dead Mary' film opening does not have this convention however.

The next convention I will be talking about is that the victim is always a female who relies on a male who is with them. In 'Wrong Turn' the male and his female friend go rock climbing and the male reaches the top with no problem as he is made out to be much more capable than the woman and she is not strong enough and cannot look after herself, as she calls for the male to pull her up to the top because she cannot make it. The male declines and does not pull her up seeming extremely cocky but is then thrown off the edge to his death by the maniacal killer and all of a sudden she is stuck hanging in a vulnerable position for the killer to get her. In 'Dead Mary' the female is alone in a car and she is a vulnerable position as there is absolutely no way that she could get any help if she was to be attacked and this convention is linked with another convention which is that she checks her phone for signal and there is none - she tries her hardest to get some signal by waving it in the air but there is no luck and throws it away on to the dashboard in annoyance. This reinforces that she has no one around to help her out if she is in trouble. As the female usually has a male that they rely on the male returns to the car with petrol and saves the day essentially as she now has someone to help her and she can leave this mysterious place. In the 'Dead Wood' opening the female is also reliant on the male - after he is killed she comes out of her tent shouting his name and there is no answer and suddenly she is alone and vulnerable - the audience now know she is made a victim because she is seen as weak and defenceless. Woman are generally used as victims are they are seen as weaker and more vulnerable than men. Audiences are more likely to root for a female victim because they are seen as incapable to perform when needed to defend themselves - the audience want to see the female succeed.

A symbolic code I am going to be talking about is make-up. In 'Dead Wood' the male has large visible signs of blood on his face and rips in his clothes showing that he has already encountered violence beforehand and is being chased by whatever made him look like that. Then in 'Wrong Turn' there is make-up when the woman realises her male partner is dead is when blood drips onto her face from his dead corpse and this gives the audience the impression that something dangerous and threatening is chasing them. In 'Dead Mary' there is no blood at all because nothing happens at the start which is violent.

Another symbolic code I am going to be talking about is the way that the females are dressed in these film openings. In 'Dead Wood' the female is wearing full black clothing which is the colour for death in my opinion. She is also wearing a knee length skirt with a hole I the front and back with high heeled boots - these clothing items are not camping clothing. The place of the couples tent is on an edge that she would need better clothing to get past and she would definitely need better clothing if she knew there was a blood thirsty killer after her. The male is wearing a colourful shirt and no appropriate clothing for camping either which shows they are inexperienced with the camping scene and this may be why they are targeted by the killer. In 'Wrong Turn' the female is wearing quite exposing clothing and not good enough clothing for her to withstand any attacks that may come her way which the audience know is coming. Her clothing symbolises how exposed she is to danger and that she will soon face it. In 'Dead Mary' the female is wearing a blue vest top which is very exposing and she is also not wearing any shoes or socks and this symbolises that she is not expecting an attack and if there was one then she would have no chance of escaping her predator.

Overall, I think that 'Wrong Turn' is uses the most technical/symbolic codes and conventions - during the opening credits we hear all sorts of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds that give us a feel of the sort of movie that the audience are watching. 'Wrong Turn' also does a very good job with the symbolic codes and mise-en-scene with the make-up and costumes and they link very well with the conventions that are used in the opening such as the female victim and the victim almost making it to safety etc. 'Wrong Turn' also uses a forest as the location for this horror movie and I think this was a good idea because a forest is a very secluded location and there is very limited help that is available if there was any problems. 'Wrong Turn' also does a very good job with the camera movement, the use of the different shots makes it very good because it gives a feel of where they are and that they really are helpless. The editing is also done very well with these camera shots as the shots are very shaky go well with fast cuts building up adrenaline and making it very intense throughout the opening as the characters are more and more in danger until they are captured by the unknown enemy. In conclusion, I think that 'Wrong Turn' uses a lot of the better technical and symbolic codes and conventions throughout their opening to create the horrifying effect they are trying to create for the audience in the first minutes of the film to really draw in the audience to the film and make them interested to see the rest of the film.

Research: Codes and Conventions in Existing Teen Horror Film Openings

Please find below the title of the essay you need to complete by 3pm on XXX. This essay will be valuable for your planning and evaluation.

• This essay should be done as a post to your blog. You can, if you wish, punctuate your essay with screen shots from the openings.
• The word count should be targeted at 750 words
• You should select appropriate examples from the openings to illustrate the points that you make. You do not have to write about everything that you see and hear.

Analyse the codes and conventions of horror films as shown in the openings of 'Dead Wood', 'Dead Mary' and 'Wrong Turn'.

Research : Codes and Conventions of Existing Teen Horror Film Openings (Wrong Turn)

The opening of 'Wrong Turn' which we have analysed in class.

Research : Codes and Conventions of Existing Teen Horror Film Openings (Dead Mary)

The opening of 'Dead Mary' for you to analyse.

Research : Codes and Conventions of Existing Teen Horror Film Openings (Dead Wood)

The opening to 'Dead Wood' for you to analyse.

Research: Conventions Commonly Found In Horror Films

Secluded Location

Horror movies generally set in a location where they is no one around to help them. For example; the woods, a ghost town and an abandoned amusement park.

This is done to make it feel much scarier because with no one to help you it makes you feel much more on edge.

Characters Forget About Threat

Characters in horror movies always seem to forget about their threat, many times during horror films the characters conveniently put it out of their minds that there is danger, death or worse and people are telling them about it or they know it. For example someone telling the campers that a psychopath kills all campers in the area but they put the threat out of their mind and camp there anyway.

Power Cut

During a horror film there is almost always a power cut that takes place and usually at the scariest moment of the film. The lights suddenly go out and suddenly the characters are at risk making it very scary.

Phone Lines Are Cut

To go along with the power being cut the killers also cut the phone lines most of the time, making it very scary because the victim has no way to seek the help they need whilst the killer is hunting them down. 

Someone Investigates A Strange Noise

This is most annoying to watch features of any horror film in my opinion. Instead of a character doing what any other normal human would do (get out of there as quick as you can), they decide to look for what is causing the strange noise and this leads them straight to death.

Someone Runs Upstairs Instead Of Outside

This one links to the one before about investigating a strange noise, it is again a very stupid decision that characters in horror films always seem to make. Instead of a victim running out of the door to potential freedom and safety they instead decide to run up their stairs into a room and lock themselves in, with no escape.

Victim Cowers In Front Of a Window Or Door

A classic in horror movies is that the victim seems to always cower in front of a window or a door (something easily smash able). When the victim hides in front or a window or a door the killer seems to know where they are and smash through grabbing the victim, a jump scare. Or the victim looks out a window (car windows also) and they see nothing but when they turn away the killer pops up and smashes through.

Victim Inexplicably Falls Over

Victims seem to fall over the stupidest stuff at the stupidest time and instead of getting back up they seem to do some stupid crawl to get away from their killer which is pointless and basically asking to be killed.

Vehicle Won't Start

Vehicles wont start when they need it to the most, I bet the vehicle was working perfectly fine before this day and suddenly your car is rubbish and is trying to get you killed.

The Fake Scare

A fake scare is one of the most over-used conventions in horror films. This is a scare that is not related to the original threat. For example; a friend jumping out, a door slamming and someone looking into a mirror. Very easy to do but very simple and effective to scare your audience.

Warning Goes Unheeded

It is apparently human nature to go where one is told not to go and do what you advised not to do. This is achieved in many ways, for example; dreaming about something bad happening at a place you don't want to go but you go anyway, people tell you that there is a psychopath on the loose in the woods but you still decide to camp there.

Someone Is Killed In The First 5 Minutes

This isn't really a bad thing but it happens in nearly every single horror movie. When this is well done like in movies such as; Jaws, House, Halloween or Scream its used to set the mood of the rest of the film and can be very effective.

Flash Backs/Forwards

This is usually at the start of the movie setting up the events that happened before the main story such as the first minutes of Halloween or The Descent. Or even a film where we see the latter effects of an incident that will happen after the main story in the film. This is used nicely in a lot of horror films because you do not know if its before or after and keeps you guessing.

The Stormy Night

Since the days of Victorian Horror and even before (Dracula) this has been one of the horror genre's most overused clichés. It is used in horror films because in your childhood you were most likely scared of thunder or lightning and rain creates atmosphere.

The Short Cut

Instead of taking the nicely lit up road ahead which will take an hour you instead take the route that will take considerably shorter but is rumoured to have killers lurking throughout and also it is very dark and very dangerous but still the character still decides on the short cut instead of the longer route.

Research : A Timeline History of Horror Films

Click here to go to the website that gives you all information about all of the horror films from each generation.

As shown here the website gives information from all the way back in the 1890s. This particular sector gives you information from generations 1890-1920.

This next pictures shows that the website goes up generation by generation covering them all, this one showing the 1980s.

This last picture is showing that the website gives information for each generation all the way up until the latest finished generation which is the 2000s.

Research: Thinking About Fear

We were asked to get into groups and write down on some paper our worst fears. We also had to write down the reason why we are scared of these things. Then we also have to write down how these fears came about, for example if you had some dramatic experience with these fears (seeing a ghost and now you have a fear of them) .

The purpose of this research into what different people have fears off helps out a lot. We can use these fears for our main task which is the opening two minutes of a horror movie. These fears that have been put down by my group have been seen a lot in horror movies. Using this research we can find out what people are scared off and use this as inspiration for our coursework.

Research: The History of Horror Films : A Journey Through Time

The Exorcist (1973)

The Exorcist was voted 'the scariest movie of all time' by the Total Film magazine in October 1999. The special effects for this movie were created mechanically on set instead of from post-production, even good to todays standards.
This movie is seen as a landmark of the genre and is now an undisputed classic, banned from video release in the UK until 1999.
Said by the Daily Mail it is "the most shocking, sick-making and soul destroying work ever to emerge from filmland".
Nominated for 10 oscars, won 2. (Best sound, best adapted screenplay).

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

From the very first seconds of this movie the watchers were exposed to flashed images of decomposing flesh. An extremely gory film.

After the first five minutes the rest of the movie involves a slow, measures descent into the madness of the sawyer family and culminates in a final ten minute torture and terror, largely round the dinner table.
Domestic violence gets
extreme.














Jaws (1975)

From the most scariest film of all time to the most popular film of all time, Jaws.
It was filmed and edited in just 23 days.
Based on best selling novel of the same name, written by Peter Benchley.
Main plot - big shark chews up skinny-dipping teenagers who scream a lot, the adults trying to solve the problem start having affairs with each other.
First film to exceed $100M in box office receipts. Budget of $12M and an overall gross of over $400M
So scary because the thought that it could happen to them. Not so scary nowadays as it is very unrealistic.

Carrie (1976)

Starts off like the movie is a 'teen makeover romance' where the ugliest girl in the school only needs a new dress and a visit to the salon to suddenly date the prom king and to find out her school isn't had after all.

After a voyeuristic opening, Carrie White found herself naked in the shower menstruating for the first time being pelted with tampons by her classmates shouting "Plug it up!"

Carrie has telekinetic powers. She just wanted to be loved.

She sorted herself out and went to the prom and even got elected prom king and queen, and for this moment it looked like she may be able to put her weird background behind her. But then Chris and Billy disrupt the carefully laid genre of high school romance with a bucket of pigs blood on her head.

The final third of the film is grotesque to the extreme - gallons of blood, fire, destruction of ALL characters (even the ones we thought were quite nice), chaos, flying knives and of course the oft-copied-never-equalled final shot.
Carrie was a great success at the box office. Oscar nominations for Spacek and Laurie and Spacek won the Golden globe for the iconoclastic portrayal of an unwilling and very female monster.

Halloween (1978)

Low budget ($325,000) masterpiece.
Teenage babysitter tries to escape the attention of a rampaging serial killer.
Greatest horror icons, Michael Myers is the killer. Face slowly lurks from the shadows and he lurks around.

Main Task Set Brief

The titles and opening of a new teen horror film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Continuity is the idea of a continuous scene or concept where everything must be correct. For instance clothing, and location must not change throughout the scene to create an effective continuous scene.

Match on action is a cut which splices two different views of the same action together at the same moment in the movement, making it seem to continue interrupted.

Shot/reverse shot is most commonly used within conversations, when two characters are speaking the camera will jump back and forth in time with the speaker.

180 Degree Rule is when filming you shouldn't cross the 180 degree line, otherwise the shot will be unclear.

Pre-Production

At the start of the pre-production we talked as a group and wrote down our initial thoughts for good ideas for this task, simply writing them down on an A3 piece of paper as shown here.

Right away we had a relatively good idea of how we were going to set this out with a good range of camera shots such as; establishing shot, mid shots, P.O.V shots, match on action and shot/reverse shot. Soon after our first draft for our ideas on this task we went back over it and refined it, bringing in new ideas for camera shots and camera movements that could be implemented into the task to make it better and more professional such as panning movement and tracking shots.

Once we felt that we had the a good layout of what it is we wanted to do with this task we started to create a storyboard, storyboards are extremely helpful because they tell you exactly what you clips you need to film with a lot of information on them such as the camera shots and camera movements needed, if it was interior or exterior, the location of the shot and brief notes of what the shot is about and what will happen in it; this is very helpful because you can think about it before the filming of your clips - adding many more techniques beforehand than you would think of if you were to make it up as you go along.

Overall, having a pre-production where we wrote down some initial thoughts, refined them and put them into a storyboard helped very much because it gives us an idea of what we want to do with the task (including many more techniques and making sure everything is right) instead of just filming the clips and thinking about them on the spot with much less thought meaning less techniques and a worse production.

Here is an example of one of the storyboards that me and my team did before the filming of the Preliminary Task. As shown in the picture, it includes all of the necessary information that we needed during the filming of the clips in this storyboard so we could simply follow the several storyboards that we created beforehand to film each clip much quicker, and with much more detail and many more techniques.

Production

Once we started to film the clips for our Preliminary Task we thought that it would be extremely easy to simply follow our storyboards that we did beforehand and they did help significantly throughout the filming of this task. However, whilst following the storyboard we had very good ideas in my opinion but without the right equipment and time we found that it was very difficult to get the perfect clips. For example, the day we decided to film our clips it was extremely windy and with the use of just an iPad and no stand getting the panning shot of the school from left to right was very difficult as it was impossible to get a steady and clear image throughout the pan.

Also, during the filming of our clips there are little things that we did not realise such as reflections and shadows of the camera or other members of the team. To prevent this we need to make sure that for the next task we film every clip more than once and then pick out the best one, or simply try to record the clips at a different time of day to prevent shadows etc.

Here is a picture from a clip we got in the task of a P.O.V shot where our actor walks towards the building. You can clearly see the iPad shadow in this picture - this makes the film look extremely tacky and unprofessional.

Overall, I feel that the production of the Preliminary Task went pretty well with good ideas from the start, however we just needed the right equipment to make it look good. With just the use of an iPad to film the whole thing it was very difficult. I have learnt from this task that we need to film every clip several times then pick out the best one, this helps because if we just film one clip for each scene we are stuck with that clip unless we go out and film it again, it would be much easier to film several at once then we will not be stuck with one bad clip. In the next task we need to try and use some better filming equipment, make sure that there are no shadows or reflections and to make sure we film each clip several times.

Post-Production

After we had finished getting our clips that we needed for our film we started to put the clips we got together and picked out the best clip for each scene to edit with. The ones with bad lighting, bad shadowing and unplanned events etc. For the editing process I used iMovie; as shown in the pictures below.

Firstly I imported my movie clips into iMovie, as shown below, for me to edit into my movie.

Once the clips have been imported I dragged the clips I wanted to use into the timeline on iMovie in shot number for me to then.

Once on the timeline the raw footage is not changed but the footage on the timeline can be. As shown below you can shorten a clip by simply dragging the sides and playing the footage until it is suitable.

When I was happy with the order and size of my clips etc I added music over the top of the movie. You can simply import music that you have on iTunes or on your computer into iMovie for use and you can also fade the music to make it nicer if it slowly comes to an end instead of suddenly stops.

At the end I added a "title" to my movie. The "title" I decided to add was some simple scrolling credits at the end of the movie. Again, very simple to do; just click the title tab and title you want and drag it onto the timeline.

Evaluation

Here is "The Joke" as a final product. In my opinion, for a first preliminary task, I think that it went very well. We thought of some good ideas from the start, we filmed the clips without many issues at all and it was overall pretty good. It didn't take very long to film because the planning was very good and detailed. On the other hand, there are some problems that need to be sorted out for the next task.

The first problem I found, right from the start, is that we definitely need to film clips more times instead of just one of twice so we have more clips to choose from when editing. Some example of this would be the first clip of the movie (the panning shot from left to right of the building), this clip is very fast and shaky which makes it look unprofessional and basically bad - if we filmed this clip several times then I guarantee we would have gotten a better panning shot to pick from.
Another example would be when filming a P.O.V shot of our actor walking into the main building you can see the shadow of the camera, which could be prevented if we took more time to sort it out.

Overall, I feel like this was a very good first task for me. The planning and filming went to plan and we knew exactly what we wanted to do to make the best movie we could with the right camera shots/movements and ideas. Next time there are a few things that we need to look at when making it better, but this was a good first try in my opinion.