In preparation for filming, the gang decided it we should bond together over a shopping trip. We still needed supplies and props for our opening.
We ended up only buying a handful of things, but some of them are crucial for our project.
This thing is a curling brush. We sprung for the cheapest one we could find in order to limit our budget. This thing is going to be our murder weapon. The black coloring makes it look even more menacing which is great given its intended purpose.
And this is a mirror. We have like two shots that require a mirror, but we felt it was worth the purchase. It's not a very large mirror, so getting a shot without the camera in it should be easy. If it was too big, the camera would likely appear in the reflection and ruin the shot. It's also black, but that isn't particularly relevant in this instance.
We also bought the ingredients required to make fake blood. I don't have a picture of them, but we did buy them. We got some food coloring, corn syrup, and organic brownie cookies. The last thing was for CJ to eat later.
We also got together a bunch of other props that we already own. We pulled together a bunch of laptops, tablets, and phones for the opening scene where the killer is surrounded by technology. We got CJ's lamp to help us with lighting our shots. We also got some sheets and blankets to block out the windows at our filming location, also to control lighting. We also brought some flashlights (our phones) and a small blanket to manipulate the lighting even further. One of us has fake glasses for the killer to wear, purely for one shot, but it's easy to do so we did it. Our actresses are going to bring some make up for us to use as props as well. Not for usage, merely aesthetics of the scene. Obviously we used a few more things here and there, but these are the most important things we ended up using other than people.
There's been some recent developments in terms of our project. We met up yesterday and our storyboard is finally complete. It doesn't look great but it serves its purpose.
So our storyboard is complete. We might have to change a few shots when filming, but this is essentially what we're going to be doing. I think it's pretty good, but I might be slightly biased.
But wait! There's more. We have a filming location. We're using the house of Sebastian's family member. We only have access to the guest room, but we can easily make that work. Through some set design magic we can make it seem like the two different rooms we need for the opening. There's a hallway we can use too, it's great.
We also got our acting situation in order. We are still using the girl who gets off work at 6:00, but hopefully it's not too big of a deal. The plan is to start filming Saturday and we should have enough time to film everything, but if we don't we'll finish Sunday. After that we get to worry about editing!
I felt now would be a good time to stop talking about bad news and do some research instead. So, I did some research on editing techniques in horror films.
One of the biggest things I got was how important timing is. Obviously this is important in every genre imaginable, but it has to much more refined for horror. According to an article by Videomaker, "suspense is built on the audience's anticipation. A video editor can use the timing and pace of clips to build this anticipation and grow suspense." Our project is a horror film and we're definitely trying to create suspense in the opening. Editing everything together is going to be very important. What stings do we want to use and where do we put them? Do we want this scene to be fast paced or slow and steady? The same article states that "fast paced clips can build dramatic tension, extended uncut clips can be used to grow suspense." What we really want is a nice mix of both to make a truly great movie opening. The article has an entire section on audio as well. I read through it and its mainly about mixing together multiple different tracks and how the process is treated differently for horror. Luckily, I didn't know how to mix audio for other genres so the adjustment should be pretty easy to do.
I also found an article about the actual editing process and how to do it. Create a new project, import your clips, trim them down, etc. It was actually pretty helpful for when we do start editing. We're all novices in that department, so any bit of advice is useful. Here it is if you want to read it yourself.
There really isn't much to find on Google about editing films, much less for the horror genre. The majority of search results are things on slideshare.net and other websites like that that aren't very credible. I think I know what I should be doing for editing, but if I don't Google can't do much for me. My group and I might have to have a movie night where we examine scary movies and the editing techniques involved. I doubt any of us willingly want to do this, but we might have to for the greater good. The editing process is going to be a long one, lots of trial and error. We should learn a decent amount though.
References:
Gates, C. (n.d.). When Editing a Horror Movie or Thriller, Timing is Key. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://www.videomaker.com/article/c3/17056-when-editing-a-horror-movie-or-thriller-timing-is-key
Soriano, R. H. (2017, September 22). How to Edit a Horror Movie. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://itstillworks.com/12557564/how-to-edit-a-horror-movie
Gates, C. (n.d.). When Editing a Horror Movie or Thriller, Timing is Key. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://www.videomaker.com/article/c3/17056-when-editing-a-horror-movie-or-thriller-timing-is-key
Soriano, R. H. (2017, September 22). How to Edit a Horror Movie. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://itstillworks.com/12557564/how-to-edit-a-horror-movieGates, C. (n.d.). When Editing a Horror Movie or Thriller, Timing is Key. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://www.videomaker.com/article/c3/17056-when-editing-a-horror-movie-or-thriller-timing-is-key
Soriano, R. H. (2017, September 22). How to Edit a Horror Movie. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://itstillworks.com/12557564/how-to-edit-a-horror-movieGates, C. (n.d.). When Editing a Horror Movie or Thriller, Timing is Key. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://www.videomaker.com/article/c3/17056-when-editing-a-horror-movie-or-thriller-timing-is-key
Soriano, R. H. (2017, September 22). How to Edit a Horror Movie. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://itstillworks.com/12557564/how-to-edit-a-horror-movieGates, C. (n.d.). When Editing a Horror Movie or Thriller, Timing is Key. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://www.videomaker.com/article/c3/17056-when-editing-a-horror-movie-or-thriller-timing-is-key
Soriano, R. H. (2017, September 22). How to Edit a Horror Movie. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://itstillworks.com/12557564/how-to-edit-a-horror-movieGates, C. (n.d.). When Editing a Horror Movie or Thriller, Timing is Key. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://www.videomaker.com/article/c3/17056-when-editing-a-horror-movie-or-thriller-timing-is-key
Soriano, R. H. (2017, September 22). How to Edit a Horror Movie. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://itstillworks.com/12557564/how-to-edit-a-horror-movieGates, C. (n.d.). When Editing a Horror Movie or Thriller, Timing is Key. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://www.videomaker.com/article/c3/17056-when-editing-a-horror-movie-or-thriller-timing-is-key
Soriano, R. H. (2017, September 22). How to Edit a Horror Movie. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://itstillworks.com/12557564/how-to-edit-a-horror-movieGates, C. (n.d.). When Editing a Horror Movie or Thriller, Timing is Key. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://www.videomaker.com/article/c3/17056-when-editing-a-horror-movie-or-thriller-timing-is-key
Soriano, R. H. (2017, September 22). How to Edit a Horror Movie. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://itstillworks.com/12557564/how-to-edit-a-horror-movieGates, C. (n.d.). When Editing a Horror Movie or Thriller, Timing is Key. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://www.videomaker.com/article/c3/17056-when-editing-a-horror-movie-or-thriller-timing-is-key
Soriano, R. H. (2017, September 22). How to Edit a Horror Movie. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://itstillworks.com/12557564/how-to-edit-a-horror-movieGates, C. (n.d.). When Editing a Horror Movie or Thriller, Timing is Key. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://www.videomaker.com/article/c3/17056-when-editing-a-horror-movie-or-thriller-timing-is-key
Soriano, R. H. (2017, September 22). How to Edit a Horror Movie. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://itstillworks.com/12557564/how-to-edit-a-horror-movieGates, C. (n.d.). When Editing a Horror Movie or Thriller, Timing is Key. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://www.videomaker.com/article/c3/17056-when-editing-a-horror-movie-or-thriller-timing-is-key
Soriano, R. H. (2017, September 22). How to Edit a Horror Movie. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://itstillworks.com/12557564/how-to-edit-a-horror-movie
Well it's only been two days since the last blog, but everything that could've gone wrong did go wrong. Fun times over here.
We already decided to move on from the girl who leaves Wednesday because it simply couldn't work out. We found a new replacement already, but I'm not feeling too confident about it. If we give her the role of the killer she won't have to do too much acting and that might turn out okay. Now the better part, the actress I called a lock can no longer perform in our project. As you can imagine, this is a bit of a problem. We now need another actress to fill in on incredibly short notice. Oh I forgot to mention the replacement we found works until 6:00, so we're going to have to film almost exclusively at night. It being night isn't a problem because we wanted it to look like it was night time, but that's quite the limit to put on filming. It cuts out the majority of the day and the chances a location will let us use their house is much lower when it's dinner time and they're trying to relax.
Speaking of filming locations, the location we had is no longer available. My guess is some parents found out their child said we could borrow their house without the child asking first. And now here we are. We need another actress, possibly two, and a filming location. Our options are limited now that it's so short notice, so this is going to be a struggle.
We've decided we need to start filming by next Saturday, but we have more important things to fix right now. The problem with Saturday is that this actress still gets off work at 6, which means we have to film Saturday night. Saturday night also happens to be Passover, so guess who's busy. I think we've decided I'm going to go to our future location and help set up, but I'll have to leave before we actually begin shooting the opening.
On the bright side, all three of us can get together on Tuesday to finalize the story board. This is the one bit of good news I have though. Actually, the weather is pretty nice right now, so there's that.
We finally got a location to film our project! One of Sebastian's friends is letting us use their house for filming. We really only need a couple of rooms so it should be fine. We're not really going to be showing the exterior which is probably for the best. The house would not look very isolated, which as mentioned earlier is rather important for horror films. I think this location will be more than adequate for what we have in mind and I'm excited to start filming.
As for our acting situation, we also got a second actress. There's a slight problem in that she is going out of town on Wednesday so we'd have to film everything before then. I don't think that's very likely. We're probably going to continue searching for a different actress so we aren't rushed to finish filming. Our second actress should be a lock though. They both seem like decent enough actresses. Not experts, but it's not like we're using an Oscar winner or anything.
Who knew scheduling something that took 5 people, 6 if you count the person lending us the house, was so difficult? We're really struggling to find a date to begin filming. We originally wanted to finish story boarding on Monday and then film the rest of the week, but it looks like that isn't going to happen. Somebody was busy Monday so we had to push planning back to Tuesday. Which means we definitely have to find another actress because we're not filming everything on one day. We can't film Thursday either. We're going to have to figure something out, but it's not looking great. We'll probably work something out, but this scheduling thing is really starting to stress me out.
There have been a few developments since the last time I actually talked about our project. I'm pretty sure we have our actresses selected. Unfortunately, I couldn't play a teenage girl, so we had to find two young ladies to feature in our film opening. They're CJ's friends, but they still have decent enough talent for what we're trying to do. It's not like we can go out there and get a Hollywood actor to star in our project. These two should do just fine with what we need them to do.
We also have a much greater understanding of what our opening is going to cover. It's going to start with a scene where we get to know our main character, Britney. She's a rich teenage girl who is incredibly obsessed with social media and her popularity. We're going to learn all about her and her life through a narration. Britney is a serial killer, but that isn't made clear until later. We're going to be working our credits into this scene and then end it with Britney being blocked by her "friend' on social media. We'll likely use a dolly zoom on Britney's screaming face and then cut to black. This is where the title of our unnamed movie will go. This scene should be 30-45 seconds at most.
The next scene should be the rest of the opening, but we are talking about including a third scene. It will be Tiffany, Britney's friend, being stalked through her house and eventually killed. Britney is the one who murders her, but that won't be known until the very end. The scene will start with Tiffany getting ready to go to bed when a window breaks in the background. She then gets some sort of text from Britney asking if She's okay; Britney just saw her window break. Yes, that idea came from Scream. (Skip to 1:10 for the inspiration)
The rest of the scene will be Tiffany freaking out as she hears someone getting closer to her. She won't know what to do and will be texting Britney for help/advice. Britney will be responding from inside the house and will use the notification sounds from Tiffany's phone to track down her victim. We felt this was a pretty good way to incorporate social media into the plot, one of our goals from the beginning of the project. The scene will then end with Tiffany getting bludgeoned by some sort of make up supplies, maybe a hairdryer. Britney still won't be shown, but something that links back to Britney will be. We were thinking some sort of bracelet that she was seen wearing in the opening scene. This is ideally where our two minutes are up and the opening ends, but CJ wanted to discuss adding a third scene. We'll see how that goes. Remember when I titled a post "Who Needs an Outline?" Turns out we actually did need an outline. I kind of knew this when I wrote that post, but now we actually have one! We should start filming late next week and finish it over spring break. Here's hoping things go according to plans.
References:
Craven, W. (Director). (1996). Scream [Video file]. United States: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Retrieved March 18, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWxSBbBX4fs&ab_channel=Movieclips
Scream (1996). (n.d.). Retrieved March 19, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/
Yesterday, we had meetings in class with other groups. Sebastian, CJ, and I got split into different groups where we gave ideas to others and got feedback on our project. The results were interesting to say the least.
CJ said his group was mostly fine with what we had come up with. They gave us some ideas to improve our project. I don't remember them right now, but you're going to have to believe me. Sebastian's group felt we should make our introduction of the main character shorter. They wanted us to get into the meat of the movie quicker, while using more elements of horror throughout. They also recommended creating a mock draft of the film to see our ideas in action. We're probably going to do that just to see how well our ideas work. I don't know everything that happened here because it wasn't my group, but supposedly they liked some of our ideas, just felt a few things needed to change.
That leaves my group. Boy, was that fun. My group was very against us including a murder in our opening 2 minutes. They were adamant that we should focus on introducing and developing our killer. This is the exact opposite of what Sebastian's group said. I got into a long argument with my group about having a death in our opening. They said it was a really bad idea and argued no other movie did it. Just focus on character development. I said we were developing the character at the beginning, then using the murder to develop some of her tendencies as well as the fact that she's a serial killer. That went back and forth for a good 15 minutes. I don't really know why they were so against the killing taking place, it's definitely going to a point of development for our character. Still annoyed about that as I'm typing this.
When I got two contradicting pieces of advice.
We got some good advice from the group meetings. Sebastian and CJ still really want to include the murder, and so do I. So that's probably still going to happen. My group wanted us to develop why our character was a murderer more than we already did. We might end up doing that. We also got some good advice for our lighting and framing during production.
References:
Silicon Valley [Television series episode]. (2015). In Silicon Valley. HBO.
Yes, this is going up a day later than scheduled, but I was sick yesterday, cut me some slack. Anyways, I researched set design as promised (as well as some misè-en-scene).
One of the biggest things I noticed would have to be how dark and colorless everything is. The color scheme is typically very bland with browns, grays, and dull blues.
Jason from Friday the 13th
Freddy Kreuger from A Nightmare on Elmstreet
Both scenes depicted here use these dull colors that we plan on implementing. Dull colorization is definitely a common trope of the horror genre. It creates a more serious, dark tone than a color scheme that incorporates neon yellow and bright blue.
I found an article by Variety that discussed locations and sets for horror movies. A location manager for AMC, Stephenson Crossley, states that you look for locations to "have a sense of isolation." He often decides on things on hills because they give a scary, foreboding quality. Hills are hard to come by around here, especially hills with houses on them. But, making a house seem isolated and scary is something we can do. The article states that the job of a location manager is to find a place that "will unsettle and disturb." We can't really do that, but we can try our best to create a scene that does so. We plan on using low key lighting to do so. We hope that making the location dark will really add to the creepy vibe we're going for.
References:
Craven, W. (Director), Craven, W. (Writer), & Shaye, R. (Producer). (1984). A nightmare on Elm Street [Video file]. United States: New Line Cinema. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
Cunningham, S. S. (Director), & Miller, V. (Writer). (1980). Friday the 13th [Motion picture on DVD]. United States.
Marsh, C. (2017, June 07). How Locations Can Help Build Terror in Horror Movies. Retrieved March 14, 2018, from http://variety.com/2017/artisans/production/horror-movies-locations-1202456013/
As promised, I did some research on camera movements and composition in the horror genre. The results were not exactly surprising. According to research done by the Tokyo University of Technology and Tokyo Metropolitan University, medium shots are the most used shot with close ups in a close second. "Medium close ups" come in third, and the rest of shots are rather minuscule.
Shot information for horror films.
The thing that sticks out the most would be the incredibly large usage of "handcam" shots, used in films like The Blair Witch Project. This filming technique gives the a production a more amateur feeling as most shots are shaky and seemingly unprofessional. In The Blair Witch Project, the movie is meant to be footage filmed by a group of students who go into the woods to create a documentary. They go missing and the footage is all they leave behind. It's an interesting technique, but it doesn't exactly fit what my group is going for. We plan on using more fixed shots with the occasional use of zooms, pans, and tilts to complement them.
Another common technique is the "dolly shot, first used by Alfred Hitchcock in his film Veritgo. Popsugar states that Hitchcock "hoped to convey the dizzy feeling his main character felt due to his condition." The article even describes how to create the shot, and it's pretty simple.
The dolly zoom in action.
This is probably the most famous dolly zoom of all time. It's from critically acclaimed thriller Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg. The shot is very interesting visually, and does a good job of conveying a dizzy/confused feeling. We might have a good opportunity to implement a shot like this, but I don't know how likely that is. At the moment, there isn't a moment where such a feeling needs to be conveyed. It would be foolish to ram this shot into our film if it doesn't fit the rest of our opening.
Overall, this research isn't incredibly useful. Now I know we don't have to do anything too special in terms of composition. Basic medium shots and close ups are the standard in the horror industry. While I would like to include interesting shots like the dolly zoom, it would need the right situation to be used in. There are more options for interesting shots, so maybe we can end up using some of those.
References:
(n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/
Heimdahl, L., Kanematsu, Y., Tsuruta, N., Motegi, R., Mikami, K., & Kondo, K. (2016). Analysis of Camera Work in Horror Movies. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/127/005/ecp16127005.pdf
Spielberg, S. (Director), & Benchley, P., & Gottlieb, C. (Writers). (1975). Jaws[Video file]. United States: Universal. Retrieved March 11, 2018.
Roschke, R. (2017, September 12). The Mesmerizing Camera Trick That Appears in Hundreds of Movies and TV Shows. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/What-Zoom-Camera-Effect-Use-Horror-Movies-43988328
The Blair Witch Project (1999). (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185937/
The Blair Witch Project (1999). (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185937/
Vertigo (1958). (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052357/
According to my schedule, we were supposed to finish the outline today and begin the story board. That didn't really happen. We still weren't exactly sure what we wanted to do with our film opening. We had one scene down, so we decided to just start the storyboard for that and see where it takes us. We made some decent progress, and the entire first scene is basically complete. There's a few more things we have to add on to the end, and some changes will probably be made.
First page of our storyboard.
This isn't the greatest picture, but I tried my best. The purpose of this scene is to establish the essentials of one of our main characters. She's obsessed with social media, she's popular, and she's incredibly vain. The character, I think we called her Tiffany, is going to be using multiple social media accounts at once, constantly refreshing them. We want to really emphasize how much Tiffany uses social media by how calm she looks managing multiple social media accounts at once. We talked about having some sort of analytics page open on one of the screens to show how much she cares about followers, likes, and things like that.
We also decided on including narration from Tiffany. We think it would give more insight into her as a person. Listening to her thoughts is a pretty good way to figure out what she's all about. It also allows us to give the background for why Tiffany decides to kill her "friend". Tiffany's the murderer by the way. We plan on revealing that at the very end of the opening without actually showing her. There's a bracelet in the story board, that same bracelet is going to be shown as the victim is killed. It makes the audience draw their own conclusions, as obvious as they are, which should get them more invested in the film. Back to the narration. We want the narration to comment on the short comings of vanity and social media's influence on it. We don't have much of it written, but this line gives a decent idea of what we're going for: "Will. He's got 1,000 followers for each ab on his six pack." This is where the satire we were going for comes into play. Tiffany is going to talk about things teens stereotypically talk about, and it's going to be very exaggerated.
We also plan on included the credits via social media posts and notifications. We think that meshes well with our film, so we managed to all agree on it.
I'm back with another blog, and it's only a day behind schedule! I'll try to work on my procrastination by putting up the next blog on time. In fact, I'll try to publish every blog on time. On to the actual blog post. Since the last blog, I've met with my group mates and done research about the horror genre. Understanding a genre is very important if one is trying to satirize said genre.
I'll talk about our group meeting first. We were supposed to work on planning our film opening. That kind of happened; we got a general idea of what the first scene was going to be. Instead we argued some more about what we should do for our project. We made some progress other than the first scene, but not much. Most of the time was spent looking at other films for inspiration. One of the films we looked into wasTragedy Girls. It just happens to be a movie about someone who murders people in relation to social media. Luckily, there are some key differences between our idea and this movie: we only have one killer and the motives are completely different.
It should be noted I haven't seen this movie, only the trailer. This film is a similar idea to what we have in mind, but it definitely has a different goal. It most certainly has a light hearted tone due to all the comedy; we will have satirical elements, but we're still going for a darker atmosphere. I'm just amazed that an idea so similar to ours has nothing in it that I want to build off of. It somehow manages to be completely different to what I picture our project looking like, despite being similar concepts.
As far as genre research goes, I've found some interesting information. I did some research into sub-genres and decided what our movie would fall under. Our film would likely fall under teen-horror which, according to thescriptlab, "often play upon traditional teenage issues, such as dating and prom, and turn them into suspenseful and thrilling situations." I'd argue that's a rather spot on definition for what our film is trying to do.
According to an article by Variety, 60% of the horror movie audience is made up of 15 to 30 year olds. This is pretty good considering our film is based on social media which is mostly a young man's (and woman's) game. Another bit of information from the same article: the audience of horror is made up of 33% more minorities than an average movie. This might cause some issues given our two main characters are probably going to be rich white girls, but plenty of other horror movies have gotten away with this.
Sebastian had wanted to implement some social commentary into our film opening. He said plenty of movies do it, such as The Purge, Get Out, and even Tragedy Girls. I was skeptical of the idea at first, I didn't think it fit a satirical horror. Then I did some research and discovered I was wrong, shocking I know. Mike Epifani, a journalist with plenty of experience in the industry, argues that social commentary is the best genre for social commentary in his article creatively named "Horror is the Best Genre for Social Commentary". His main point is the comparison of successful protests and horror films: both get under your skin and make you uncomfortable. This isn't exactly statistical evidence or a scientific study, but he kind of has a point. After reading the entire article, I've decided Sebastian is on to something. We're probably going to be incorporating some social commentary into our film, here's hoping it goes well.
References:
Buffam, N. (2011, March 26). Horror. Retrieved March 07, 2018, from https://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/990-horror/
Epifani, M. (2017, October 20). Horror is the Best Genre for Social Commentary. Retrieved March 07, 2018, from https://www.heardtell.com/movies-and-tv/horror-best-genre-social-commentary
Get Out (2017). (n.d.). Retrieved March 07, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5052448/
Lang, B. (2016, October 26). Horror Movies Make Tough Times Less Scary for Studios. Retrieved March 07, 2018, from http://variety.com/2016/film/news/horror-movies-1201900551/
The Purge (2013). (n.d.). Retrieved March 07, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2184339/
MacIntyre, T. (Director), & Hill, C. L., MacIntyre, T., & Olson, J. (Writers). (2017). Tragedy Girls[Video file]. Gunpowder & Sky. Retrieved March 7, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GmFP7pfz1U&ab_channel=Gunpowder%26Sky
Tragedy Girls (2017). (n.d.). Retrieved March 07, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3859272/
Epifani, M. (2017, October 20). Horror is the Best Genre for Social Commentary. Retrieved March 07, 2018, from https://www.heardtell.com/movies-and-tv/horror-best-genre-social-commentary
Buffam, N. (2011, March 26). Horror. Retrieved March 07, 2018, from https://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/990-horror/
Get Out (2017). (n.d.). Retrieved March 07, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5052448/
Lang, B. (2016, October 26). Horror Movies Make Tough Times Less Scary for Studios. Retrieved March 07, 2018, from http://variety.com/2016/film/news/horror-movies-1201900551/
The Purge (2013). (n.d.). Retrieved March 07, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2184339/
MacIntyre, T. (Director), & Hill, C. L., MacIntyre, T., & Olson, J. (Writers). (2017). Tragedy Girls[Video file]. Gunpowder & Sky. Retrieved March 7, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GmFP7pfz1U&ab_channel=Gunpowder%26Sky
Tragedy Girls (2017). (n.d.). Retrieved March 07, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3859272/
Now that things are starting to get rolling, I felt it was a good time to plan out these next few weeks. The last thing I want is for us to all scramble to finish our project right before it's due. Obviously every week is going to have at least three blog posts, but getting started on things such as set design and filming needs to happen early. Without further ado, here's the first iteration of the schedule I came up with. I still have to run it by my group and make some adjustments, but for now it will do.
I think this schedule will give us a good pace to follow. It gives plenty of time to plan out the entire film opening so we know what to do when filming comes around. Because we're filming during spring break, we should have plenty of time to capture everything we need and even start the editing process. More than two full weeks is probably going to be more than enough time for the three of us to edit a two minute film opening. A week and a half is a sufficient amount of time for me to write the creative critical reflection (CCR), and it should also give me plenty of time to edit it. If we manage to keep up with this schedule, we'll be in good shape when April 14th comes around. However, the scheduled dates for research and writing blog posts is for me as an individual. Sebastian and CJ can research and create posts whenever they want, as long as it allows us to stay on schedule for the actual project. Rarely do I ever plan things out days in advance, much less often do I plan weeks ahead. This is a new concept for me, and I'm hoping it ends up being successful.
Now that we have an idea, I felt it would be a good time to look at similar films for inspiration. Our movie is going to be a satirical horror film, so I decided to look at a variety of different films that fit this category. I should mention I avoid horror movies like the plague. They're scary, and I don't like scary. But this project is more important than my desire to keep my pants clean. So with that out of the way, let's look at what I found.
The first movie that came to mind was Unfriended, directed by Levan Gabriadze. Here's the trailer for those interested.
This movie has no elements of satire whatsoever, but it's a horror film about social media. It's a very good fit for what my group is trying to do. I really like how the film incorporates images of social media throughout, it's something we should definitely try to do. That being said, a group of people being connected through a Skype call is not something we're trying to do. Our film opening so far is going to focus on two people: the killer and the victim. Much like the killer in Unfriended, our killer's motives are going to be based on social media use. We haven't quite figured out the exact details yet, but we know that the murders are going to be a consequence of what occurs on social media.
The next movie I took a look at was Screamwhich was directed by Wes Craven. This movie is a more traditional horror film. Crazy guy stalks his victims, messes with their heads, then kills them. No social media involved, this was filmed in 1996. But Scream also has a good amount of satire involved. Here's the first five minutes of the film.
It starts off as a rather vanilla horror film, but what interests me the most of this clip is how the tension grows throughout the scene. The opening does such a good job of getting the audience on the edge of its seat. The popcorn on the stove just gets louder and looks like it's about to pop. The anticipation for the pop pairs well with the reveal of the killer. My main goal for this project is to create a sense of anticipation and tension similar to this. But that's not the only thing I really like about this film. The killer happens to be a big fan of horror movies, and it creates a very interesting dynamic. During the first five minutes, the killer frequently references other horror films. He also makes fun of things that always happen in horror films like leaving the relative safety of a home to investigate a strange noise. This satire is something we are definitely trying to accomplish. My goal is to over exaggerate certain characteristics of the horror genre in order to point out their flaws. Scream does this incredibly well, and I can only hope to have a similar effect in my group's film opening.
Obviously there are many other movies that I looked into, but these two are probably going to be the foundations for our project. Neither of them are exactly what I was looking for, but combined they cover a lot and will be very useful when it comes time to plan out our opening. Until next time, which will probably be tomorrow, this is Jacob signing out.
References:
Craven, W. (Director). (1996). Scream[Video file]. United States: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Retrieved March 3, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3lSvJ5RXKA&ab_channel=LittleDarkOne
Scream (1996). (n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/
Gabriadze, L. (Director), & Greaves, N. (Writer). (2015). Unfriended[Video file]. Unvisersal Pictures. Retrieved March 3, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgj4GjqCFlY&ab_channel=UniversalPictures
Unfriended (2014). (n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3713166/
Gabriadze, L. (Director), & Greaves, N. (Writer). (2015). Unfriended[Video file]. Unvisersal Pictures. Retrieved March 3, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgj4GjqCFlY&ab_channel=UniversalPictures
Craven, W. (Director). (1996). Scream[Video file]. United States: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Retrieved March 3, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3lSvJ5RXKA&ab_channel=LittleDarkOne
Scream (1996). (n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/
Unfriended (2014). (n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3713166/
Gabriadze, L. (Director), & Greaves, N. (Writer). (2015). Unfriended[Video file]. Unvisersal Pictures. Retrieved March 3, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgj4GjqCFlY&ab_channel=UniversalPictures
Craven, W. (Director). (1996). Scream[Video file]. United States: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Retrieved March 3, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3lSvJ5RXKA&ab_channel=LittleDarkOne
Scream (1996). (n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/
Unfriended (2014). (n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3713166/
So here we are, the beginning of something new. Hopefully something new that is actually good, but that's not the point of this blog. The blog is here to describe my thoughts and processes as my group mates and I create our film opening. When we were creating groups, however long ago that was, I thought the more people involved the better. There would be less work for everyone and there would be an interesting mix of ideas that could be utilized to create a new project. So, my group was made with three people in it: Sebastian, CJ, and myself.
I very quickly found out there is a negative to having three people in your group. We simply couldn't all agree on an idea. An action movie? We don't have the budget. What about something that incorporates Chinese mise-en-scène? None of us can design good costumes. Some sort of gang related drama? We live in the suburbs so film locations might be an issue. Some sort of dystopian society? A combination of all three previous problems. I suggested doing a comedy, but was quickly shot down because it would be too difficult to incorporate quality technical skills. As you can see, our thoughts were all over the place and we really weren't sure what to do.
It was getting late, so we agreed to a placeholder idea. A horror movie that relates to social media one way or another. It was an incredibly vague idea, but it's the most we could agree on at the time. We called it a night and agreed to discuss it further today.
Once again, tensions were high and arguments were plentiful. Sebastian and CJ really disliked each other's ideas. They were very adamant about telling me that the other person's idea wouldn't work. I was stuck in the middle ground of being partially against both ideas. But I also had a horse in this race, I was advocating for throwing an element of satire into our horror/thriller, but was once again shut down. Lucky for us, I don't give up easily. Eventually we all agreed to the satire, and the ball got rolling on the rest of our project. I don't want to give too much away, but I think our film is going to be rather interesting.
We got off to a rough start, but I think we worked through our issues. Now, the project officially begins.
