Summer Research - Jennifer

The conventions of horror

Horror film conventions can be divided into different types of horror. Depending on the nature of the film, there are conventions that it follows. For example, a ‘slasher’ film involves a psychopathic killer, who stalks and kills a order of victims in a violent manner. Whereas ‘zombies’ are usually portrayed as corpse or mindless human beings.

Sub-genres of the horror genre-

<      Vampire

        Slasher

        Thriller

        Monster

        Splatter

        J-Horror

<!    Zombie

p     Psychological  

Three different horror films

Antichrist- I believe this is a film, which plumbs new depths of sexual explicitness, unbearable violence. The film was given an 18 certificate however, I was shocked to see that some of the scenes in the film were too explicit. 

Of all the horror film icons, Jason is a name my parents remembered from their childhood. The idea of making the franchise in 2009 was a good idea. Jason returns once again, still angry, killing everyone in his path.

From what I have seen, The Strangers is a terrifying suspense thriller, with gripping tension.

A horror film director- John Carpenter – American film director

Director of Halloween (1978) Slasher genre

He used incidental music, good camera shots such as high and low angle shots, close ups and extreme. He helped with audience awareness, also used the famous character Mike Myers as a male gaze.

Conventions of horror film teaser trailers

A teaser trailer is a very little story line and plot is given away in advance before the actual trailer is released

Teaser trailers usually have fast and quick-paced imagery and clips, which is used to emphasise tension and suspense.

Parris's slapping clip

The clip above shows my actor and I completing a practice clip of creating the 'slapping effect'. I had wanted to shots in the actual video, both being over the shoulder shots.

The clip above show the final clip we created. We had continued to use only two shots both being over the shoulder. When switching the shots, I had paused the recorder and then continued when the shot had been changed. This means that the clips had not been edited at all.

Props used:

• HTC Desire (I was going to use this phone to record the clip but it meant i would have to Start a new clip everytime i want a new shot as it does not pause.)
• Samsung Galaxy S (This was the phone i had used to create the above clips)

A2 Media Horror Research O.J Summer Research

Media Horror Research

The Conventions of Horror

·         There are usually a protagonist (usually a female) and an antagonist.

·         A villain and hero

·         Normally a weapon of choice such as a knife can be a phallic symbol which is also a symbol for a penis.

·         Red hearing is a form of deception when another character in the film is suspect of being the protagonist because of certain characteristics when in fact somebody else is.

·         If a woman is getting killed in a shower when she is naked, men are more likely to go to the cinema because they want to see a naked woman statistically. This can be related to the scene in Psycho (1960) made by a well known director Alfred Hitchcock where the female in the shower is stabbed to death, while she is in the shower. 

·         Incidental music is used in a lot of horror movies to create tension when someone is about to be killed which is also a signature technique because it will make the audience anticipate something big.

·         Normally the antagonist will have an emotional and bad childhood where a experience triggered their dark and violent personality.

·         The connotation of a horror movie is black, with low key lighting, the anchorage is in a Tika style; sharp, bold and aggressive.

·         The denotation of black in a horror movie is elegant, power, strong, slick and classy. However, black can also denote bad.

·         Final girl characteristic-does not drink or smoke, live a good and healthy lifestyle.

Scream (1996) is a film that can be related to the conventions of horror because they used a famous convention for horror movies which is called the ‘final girl’ where the character called Billy who is the final girl and is aware of her whereabouts, smart, intelligent, sceptical and observant of new people she is introduced to, suspicious of others and alert. This can be related to the new film Final Destination 5 (2011) whereby the final boy in this case is able to workout who is next in line to die. 

Three different Horror Movies

The three movies that will be discussed are The Human Centipede (2009), Orphan (2009) and Psycho (1960). These films were chosen The Human Centipede and Orphan can be related to Psycho and help identify any similarities.  

The Human Centipede

·         A mentally unstable surgeon who kidnaps three tourists to conjoin the mouth and anus of the three tourists together to make a human centipede.

·         Making his fantasy an reality

·         Film arose by Tom Six, having a joke with his friends about punishing child molesters by sewing their lips to another molester’s anus.

·         He is a retired surgeon in conjoined twins that has an interest joining creatures together this is how the concept of human centipede came about.

·         Because he is mentally unstable surgeon after making the human centipede he makes them act like pets, he sees this as normal.

·         The surgeon is eventually killed by the policeman when he begins to act suspicious.

Orphan

·         Orphan is a psychological horror/thriller, similar to the conventions of horror and can be related to Omen (2006).

·         Orphan is a movie based on an orphan who is unstable and escaped from a mental institute.

·         Esther who is the main character, the orphan has a condition called hypopituitarism which is a condition that does not allow body growth.

·         A couple that has lost their child and decide to adopt, they eventually decide to adopt Esther not knowing she is psychological ill, escaped from a mental institute and thirty three years old. 

·         Esther is an antagonist in this film as she is more in tune with the dark side of her personality, which enables her to powerful and strong and deceiving others by her childish characteristics and facial features and allows her to get away with committing mischievous crime such as pushing a toddler off an apparatus and setting a light her brothers tree house while he was inside the tree house.

·         Vera Farmiga who plays Kate Coleman is suspicious of Esther throughout the film and decides to do background research on Esther.

·         While Kate is escaping from the hospital Ether attempts to get intimate with the husband Peer Sarsgaard who plays John while he is drunk, but gets rejected and kills John. In conclusion Esther dies by the hands of Kate Coleman the protagonist or hero.

Psycho

·         Psycho is a film that was directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

·         The film depicts the encounter between a secretary, Marion Crane (Leigh), hiding at a secluded motel after embezzling money from her employer, and the motel's disturbed owner and manager, Norman Bates (Perkins), and the aftermath of their encounter.

·         Before going to bed, Marion decides to take a shower. An anonymous figure enters the bathroom and stabs Marion to death. Norman then finds the corpse, and assumes that his mother committed the murder. He cleans the bathroom and places Marion's body and all her possessions – including the concealed money – in the trunk of her car, and sinks it into a swamp, which is later discovered.

·         Chambers dismisses Lila and Sam's concerns over Arbogast's disappearance, and the two decide to check into the motel, posing as a married couple, in order to search for clues leading to Arbogast or Marion. While Sam distracts Norman, Lila sneaks into the house to search for Mrs. Bates. Realizing Lila is missing, Norman wrestles away from Sam and rushes to the house. Lila hides in the cellar where she discovers the mummified body of Mrs. Bates. Seconds later, Norman appears, dressed in his mother's clothes and a wig, and attempts to attack Lila. Sam arrives just in time to save Lila as he tackles and restrains Norman.

·         In the final moments of the film, Norman is seen sitting alone in a jail cell thinking in Mother's voice, which is then followed by a shot of Marion's car being recovered from the swamp.

A Horror Film Director: Tom Holland

Fright Night (2011) was directed by Tom Holland in 2011. Holland was born in New York, the son of Lee Holland. He graduated from Worcester Academy in 1962. He is the uncle of Dexter Holland, the singer and guitarist for the American punk rock band, The Offspring, and father of American actor Josh Holland. In December 2009 Holland was cast for Adam Green's Hatchet 2 who will stars alongside Danielle Harris, Tony Todd and Kane Hodder. He narrated the film Hatchet II alongside Adam Green on San Diego Comic-Con International 2010. In a interview published in January 2011 with mondo-video.com, Holland shared some stories about his acting days, which included working with legendary actress Ingrid Bergman, and martial arts expert, Bruce Lee.

The Conventions of horror film teaser trailers

·        Always use the colour black as it connotates power.
·        Use incidental music throughout the teaser trailer to build tension with the tempo of the beat increasing through out to get the audience sucked in.
·        Mostly low key lighting throughout the teaser trailer
·        Lots of close ups for the audience to see emotion
·        Narrator with a deep voice
·        Hard sound to get the audience scared

Parris's Summer work

Conventions of a Horror Movie:

·       The movie is usually based in an isolated area.

·       There's always a lead character that often results as the survivor in the film.

·       The killer/monster often has a trademark (for example the type of people they kill, or a certain weapon).

·       It’s usually good against evil, the two character conflict.

·       the outcome is the good usually defeats the bad.

Horror movie 1: Misery

Director: Rob Reine

This movie is quite a conventional movie.

• This is because the main character who is an author becomes trapped and tortured in an isolated area.
• The killer in the movie was never suspected
• The killer happened to know everything about the author as she was obsessed and most likely had mental issues
• The victim had a flashback of the woman after he had escaped.
• The victim has a scar or a physical disability to remind them what had happened and gives them flashbacks
• The main character survived/escaped.

Horror move 2: Cloverfield

Director: Matt Reeve

·       This is also a conventional movie because:

• The main characters are a group of young people.
•    They then get attacked by the alien one by one until the group is then left to 2  people(usually Male and female).
•   Most of the killings happen in at night time or in a dark area.

However the thing I like most about the movie is that it was given handheld camera filming style. I like that because it unconventional and the director made the movie seem it didn’t skip any parts as it was a ‘handheld’. Also another thing that was unconventional was that the movie is based in the city, this is unconventional because cities are seen as areas where killings are seen and murderers are caught.

Horror Teaser Trailer Conventions:

·       They may have fast and quick paced imagery and clips.

·       They may show the scenery as to where the movie is based.

·       It is between 30 seconds - 1 minute and 30 seconds long

·       Very little of the story line and plot is given away.

Parris's short Story of a biggest fear

I slowly woke up from my from my unconsciousness, still feeling drowsy and drugged but I reckoned it’ll ware off soon. I heard a faint whistle which sounded like a boiling stove kettle...at least I thought it was. My eye sight cleared and that was when I realised there is no boiling kettle. It was the worst thing I could ever imagine. Right in front of my eyes was my younger brother John. My own brother tied up to a chair with chunks of his arm missing. That was when it came back to me as to why I was unconscious in the first place; it was because they had beaten me severely with a baseball bat. Why? I do not know. They spoke but I could not hear them, “sorry, what?” I had asked. They repeated loud and clear this time. They said we were going to play a game, they would ask me 5 questions and if the answers were wrong, they would saw a limb off of my brother body. I wiggled and struggled to break free of the post I was chained to but it was no use. I could not get free even if I tried. I knew for a fact that these questions weren’t going to be easy but I needed to try my hardest so my brother could live. “Question number 1, what colour are my eyes?” it was impossible to answer that question because all 6 of them were wearing pitch black sunglasses and balaclavas. I looked into John’s eyes and saw what was fear and agony, I mouthed to him “I’m sorry” with my eyes bloodshot red and tears streaming down my face I replied to them “green?”  And with that one of the Hench men walked over o John with a hack saw, grabbed his arm and slowly severed it off. His screams felt like a knife had been plunged into my heart and twisted constantly. I looked up to see...

Blog Introduction

This year for our A2 coursework assignment our class has been divided into groups of four to make a horror teaser trailer. During this assignment we will be editing, filming, gathering props and creating the scenario for the trailer; our group will also be producing a movie poster and a magazine front cover. This means that as individuals and as a group we will make sure that we complete all our work to the highest quality possible.

Parris will be the director of the trailer. She will be organizing the camera shots, angles and transitions and also experiment with them to discover what angles and shots will work best when creating the trailer itself.

Jeffrey is the lighting coordinator and a key helper with the camera. He will be helping in running the camera and helping to deal with how the camera moves and what shots will be used in the film, he will also decide the type of lighting that is used in the shooting process to make sure that it turns out perfectly. Jeffrey is a powerful force and creative writer and will contribute heavily towards a lot of writing in the blog.

Jennifer is the co-director of the group; she is Parris’ eyes and ears of the project. To conclude, she is also the prop manager, which means she deals with the props that the group will need for the production. Also seeing as Jennifer is organized, she will be continuously checking the blog for updates and make sure that everybody in the group is contributing an adequate amount of work to the blog.

O.J will be filming the trailer and assisting Jennifer in gathering the props needed in order for the teaser trailer to be a success. And the main mastermind when it comes to the whole concept of the teaser trailer.He will dictating to everyone in the group in the filiming stage of the trailer of what is good and what is not to get the trailer to high standard as he is the most skilled when it comes to recording.