Research: Characteristics of the Horror Genre

I have done some primary research into films of the horror genre. I have observed the types of characteristics that are put into the majority of horror genre films. I have noticed that there are several features that have to be included so the audience are able to recognice the horror genre.

Here are some of the characteristics of the horror genre:

1)CHARCTERS: There are key archetypes that the audience expect to see in a horror film. There is always a protagonist: this is the victim/hero (usucally female). This character is usually the last surviving cast member at the end of the film (also known as the 'final girl'). There will also be the Antagonist who is the bad guy/villian who will terrorise protagonist/family&friends/the community. There is often a helper in the film who gives advice or aid to the protagonist.‘Monster Fodder’ are the multiple victims of the antagonist usually killed off early to build up the sense of terror. These are stock characters who do not usually have much character development.

Depending on the film the antagonist will either be supernatural entity or a psychopathic character. An example of a film where the characters are by psychopaths is the strangers. As shown in the picture below there are a group of three antagonist who are human psycopaths who use masks and knifes to frighten the couple.


2)ICONOGRAPHY: These are visual signifiers which suggests that the film is bof the horror genre. Horror genre focus on specific props and costumes to make the film scary. Often the protagonist will have some sort of weapon, this can range from masks to knifes to chainsaws ect.. or maybe if its a supernatural creature they may have a different way of attacking its victim, e.g. a vampire may use its teetch to kill people.


3)SETTING:
Isolated environment: is the location that the action take place and isolated environment?
What does the mise-en-scene look like? How is the sense of horror created here?
Suburban Environment: what is the effect of setting the action in a suburban environment, how does this change the horror?
Traits: for this you should consider the type of sub-genre or hybrid genre the two films might have.
Themes: usually shown through a series of binary oppositions such as good Vs evil, normal Vs abnormal, male Vs female, dark Vs light. These will often lead to the messages and values present in the film.

Narrative in Horror films

The narrative of an American horror film is usually linear (in other words starts at the beginning has a clear middle and end) additional information may be used through the use of a flashback technique.

There will often be use made of the classical three act structure. This argues that the film has three acts the set up, the confrontation and the resolution. The set up will focus on establishing the protagonist and the antagonist the setting and the story. The confrontation will follow where the antagonist will attack or some form of conflict will take place leading to the resolution in act three.

Films start in a state of equilibrium meaning everything is balanced and normal. During the events of the film the equilibrium will be disrupted and the focus of the film will then be the restore the equilibrium on the part of the protagonist.

Research: My Chosen Genre

The genre I have chosen is horror, the main reason for this is because the horror genre is one of the easiest to identitfy especially in a two minute opening of a film. It is able to be identified from the macro and micro features used in horror films such as iconography. An example of iconography is masks and knives ect.. weapons represent threat and danger. I also think that in horror genres there are set of stock characters and eaily identifiable settings.

I believe this type of genre would be the most straighforward to film, as we have assess to locations such as woods, or isolated areas. Therefore we will have good areas in which our film could be filmed. We can also assess props and costumes that can be used in our film such as masks.

A finial reason of mine is because i think that many people around the same age group as me and older adults enjoy horror movies. Horror films involve action, suspense and tention, grabbing the audiences attention to want to keep watching. And alot of the time leaving suspense and a hook to the film opening.

 

This is an image from the horror movie 'scream'.The antagonist is easy to identify here from the iconography of the scary mask and the weapon. The use of a dutch angle represents the power of the killer. 

This is an image from the film 'the strangers'. A mask has again been used to cover up the antagonist identity.

'Jeepers Creepers' show a different type of villian. Usually in horror films the antagonist is male.

Research: Case Study of Effective Film Opening - Casino Royale (2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNvzNWuzI9Y


Micro
The opening shows the effects of the company logo MGM which is in black and white to show mostalgic purposes. Harasher black and white is used when Bond completes his first kill to show the characters anger to the audienceWhen bond completes his first kill the is a harasher black and white. The establishing shot is a long, low angle shot, there are subtitles at the bottom left hand side of the screen so the viewer have an understanding of where the narrative is located. There is use of a dutch angle of the screen slightly tilting, so the audience sense the unease and mystery of the film. Shadows are also used by low key lighting to give Bond's character a mysterious edge. This is seen when Bond is hiding away and you can just see his face shown in shadow. The lighing used in the mise en scene is dark this is to show that it is more of an action/spy film. The sound used is non-diagetic the music in the film starts getting sinister. Many shots are used in this opening scene such as low angle shots to show a man getting out of his car, close up of the numbers to show it's a lift leading to a cut of him coming through the corridor and then a close up to show the safe has been opened and shot reverse shot and then Bond starts talking and the action begins.

Macro
As shown through the iconography used in the opening of the film you are able to relate it to a spy genre by the guns and suits as shown in the picture above. The opening shot of the film is a long shot of a sophisticated big business building but then shows the 'reality' of a spy buisness from the shot of a dirty bathroom. The violence in the opening scene is shown when two characters are killed.

Casino Royal is an effective opening sequence to a film as it  reinvents the Bond franchise by going back to the roots of the series. The hand held camera and the black and white film stock makes the film mysterious and the narrative to the films shows a different aspect to the usually Bond character. The use of over exposured mostly white shots was hand held camera to show how frantic the actions are.

Research: Effective Film Opening - The Emperor's New Groove (2000)

       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CmEqtPOFFw&feature=related

MICRO: The opening shot is in a forest at night time, the time of day is established by the lighting technique used. This is where the character of llama is introduced. The non-diagetic music is interupted by a non-diagetic voice over where the narrator gives the plot of the story that he used to be the emperor of Kusco before he turned into llama. The font used in the opening represents the welfare of the protagonist by using bright colours such as yellow and gold. During the credits there is an exciting groovy moment where the Emperor has his own singer to do his theme tune.


MACRO: This film is a family film. From just watching the opening to the film you can see it is designed to be a comedy and it falls into the animated category. The main character is a talking llama and it shows its a family friendly film. The narrative to the film is told in a non-digetic fashion and uses flash backs to tell the audience the story. The hook of the film is to draw the audience in, about how he goes from being a human to llama. There is a cut to when he first became llama and the character who he is when he goes to the palace and the audience see all the gold stuff he owns and knows about his wealth. The themes in the film are about the dangers of being wealthy then consequently ending up lonely with no friends. This is shown in the opening shot where Kusco is selfish with his money.


The Emperor's new groove is an effective opening scene as it shows flashbacks and voice overs to show the hook of the film where a wealthy human is transformed into a llama. When the character is introduce the audience realise what genre film they are watching from the comedy elements shown to the audience from the character.

Research: What Makes and Effective Opening to a film?

When creating a film there are two areas that work together in order to produce an effective film. There needs to be two approaches Micro and Macro. The macro features focus around genre and the narrative. The micro features are also important in the opening of a film, as they are the technical aspects of the film and can make the viewer want to keep watching. For example mise en scene is also important in terms of the setting.

A good opening to a film would be a hook, this is so that the audience will want to keep watching, as they want to find out what is going to happen. Also in the opening of a film the audience need to be able to identify the genre of the film, so that they are able to know what type of film they are watching.

In the opening of the film you should establish the storyline to make the audience want to keep watching and introduce the main the characters, so they have an understanding of the film.

MICRO

• Lighting - can help to establish the genre of a film and helps to set the time of the day.
• Angles - help to show the power and prestige objects and characters, creates a place for the audience. For example high and low angle.
• Shots - effective and able to give different views on characters, zoom on specific things with purposeful meanings in the scene. E.g. close up, long shot, medium shot.
• Movement - helps to show the audience where the location is.
• Sound and voice over's - different forms of sound to show different effects.

MACRO

• Storyline - gives a good introduction to the storyline and make the audience know what is happening in the plot.
• Characters -  being able to establish the main characters and gain good knowledge of the characters.
• Genre - a good interesting genre to attract the audience and to keep them wanting to watch more.
• Setting and themes -  Introduction to the main themes of the film and relevant and important settings.

Main task brief

The brief task I have been ask to do is to produce an opening of a film. I am going to be working in a group of three with each of us having a main role. The main task is to create the titles and opening of a new fiction film, we have to assure that the opening lasts for a maximum of two minutes. All of the materials I use must be original and produced by the candidates with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. As a group we decided that we was going to base our film on the horror genre, I am going to be looking and analysing popular horror films so i get a good idea of what sort of techniques i can use.

Preliminary Task

For our premlinary task, a small group of us was asked to film a short clip. The main objective was to film an actor(s) entering a room to show contiunity by usuing different shot movements with the camera. To help us do this successfully we was given set instructions, these included us filming the actor walking through a door to show the continuity, we was also asked to use the 180 degree rule which means to keep the camera on one side of the imaginary line, this kept continuity with the filming as it made it run through. And also we was asked to film using different shots such as shot reverse shot. We decided to do this by filming a short conversation between two of the actors. I believe we achieved this well.

We worked in a group of four, involving myself, Charlotte Magill, Sarah Lolley and Melissa Doyle. We chose this group because the four of us where all new to media studies and thought that we would work well as a team. Our first step was to plan out what the storyline was going to be about, we decided that I would be the camera lady. Melissa would be the director and Sarah and Charlotte would be the actors. As a group having our storyline planned we then went to search for the location we was going to shoot this short clip.We decided the location was going to be within the school this was due to the setting and good lighting for the filming. We made sure that we were going to film in an area of the school were the sound would be quality and there was no school children around making noise. After the planning was done we bagan to film.

I though that for the first time of filming i managed to do some great shots such as shot reverse shot on the conversation between Sarah and Charlotte. After uploading the video onto the computer we realised however that there was a few things that i could have changed such as the lighting. The lighting changed from the colour it was on Charlottes face to the colour the lighting was on Sarah's face. Although the filming wasnt as a effective as it could have been i felt that i did gain some useful experience, and if i was to do it again i would have a good idea on what i was doing.

We uploaded and edited the film sequence together. We all had our say on where to cut things out and to try and make the film run through as smoothly as possible. This was the first time of us using my move maker and overall i think we done a good job of editing the clip especially due to the short amount of time we was given to plan, film, upload and edit the filming. We filmed all different scenes and i think we linked them well together. Such as we filmed walking through the doors, then walking down the corridor and then finally the conversation between the two characters. We uploaded everything that we had filmed and moved the clips around to fit the sequence in the order we wanted. We also cut parts of the clip out that was unaceptable for the video such as laughing.

If i were to do this again there is several things that would be changed, these would be:

- the lighing on the camera.

- I would add more edits such as fades and cuts to make it go together abit better.

- I would make sure that the storyline is planned out properally and draw up onto a storyboard.

-Use a wider variety of shots such as long shot/close ups and extreem close ups ect.

- Shoot alot more takes to ensure we have the right shots and use different

- I would use tripot for the camera to make sure that the camera shots are perfect and not all over the place.

Despite all the negatives i do believe it was successful for our first time and we followed the guidlines that was given to us.