Horror Questionnaire Results and Analysis

I created this video using the website Powtoon. It shows the results of the questionnaire and how these results will influence our own work.



Since the most popular sub genre was 'Supernatural', my partner and I would like to use vampires in our film. The comments that the audience gave were also quite helpful. We will try to make to make the film intense with lots of sudden action. We will avoid using an excessive amount of gore, however since we're using vampires, this usually means that the iconography of blood will be included. When creating our treatment we will think of a back story that outlines the need for gore.

Questionnaire

For this activity I created a questionnaire about horror movies. This was so that I could find out the demographics of my target audience and what their views on horror movies. This will help me to make decision on what I should and shouldn't include in my opening sequence.

The link to my questionnaire could be accessed via my blog in the link below:
Click here to take survey

I also used the social network 'Twitter' to post the link to my questionnaire, so that it would be easily accessible to my audience.

Iconography of Horror Films

I created the collage above using the app PicCollage. I used these images to show typical iconography in horror films. This includes scary characters which may be possessed, as seen in 'Insidious' and 'The Exorcist'. Some films include supernatural creatures such as vampires or werewolves. A lot of horror films include blood and gore, as seen in 'Saw' and 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. Additionally, horror films are typically set in "haunted" or abandoned houses. The victim in the films will usually be represented as hyperbolically scared, which can be seen in 'Scream'.
This activity has given me an insight into what it stereotypically included in horror films, therefore I can use some of this iconography in my own title sequence.

Horror film conventions and theories

Many theories can be applied to horror films. My partner Rumena Ahmed researched the theories by Todorov and Levi Strauss.

There are five stages to Todorov's Narrative Theory:

1. A state of equilibrium (The fictional environment within the films text is as it should be)

2. A disruption of the equilibrium (Something has disrupted the order in the fictional environment this is usually caused by an event)

3. A recognition of the disequilibrium (Characters within the fictional environment have recognized the threat posed by the disequilibrium)

4. An attempt to repair the equilibrium (Characters within the fictional environment try and put things back to the way they were)

5. Equilibrium is restored or a new equilibrium is established (Characters within the fictional environment are successful in the attempts to repair the equilibrium returning things to the way they were or by accepting a new equilibrium).

Levi Strauss' theory is that the conflict is based around the binary opposites and that the binary opposites are the central climax of a narrative. Examples of Binary Opposites are Good vs Evil, Black vs White, Boy vs Girl, Peace vs War, Civilised vs Savage, Democracy vs Dictatorship, First world vs Third world.

To explore the use of conventions and theories within stereotypical horror films, my group and I recorded our findings on Vine to create short videos.

Conventional settings:-




Within horror films it is very common to have these deserted settings since it creates a fear of the unknown. Characters in these settings are usually alone thus leaving them vulnerable and open to danger. A Horror film, which contains this convention is 'Blair Witch Project' (1999).  Its narrative includes three students who disappear in the woods; police then find footage of their documentary in which they encounter scary situation in many abandoned places.

Conventional opening story lines:-





These type of situations leave the protagonists alone and defenseless. This again leaves them open to danger. This convention can be seen in many different horror films. For example in '30 Days of Night' (2010), the protagonist is on her way out of town, when her car breaks down. Subsequently she is forced to stay in the town which then becomes plagued with bloodthirsty vampires. Additionally, in 'Scream' (1996), the character Casey is home alone when she is attacked and murdered by masked villain.

Conventional climaxes:-






These scenes show examples of Todorov's theory, whereby the characters have recognized the threat of the disequilibrium. Horror films such as 'The Conjuring' include antagonists appearing out of nowhere, accompanied by a loud, disturbing noise. The last video also includes a loud dramatic noise which is typical in horror movies since it evokes fear for the audience.

Research continuation

I chose to research James Wan, who is a director in the horror genre. I investigated the films he has directed and similar styles which are shown in these films. I used the website Glogster to display my findings.

Conducting Genre Research

Firstly, I used the website Kizoa to create a timeline of the Horror genre and its history. I gained information from Wikipedia.



This activity has given me an insight to how the horror genre has developed over the years. For my final product I will be creating a horror therefore this research will help me to think of a conventional storyline and subject matter.

Preliminary Task

I worked in a group to create the preliminary task. Together, we discussed what each shot would look like and created a storyboard. The shot-list and storyboard can be seen in the file below, which I uploaded to Slideshare.

Here is the video we created:




We then created a mock news report to evaluate our product:

Match on Action

Match on action is an editing technique which is used to show an action from two different view points. The shots are edited in a way so that the action appears seamless, which will create continuity for the audience.

In class we were assigned a task which would display an example of how match on action is used. For our activity we were asked to film someone walking through a door; firstly walking up to the door and beginning to open it, then the second shot would be from inside the room they have walked in to. We decided to film two girls walking through the corridors in school whilst having a casual conversation. I created a birdseye view sketch on Paint as a plan for where I would place the camera and where the characters would be.

The video above shows my group's example of match on action. The actresses were Ishpreet Sundal and Ranjana Nisanth. The first shot was filmed by Chloe Connell, and the second shot was filmed by myself. I then edited the shots together using iMovie.

Whilst I was filming the scene, it didn't seem very difficult. I already knew where to place the cameras and where the actresses were going since this was previously planned. Therefore all I had to do was click the record button to start filming the sequence. However when it came to editing the two shots together, I noticed that Chloe and I had not filmed all of the takes simultaneously. This meant that it became difficult to synchronise the shots as they did not match. I decided to use shots from two alternative takes which were fairly similar, however the dialogue in the two shots does not match. In the future, when using more than one camera I will make sure that they are definitely both filming at the same time so that the problem doesn't occur again.

Practising the 180° Rule and Shot Reverse Shot

In the task below, I will be displaying an example of the 180° rule and Shot Reverse Shot.

The 180° rule is an editing technique used to maintain continuity to the audience.

This rule requires that when filming one person facing another, you should imagine that there is a line of vision in between them, as shown in the diagram above (taken from http://alystyr.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/srs.jpg?w=656&h=468), and you are not allowed to cross this line. This is so that when editing, it doesn't become confusing for the audience as the people denoted will be looking in the right direction.

Shot reverse shot is an editing technique to show one point of view and then the following shot will show the opposite point of view. For example, when filming two people having a conversation, the first shot would show person A, then the next shot would show person B. This technique is used in editing to eliminate transitioning in one shot and to create a faster pace.


In class, we worked in small groups to create our own example of how the 180° rule and Shot Reverse Shot are used.

The picture above displays the placement of our camera, and how one character stands on the left and another on the right. We made sure that we kept the camera within an imaginary semi-circle and didn't move the camera to behind where the characters are standing. This was to ensure that the characters appear to be facing in one direction and don't look they're switching positions, as this would be confusing to the audience.

The video above shows how I edited together the clips to show both techniques. The shots go back and forth between each character so that the audience can see who's speaking in the conversation. Moreover the use of the 180° rule shows that each characters stay on the desired side of the screen so that it doesn't appear confusing to the audience.

Additionally, we decided to use a tripod to control the steadiness of the camera. We filmed one character all the way through, then the other all the way through, then I edited it so that the Shot Reverse shot effect was created. We decided to do this to ensure continuity was kept and to eliminate confusion between placement of characters. Furthermore, the editing shows a seamless conversation between two characters.

In the future I will make sure I watch out for the lighting in each shots, because the lighting is different on each camera. This might look like the characters are in different places even though they're not. In the future, I will look out for how the lighting appears in each shot.

Introduction

My name is Bryony Johnson, candidate number 3087, and I'm a student from Swakeleys School. On this blog I will be displaying my AS Media coursework for which I will be creating a short opening to a film.