Month: January 2019

As with most genres, horror is a large umbrella of spine-chilling possibilities that warrants great creativity as the premises of the plots can be taken in many different directions. The only thing required of a horror film is for it to unsettle audiences and invoke fright and panic in its viewers. To achieve this, many horror films will try to effectively center “on the dark side of life, the forbidden, strange and alarming events” (Film Site). In order to discover how horror films will capture “the dark side of life” and twist it in a manner to alarm viewers, research into the genre conventions, or the common characteristics of any given genre, is necessary.

I also thought to research the genre conventions of the thriller/suspense genre which, to my surprise, was not a sub-genre of horror and can actually be considered a separate genre entirely. A horror’s film’s main goal is to “horrify” viewers – make them jump with fright or be disgusted – and will usually do so with more direct and gory means.

Thriller/Suspense films, on the other hand, are more focused on keeping the audience on the ‘edge of its seat’ and increase the tension that eventually builds to a climax. Film Site describes thrillers as “films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation… anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension.” The movie Split (2016) is a good example of this as it works to create an intense and disturbing atmosphere and does not mainly use direct scares to frighten the audience and instead escalates the tension throughout the film to unnerve viewers. Horror and thriller are largely similar, but at the same time are also vastly different, and thus contain genre conventions that diverge in certain areas. I will go more into depth about these differences in a later post.

First and foremost, researching and understanding the different genre conventions of both horror and thriller films was necessary for me to grasp what makes these films so terrifying in order to be able to utilize these conventions later.

Most often, horror movies will utilize these conventions:

1. Common Themes: Good vs. Evil, Religion, Supernatural, Revenge, Zombie Apocalypse, Insanity
2. Style: Bloody, Disorienting, Jarring (use of many jump scares)
3. Characters:
   • The main protagonist who takes on the villain (victim/hero)
   • The evil villain/antagonist (monster, alien, serial killer, etc.)
   • Creepy children
   • Police Officers (either of no help to protagonist or is an antagonist themselves)
   • Immoral teenagers that end up being killed
4. Settings:
   • Small Communities or Isolated Places (urban environments, dark streets, narrow alleyways, etc.)
   • Abandoned Houses
   • Graveyards
   • Basements
5. Common Props: Certain weapons (chainsaws, machetes, knifes, firearms, etc.), masks, icons of the supernatural/religious
6. Common Technical Choices:
   • Unnatural camera angles (canted angle) and high and low angle shots
   • Point-of-view shots (from either the victim or antagonist)
   • Lack of depth of field/shallow focus (to obscure audience’s ability to see)
   • Low-key lighting (creates dark shadows)

And for thriller movies, they usually utilize these conventions:

1. Common Themes: Revenge, Danger, Obsession, Death, Isolation, Supernatural
2. Style: Tense, Thrilling, Eerie
3. Characters:
   • The main protagonist/leading character (set against a problem and faces danger)
   • Antagonist (stalker, serial killer, ghost, etc.)
   • Innocent victim
   • Person with a dark/shady past
4. Settings:
   • In the Woods
   • Family House or Mansion
   • Deserted Area
   • Entrapped Areas (Alleyways)
5. Common Props: Weapons (guns, knives, etc.), vehicles (for car chases)
6. Common Technical Choices:
   • Low-key lighting and back-lighting (creates shadows and silhouettes)
   • Eerie music or silence (builds tension)
   • Jump cuts and fast-paced shots (builds anticipation and excites audience)
   • High and low angle shots (often demonstrates authority)

Sources:

• https://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html
• https://www.filmsite.org/thrillerfilms.html
• http://iconicpictures.weebly.com/conventions-of-horror.html
• https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4972582/
• https://11and12.education.tas.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Thriller-Codes-and-Conventions-provided-by-Cross-Sectoral-Teachers-2017.docx

To be frank, starting this project is probably one of the most difficult parts of the film-making process so far. Call me optimistic, but I believe that the ensuing procedure will go over much smoother than the labor of making the previous decisions. Making concrete choices about things such as the title and genre of the project with no chance of alteration is slightly daunting as it can be considered “the most important part of the work” according to Plato. Everything that comes after this point will be based on the foundation that my group and I have set for ourselves. However, taking that single step was necessary to launch my group’s project into its formation and thankfully, we could all agree fairly easily on the opening that we wished to create and are all happy with the result

My group consists of four people – Katelyn Wagner, Ben Isaacs, Bianca Raby and me – so one might think that reaching a consensus on decisions as important as the title and genre of our project would be a rather difficult task. On the contrary, the unanimous decision to make our project’s genre horror was reached very easily. Thankfully, we all had similar prospects for the direction we wanted our film opening to go – a mystery horror that consists of bizarre occurrences that have yet to be explained.

This plot led to the title, Lucid Elucidations. Agreeing on this component of the project was a little more difficult to reach; however, this title was a great fit for the plot as it holds a sense of irony in relation to the film. ‘Lucid’ directly means “expressed clearly or easy to understand” and ‘elucidations’ is defined as “an explanation that makes something clear.” These definitions are in direct contrast with what is planned to be the characters’ lack of understanding of the current situation in which they are placed. The title is also a double entendre as the term ‘lucid’ can also refer to a dream that is “experienced with the dreamer feeling awake, aware of dreaming, and able to control events consciously.” If all goes to plan, my group will also utilize dreaming or dreamlike sequences as a convention in our opening.

In order to stay on schedule and complete our tasks in a timely manner, we will be loosely following this rough schedule:

1. Research (complete by 2/3)
2. Scriptwriting and Funding (plans for “funding” and “distribution”) (complete by 2/10)
3. Pre-production (casting, production design, etc.) (complete by 2/24)
4. Production (shooting, audio recordings, etc.) (complete by 3/3)
5. Post-production (titles, special effects, sound tracking, etc.) (complete by 3/17)
6. Final Project and CCR (due 4/1/19)

To create the best possible opening for the project, I will be conducting research on the genre conventions of horror films to gain a better understanding about the ways to format our opening as well as gain inspiration from other films in the genre.

Sources:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/lucid
(Definition)
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/elucidation 
(Definition)

Partners’ Blogs:
Bianca Raby: https://biancaraby.home.blog/
Ben Isaacs: https://benisaacs102501.blogspot.com/
Katelyn Wagner: https://katelynwagne.blogspot.com/

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. — Lao Tzu