From the results of our first questionnaire for random people we found that 9/10 sixth formers we asked said they liked watching horror films. Also, the majority of people said they enjoyed the 'shock factor' of a horror film instead of gore, violence and other aspects. This suggests we should include a few shocking scenes in the trailer that will make the audience jump. They also told us that they are more attracted to a good storyline rather than gore or violence. This connotes we should make our storyline intriguing to our audience instead of including a lot of violence to draw them in because they want to see a good storyline.
From the results of the focus group questionnaire, we found that the most popular sub-genre was 'gore' and the most popular 'time' of horror was the 1980's so our storyline could be from the 1980's or based on the 1980's horror.
Friday, 21 October 2011
Friday, 14 October 2011
Research: The Shining Trailer
The Shining has alot of short, quick clips that show quite alot of the action but it does give quite alot away about what is going to happen in the film. For example, at the beginning the storyline is revealed before you see any of this 'action'. Also throughout the trailer there are a lot of fade-ins and fade-outs into the next clips, this helps create the tension within the trailer instead of just cutting to the next scene. There is tension also created in the middle of the trailer as the clips start getting faster and shorter as more action happens and as the trailer goes on.
At the start of the trailer there are a number of establishing shots just showing the setting that the film is. Shortly after this, there are quite a lot of short clips showing what happened in the house before with the man walking up the drive with an axe which makes you think that the film will be based around this. This is similar to when films use the 'based on true stories' line to entice their audience. Then we meet the family that are going to be living in the house and the audience automatically know that something bad is going to happen. Then the quick shots start as the tension rises, during the quick shots there are a lot of long black shots that are followed by short, quick clips of action. The music in the trailer also helps to build up the tension as its quite dramatic and fast.
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Research - The Ring Analysis & Empire Magazine
This poster is quite simple, yet very effective on what it is trying to advertise. It's very plain and simple, the use of dark colours also help with its simplicity. However, it also suggests alot about the film it is advertising. The title 'the ring' is very vauge but suggests 'horror' or 'thriller' because of its deformed shape which seems quite unnatural. It contrasts against the black background by using the colour white to make it stand out which makes you attracted to the title instead of the background. You can't really see what is in the background, it's also distorted for the purpose that you notice the title. This creates a tension because you actually don't know what is in the background (fear of the unknown?). This represents the genre of horror.
There are no clues to what the film is about. The only clue given is 'before you die you see the ring' this keeps the audience intrigued the only thing we know about the film is it could include death, and 'the ring' whatever that might be. Again, this is unknown. There is no major advertisement of the actors in the film either. This is going against the conventions of a film poster because most films use the actors names to intrigue the audience. The audience are not familiar with the actors so they have no idea what to expect. This is again like 'the fear of the unknown'.
Research - Genre
Genre is a way of defining or categorising something. Its a term used for any category of literature or other forms of art culture, E.G music and in general something written or spoken, audial or visual. Genre is used effectively to make our lives easier. For example, if you go into a shop and want to buy a 'horror film' you would look for a sign which says 'horror' because this is the 'genre' of film. It is almost a way to control and categorise film or any other media text.
We can't put a specific meaning to the word genre because it means something different to everyone. Each genre follows it's own conventions. However, genres are fluid and not fixed and are always under constant renegotiation between media industry and audience.
Research - Horror Film Timeline
1920's - The first horror movies:
Early horror films are surreal, dark pieces, owing their visual appearance to the expressionist painters and their narrative style. Darkness and shadows, such important features of modern horror, were impossible to show on the film stock available at the time, so the sequences, for example in Nosferatu, where we see a vampire leaping amongst gravestones in what appears to be broad daylight, seem doubly surreal to us now.
1920 classics -
The Golem (1915/1920)
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919)
1930's - Horror begins to talk . . . and scream.
Horror movies were reborn in the 1930s. The advent of sound, as well as changing the whole nature of cinema forever, had a huge impact on the horror genre. Sound adds an extra dimension to terror, whether it be music used to build suspense or signal the presence of a threat, or magnified footsteps echoing down a corridor. The horror films of the 1930s are exotic fairy tales, invariably set in some far-off land peopled by characters in period costume speaking in strange accents. Horror was still essentially looking backwards, drawing upon the literary classics of the 19th century for their source material.
1930's classics -
Dracula (1931)
Frankenstein (1931)
1940's - Horror eats itself
Wartime horror movies were an American product and they was banned in Britain. With film production curbed throughout the theatre of war in Europe, horror films were cranked out by Hollywood solely to amuse the domestic audience. The studios stuck with tried and tested ideas, wary of taking risks that might suggest they had no measure of the zeitgeist, and trotted out a series of variations on a theme. This was not an age of innovation, but horror movie memes were, nonetheless, evolving. If the horror movies of the 1930s had dealt in well-established fictional monsters, looking back towards the nineteenth century for inspiration, the 1940s reflected the internalisation of the horror market. The Americans looked at themselves as “safe”, whereas everything else, particularly anything hailing from that frightening, chaotic, unreasonable and uncontrolled place known as Europe was dangerous.
1940's classics -
Cat people (1942)
1950's - Creature features
It is hard to grasp the changes that took place in popular consciousness between 1940 and 1950. In ten short years the concept of a horrific monster had altered irrevocably. Whereas Lon Chaney, Jr in a fine covering of yak's hair had once served as a powerful envoy from the dark side, now there were more recognisably human faces attached to evil. Faces who had fought on both sides in WW2, the developers of the atom bomb and the death camp, mad scientists indeed whose activities would have unnerved even Victor Frankenstein or Dr Moreau.The military action of WW2 had left over 40 million dead, and millions more exposed to the full spectrum of man's inhumanity to man. Homecoming soldiers and bereaved widows had too many horror stories of their own to appreciate fantasies on the big screen, and much preferred the silliness of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein et al. The world could never be the same again, and the dawning of post-war posterity in America brought with it a new breed of monsters, adapted specifically for survival in the second half of the twentieth century.
1950's Classics -
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
The wasp Woman (1960)
House on Haunted hill (1959)
1960 Thriller to chiller
Horror films and thrillers had intertwined way back in the days of the Old Dark House (1932) and Cat People (1942). However, horror's relegation to the B-movie zone in the 1950s meant that those directors who were interested in thrillers had concentrated on producing glossy, stylish, film-noir stories with no taint of the supernatural, the monstrous, and therefore the drive-in. It is interesting to compare the original Cape Fear(1962) with its 1991 remake. And yet... The undisputed master of the thriller, Alfred Hitchcock, chose the 1960s for his two main ventures into the horror genre.
1960's Classics
Psycho (1960)
The Birds (1963)
1970's - Nightmare decade: in front of the children
Horror movies of the 1970s reflect the grim mood of the decade. After the optimism of the 1960s, with its sexual and cultural revolutions, and the moon landings, the seventies were something of a disappointment. It all started to go horribly wrong in 1970; the Beatles split, Janis and Jimi died, and in many senses it was downhill all the way from there: Nixon, Nam, oil strikes, glam rock, feather haircuts, medallions... However, when society goes bad, horror films get good, and the 1970s marked a return to the big budget, respectable horror film, dealing with contemporary societal issues, addressing genuine psychological fears.
1970's classics -
The Exorcist (1973)
The Stepford Wives (1975)
1980's Horror films
Horror movies of the 1980s (which probably begin in 1979 with Alien) exist at the glorious watershed when special visual effects finally caught up with the gory imaginings of horror fans and movie makers. Technical advances in the field of animatronics, and liquid and foam latex meant that the human frame could be distorted to an entirely new dimension, onscreen, in realistic close up. This coincided with the materialistic ethos of the 1980s, when having it all was important, but to be seen to be having it all was paramount. People demanded tangible tokens of material success - they wanted bigger, shinier, faster, with more knobs on - as verification of their own value in society. In the same way, horror films during this decade delivered the full colour close-up, look-no-strings-attached, special effect in a way that previous practitioners of the art could only dream about. Everything that had lurked in the shadows of horror films in the 1950s could now be brought into the light of day. The monsters were finally out of the closet.
1980's Classics -
The thing (1982)
Child's Play (1988)
1990s Horror in the 1980s
By the end of the 1980s horror had become so reliant on gross-out gore and buckets of liquid latex that it seemed to have lost its power to do anything more than shock and then amuse. Peter Jackson's Brain Dead (1992) epitomises this; a riot of campy spatter, it climaxes with a zombie orgy through which the bespectacled hero must cut his way with a lawnmower. It's hilarious, and not scary in the slightest. The original creations of the late 1970s/early 80s were simply pastiches of their former selves, their power to chill long having disappeared in a slew of sequels and over-familiarity.
1990's Classics -
Se7en (1995)
Wes Craven's new nightmare (1994)
2000's Global Convergence
Horror movies in the late 1990s predicted dire things for the turn of the century. Whilst January 1st, 2000 came and went without much mishap, many commentators have identified the true beginning of the 21st century as September 11th, 2001. The events of that day changed global perceptions of what is frightening, and set the cultural agenda for the following years. The film industry, already facing a recession, felt very hard hit as film-makers struggled to come to terms with what was now acceptable to the viewing public. Anyone trying to sell a horror film in the autumn of 2001 (as George Romero tried with Land of the Dead) got rebuffed. "Everybody wanted to make the warm fuzzy movies."(LA Times 30/10/05) There were even calls to ban horror movies in the name of world peace. But, by 2005, the horror genre was as popular as ever. Horror films routinely topped the box office, yielding an above-average gross on below-average costs. It seems that audiences wanted a good, group scare as a form of escapism, just as their great-grandparents chose Universal horror offerings to escape the miseries of the Depression and encroaching world war in the 1930s. The monsters have had to change, however. Gone were the lone psychopaths of the 1990s, far too reminiscent of media portrayals of bin Laden, the madman in his cave. As the shock and awe of twenty first century warfare spread across TV screens, cinematic horror had to offer an alternative, whilst still tapping into the prevailing cultural mood.
Early horror films are surreal, dark pieces, owing their visual appearance to the expressionist painters and their narrative style. Darkness and shadows, such important features of modern horror, were impossible to show on the film stock available at the time, so the sequences, for example in Nosferatu, where we see a vampire leaping amongst gravestones in what appears to be broad daylight, seem doubly surreal to us now.
1920 classics -
The Golem (1915/1920)
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919)
1930's - Horror begins to talk . . . and scream.
Horror movies were reborn in the 1930s. The advent of sound, as well as changing the whole nature of cinema forever, had a huge impact on the horror genre. Sound adds an extra dimension to terror, whether it be music used to build suspense or signal the presence of a threat, or magnified footsteps echoing down a corridor. The horror films of the 1930s are exotic fairy tales, invariably set in some far-off land peopled by characters in period costume speaking in strange accents. Horror was still essentially looking backwards, drawing upon the literary classics of the 19th century for their source material.
1930's classics -
Dracula (1931)
Frankenstein (1931)
1940's - Horror eats itself
Wartime horror movies were an American product and they was banned in Britain. With film production curbed throughout the theatre of war in Europe, horror films were cranked out by Hollywood solely to amuse the domestic audience. The studios stuck with tried and tested ideas, wary of taking risks that might suggest they had no measure of the zeitgeist, and trotted out a series of variations on a theme. This was not an age of innovation, but horror movie memes were, nonetheless, evolving. If the horror movies of the 1930s had dealt in well-established fictional monsters, looking back towards the nineteenth century for inspiration, the 1940s reflected the internalisation of the horror market. The Americans looked at themselves as “safe”, whereas everything else, particularly anything hailing from that frightening, chaotic, unreasonable and uncontrolled place known as Europe was dangerous.
1940's classics -
Cat people (1942)
1950's - Creature features
It is hard to grasp the changes that took place in popular consciousness between 1940 and 1950. In ten short years the concept of a horrific monster had altered irrevocably. Whereas Lon Chaney, Jr in a fine covering of yak's hair had once served as a powerful envoy from the dark side, now there were more recognisably human faces attached to evil. Faces who had fought on both sides in WW2, the developers of the atom bomb and the death camp, mad scientists indeed whose activities would have unnerved even Victor Frankenstein or Dr Moreau.The military action of WW2 had left over 40 million dead, and millions more exposed to the full spectrum of man's inhumanity to man. Homecoming soldiers and bereaved widows had too many horror stories of their own to appreciate fantasies on the big screen, and much preferred the silliness of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein et al. The world could never be the same again, and the dawning of post-war posterity in America brought with it a new breed of monsters, adapted specifically for survival in the second half of the twentieth century.
1950's Classics -
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
The wasp Woman (1960)
House on Haunted hill (1959)
1960 Thriller to chiller
Horror films and thrillers had intertwined way back in the days of the Old Dark House (1932) and Cat People (1942). However, horror's relegation to the B-movie zone in the 1950s meant that those directors who were interested in thrillers had concentrated on producing glossy, stylish, film-noir stories with no taint of the supernatural, the monstrous, and therefore the drive-in. It is interesting to compare the original Cape Fear(1962) with its 1991 remake. And yet... The undisputed master of the thriller, Alfred Hitchcock, chose the 1960s for his two main ventures into the horror genre.
1960's Classics
Psycho (1960)
The Birds (1963)
1970's - Nightmare decade: in front of the children
Horror movies of the 1970s reflect the grim mood of the decade. After the optimism of the 1960s, with its sexual and cultural revolutions, and the moon landings, the seventies were something of a disappointment. It all started to go horribly wrong in 1970; the Beatles split, Janis and Jimi died, and in many senses it was downhill all the way from there: Nixon, Nam, oil strikes, glam rock, feather haircuts, medallions... However, when society goes bad, horror films get good, and the 1970s marked a return to the big budget, respectable horror film, dealing with contemporary societal issues, addressing genuine psychological fears.
1970's classics -
The Exorcist (1973)
The Stepford Wives (1975)
1980's Horror films
Horror movies of the 1980s (which probably begin in 1979 with Alien) exist at the glorious watershed when special visual effects finally caught up with the gory imaginings of horror fans and movie makers. Technical advances in the field of animatronics, and liquid and foam latex meant that the human frame could be distorted to an entirely new dimension, onscreen, in realistic close up. This coincided with the materialistic ethos of the 1980s, when having it all was important, but to be seen to be having it all was paramount. People demanded tangible tokens of material success - they wanted bigger, shinier, faster, with more knobs on - as verification of their own value in society. In the same way, horror films during this decade delivered the full colour close-up, look-no-strings-attached, special effect in a way that previous practitioners of the art could only dream about. Everything that had lurked in the shadows of horror films in the 1950s could now be brought into the light of day. The monsters were finally out of the closet.
1980's Classics -
The thing (1982)
Child's Play (1988)
1990s Horror in the 1980s
By the end of the 1980s horror had become so reliant on gross-out gore and buckets of liquid latex that it seemed to have lost its power to do anything more than shock and then amuse. Peter Jackson's Brain Dead (1992) epitomises this; a riot of campy spatter, it climaxes with a zombie orgy through which the bespectacled hero must cut his way with a lawnmower. It's hilarious, and not scary in the slightest. The original creations of the late 1970s/early 80s were simply pastiches of their former selves, their power to chill long having disappeared in a slew of sequels and over-familiarity.
1990's Classics -
Se7en (1995)
Wes Craven's new nightmare (1994)
2000's Global Convergence
Horror movies in the late 1990s predicted dire things for the turn of the century. Whilst January 1st, 2000 came and went without much mishap, many commentators have identified the true beginning of the 21st century as September 11th, 2001. The events of that day changed global perceptions of what is frightening, and set the cultural agenda for the following years. The film industry, already facing a recession, felt very hard hit as film-makers struggled to come to terms with what was now acceptable to the viewing public. Anyone trying to sell a horror film in the autumn of 2001 (as George Romero tried with Land of the Dead) got rebuffed. "Everybody wanted to make the warm fuzzy movies."(LA Times 30/10/05) There were even calls to ban horror movies in the name of world peace. But, by 2005, the horror genre was as popular as ever. Horror films routinely topped the box office, yielding an above-average gross on below-average costs. It seems that audiences wanted a good, group scare as a form of escapism, just as their great-grandparents chose Universal horror offerings to escape the miseries of the Depression and encroaching world war in the 1930s. The monsters have had to change, however. Gone were the lone psychopaths of the 1990s, far too reminiscent of media portrayals of bin Laden, the madman in his cave. As the shock and awe of twenty first century warfare spread across TV screens, cinematic horror had to offer an alternative, whilst still tapping into the prevailing cultural mood.
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