Horror/Thriller Movie Plot.

A 5 bullet point summary:

• A young adult is seen living her day to day life. Her life is pretty average, she gets up early, goes to work, comes home, eats, sleep and repeat. She lives alone and doesn't see her friends very often.
• She starts to hear voices, an occasional hushed whisper. She ignores it putting it to her imagination.
• She begins to hear the voices loudly and starts seeing things, people, creatures ect.
• These things begin to attack her and convince her to do evil things.
• Eventually you find out she is schizophrenic.

Treatment:

Name: In my head. (May be changed)

Synopsis: Set in the present, An average girl who lived in a cycle of wake up, work, come home, eat and sleep, finds herself hearing odd whispers, It wouldn't happen very often, not enough for her to question her sanity but enough for her to notice. The voices begin to get louder and more frequent and were sometimes accompanied by visuals. These things begin to attack her and taunt her. Eventually she goes to see someone about it and is diagnosed  with severe schizophrenia and is admitted into a mental hospital against her will.

Elements of horror

Horror Genre:

A horror film seeks a physiological reaction such as a increase in heart rate. Their aim to to unsettle the audience. They do this by manipulating the audience's fears usually with jump scares. Frequent themes used in horror movies are the supernatural and death.
There are many sub genres of horror including: action horror, comedy horror, body horror, disaster horror, holiday horror, horror drama, psychological horror, science fiction horror, slasher horror, supernatural horror, gothic horror, natural horror, zombie horror, first-person horror and teen horror.

As a horror movie is designed to induce fear, there are many ways in which this is done. Some of these way are:

1. Fear of death- This is an extremely common fear. Horror movies play on this by making some characters deaths really long and painful.
2. The Dark- Another common fear. Fear of the dark links in with fear of the unknown because you can't see in the dark therefore it is unknown what is in the dark.
3. Location- This scares the audience because of its negative connotations. Many people believe evil is in old and creepy places. especially in places like cemetery or a place where someone was murders. This links into the fear of death. Also, having it set in the subjects house brings to life a real fear of a monster or killer invading a place you presume to be safe.
4.   POV- Point of view shots are fear inducing because it places the audience in the scene and inserts them into the story. Having the POV from the predator also makes the victim look powerless and weak
5.  Disturbing images- This induces a weird curiosity and the images stick in the audiences mind
6. Shot duration- Having the audience uncomfortably look at the horror subject creates suspense leading up to a better pay off.

Doctor! Doctor! Practicing film techniques

After learning about the 180 degree rule and match on action , I create a short film using a doctor doctor joke making sure to follow the 180 degree rule and film for a match on action shot. I am happy with the outcome of my short film as I feel it flowed smoothly. The only thing I would change is the audio and to get better shots. I would change the audio because it breaks up the scene instead of making it flow nicely and I would change the shots to be more visually pleasing, like having a closer shot so the background is blurred.

Horror & Thriller movie research: Trailers.

1. 47 Meters Down

Notes on the trailer:

•  The trailers starts off with two girls going on holiday. This leads the audience into a false sense of security before jump scaring them.
• The trailers has a realistic portrayal of things which makes it even scarier as the audience believe it could happen to them.
• "Its going to be the best vacation ever" leads a false sense of security because it ends up being the worst vacation ever. 
• Tense atmospheric music. This puts the audience on edge making them easier to scare and *kind of* manipulate.

     2. Til Death Do Us Part

Notes on the trailer:

• Trailer starts off with a happy married couple. This gives the audience a feeling of sadness as they know that things are about to go down hill.
• The trailers shows that one thing can completely change a person or bring out their true self. This gives the audience a subconscious distrust for people momentarily making them questions their friends and family. It gets into their mind.
• The trailer starts of bright, colourful and well lit but as you get further into the trailer the lighting dims.
• There is tense atmospheric music.
• The editing isn't smooth which builds on the fear and unease

     3. Wish upon

Notes on the trailer:

• Lullaby music. This is a sadistic way to scare the audience as lullabies imply innocence and purity but the audience know that its not innocent as its a horror movie. Slowed down, a lullaby creates tension and puts the audience on edge which is why a lot of directors slow down lullaby.
• Edit of action syncs with the turning of the key sound effect as the whole film is based on the mysterious musical box that can grant wishes.
• The whole trailer is like a music box, the key sounds, the reversing because in order for a music box to work, you have to turn the key the opposite way.
• A loud and chaotic trailer.

    4. Friend Request

Notes on the trailer:

• Starts off happy with the protagonist celebrating with friends. Bright lighting, nothing is hidden. When it starts to get scary, the rest of the trailer is mainly dark/ has dim lighting.
• When the horror starts, the editing becomes quite chaotic and the audio is loud.
• The main thing you hear is screaming, this scares the audience as screaming has negative and fearful connotations 

     5. Annabelle creation

Notes on the trailer:

• The first shot is an establishing shot with the only sound being crickets. This shows they are alone in the middle of nowhere. A common fear that people have is being alone. The trailer plays on peoples fears.
• The next thing you hear is a child humming. Out of context this is innocent and sweet, but because the audience know that its a horror movie, there is a sinister feel to this.

Filmmaking terms and techniques

• The 180° rule

The 180° rule is a filmmaking technique that says two characters in a scene should stay on the same side of the invisible line known as the line of action. If this rule is broken it could be confusing for the audience as it looks like the two characters having a conversation are looking the same way and not at each other.

Example (shown in the conversations)

• Match on action

Match on action is when two different shots of the same scene are filmed and are edited together where the editor cuts from one shot to another view that matches the first shot's action.

Example

• Jumpcut

This is a transition that makes it seem as if the subject has jumped from one point in the other, it isn't a smooth cut, it's rather abrupt. This is usually used when the director wants to show the audience time has passed.

Example

• Tracking shot

This is a shot in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly that is then placed on rails. This is usually used to follow a subject that would otherwise leave the frame, so the camera is tracking them.

Example

Preliminary task

Planning:

We were first given a stimulus of two people having a conversation. We then had to create an idea of what this conversation could be about. After that, we were put into groups to share our ideas and then decide on which one we wanted to film as a group, for us, this was 'Covering up a murder'. We then created a rough script, discussed how we were going to film it and from what angles and finally we decided on a place to film. As out piece was quite dark and gritty we decided on filming in front of a distressed wall to symbolise the "murderers" distressed mind.

Filming:

The first thing we did was decided where we wanted to film it and where the actors should stand and what angles we thought would fit the scene best. After doing that we rehearsed a couple of times to make sure that we were where we wanted and to make sure we were all in frame and it was a good place to film. We then filmed multiple takes from different angles so we had different view points to work with in the editing process.

Editing:

We firstly skimmed through all of the footage we filmed to get an idea with what angles and shots we had to work with. These shots included and close up of the "murderers" face, a medium shot and a wide shot. We experimented with different shots to see which ones we thought looked best before finally coming up with a rough version of the piece. After that, we added in transitions such as "cross fade" and added in clip filters such as "Vignette" to make sure it flowed well and had the overall effect we wanted it to before finally adding music to create a tense and dark atmosphere.

Overall:

I am content with the outcome of our short film but there is definitely room for improvement. For example, I am happy with the vignette effect as I think it helps bring out the dark theme of the piece but I am unhappy with is the audio because it was a windy day and the sound of the wind sometimes over-powered the sound of the actors in the piece (us). A final thing that I am happy with is the handheld camera work because it represents the "Murderer's" brain and her thoughts.