Story outline

Finally, I am now putting the story together. I think that keeping it simple and to the point would be the most effective way of doing it. Since this is a horror film opening, a lot of my focus is on making it scary as possible rather than making a story with numerous layers.

     

                                                                                  Story

     As it starts the whole thing is recorded by one of the 2 human characters named Gabe. Him and his friend Erick are filming themselves messing around the park at night for fun. As they walk further into the park, Erick sees a strange almost human like silhouette under the light of a gazebo. He points this out to Gabe who turns the camera to film it. As he starts zooming in they notice it quickly disappear into the shadows. Now, very creeped out, Gabe and Erick pick up the pace as they start to panic and wonder what that thing was. As they walk they start hearing  noises of something slowly approaching. Bracing himself Gabe quickly turns around to face whatever was behind them. To his surprise he is met with nothing but when he turns around he sees his friend is gone. Now terrified, Gabe quickly runs to take shelter in the bathroom. He locks himself in a stall where he gets out his phone to call for help. Before he can do that though, the lights in the bathroom get turned off. He hears footsteps approach his stall and then hears the voice of his friend Erick telling him that its safe to come out. However Gabe notices that something is off with the voice and stays inside. Finally a face emerges out of darkness at the top of the door. As it slowly fades in Gabe screams and the opening ends.

setting and characters

     Now that I have a general idea about my antagonist, I need to start considering the other characters and the setting. For the characters, I already know that I don't think they should be main characters or hold that much importance. Instead, I plan on using them as tools to establish my antagonist. This idea, again, takes some inspiration from the Jaws opening where 2 minor characters die to help set up the antagonist and set the tone for much of the film.  

    In terms of setting, I of course want something that could fit the tone of a horror film but also something that could fit under the context of the story. The first thing that came to my mind for a potential filming location was regional park. 

    This is because I the last time I went there it was night time and I felt like the atmosphere felt rather creepy being that no one was around.  In particular the gazebos and the bathroom I felt gave off a very eerie feeling and could be utilized in my filming. It is also a rather accessible location for me and one that I am familiar with so it will likely be where my story takes place. 

Antagonist

    The antagonist of my story is something that I wanted to figure out first since I planned on centering my entire opening around it.  Though I planned on making the antagonist generally hidden throughout the entire duration of the opening, I still wanted there to be small glimpses and hints as to what it may be as well as what it might look like.

    For one, I need to consider what kind of horror antagonist I wanted to have. Normally I would go with just a human as the antagonist but given the creative liberty I have being that the antagonist is not fully revealed, I think it would be more interesting as well as scarier if it was a supernatural being.  

    Next, I wanted to get an idea of what it might look like for the moments where I might want to show some of it during the opening. I wanted to utilize the information I learned about the uncanny valley in my design. Rather than focusing on an entire body design, I instead just made a rough drawing of what I want the face of the monster to look like since I think that's the only part I'm going to show. 

This is the sketch I made of the monster that I created in photoshop. I wanted to make it have human features but messed with the proportions so that I could try to create that slight off feeling that could help tap into the uncanny valley.

Planning out story

After focusing primarily on research last week, it was time that I started to actually formulate the story for my opening. I wanted to use the knowledge that I gained doing my research and create sort of a list of things that I should implement before I go into the more specific details within in my story.

            What I should implement-

1. Put large focus on the antagonist rather than the protagonist
2. Keep my antagonist mostly hidden for a large portion of  the scene.
3. Establish the antagonist without having to reveal it completely
4. Keep tensions high throughout
5. use/ replicate found footage style of film

    "Noroi: The Curse" 2005

In terms of how I plan on structuring the opening, I took a lot of inspiration from the Jaws opening that I looked at in my previous blog post. That's where I took many ideas in my list from as I felt that they worked very effectively and would be a more approachable way of filming for me. Mostly the notion of having a antagonist with a strong lurking presence while keeping it hidden was very impactful for me. The next thing I have to think about though, is what I want my antagonist to be. By keeping it mostly hidden I now have a lot of creative freedom in how I want to portray/show my antagonist, which is good but also means there is a lot more decisions to weight.

Horror film openings

In my previous postings I focused more on what makes a horror scene, in general, effective, so I felt like I should do some research on what makes a horror opening specifically good.  From what I have discovered, it seems that there are 2 main approaches to opening up a horror film. You can either start off slow and create a rising tension or start off intensely and immediately grasp the viewers attention. 

One of the most well known and praised film openings in horror is from the movie Jaws by Steven Spielberg.  Throughout the entire opening, the shark is never fully shown once. Despite this, the opening is able to establish the shark as something violent and ruthless while at the same time building tension. Combined, they serve to create a very stressful and fear inducing scene that sets up an expectation for the audience for the remainder of the film.

                                                                            "Jaws" 1975

    This is another thing I feel that I can use to my advantage while making my opening. If I can find a way to establish my antagonist but not directly reveal them, this could help me to not only build suspense, but it also extends the possibilities of what my antagonist could be

Found footage horror

 One of the sub genres of horror that I often felt worked very effectively when done properly was found footage. Without doing any research, the first explanation I could think of as to why this would be is that found footage creates the illusion of realism. This works because actual found footage and things like movies are both watchable media and things you would consume in a similar way. 

looking into it further and actually reading about it, I found that essentially, found footage works(when done right)because it deeply immerses the viewer into the story. One film in particular that uses the found footage style very effectively is the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project.

                                                                "The Blair Witch project" 1999

   A key factor in the success of The Blaire Witch project was their marketing. The marketing campaign was done in  a way that would make viewers question whether what they were seeing was a true story or not. This further shows how useful immersion can be in making an effective horror story.  Through the use of this found footage style the film was able to create the feeling of being part of the story. 

A big advantage when it comes to found footage films is that they are not expensive to make. Due to the fact that its supposed to be filmed by the characters in the story, there's not necessarily any need for impressive camera work or settings. Additionally, this ultimately serves to immerse the viewers even deeper. This could especially be useful to my project as going this route seems to be more achievable for me. Though it is surely possible to make something good with limited resources, doing found footage would be a secure way of doing it while also benefitting from the limitations.

Look into the Uncanny valley

 In my last blog post I took a look into what techniques can be used to make a scene scary. One of the things I found interesting and wanted to look into further was the uncanny valley. After doing some research, what I found was that, in simple terms, the uncanny valley is the strange feeling people get when they look at something that isn't human but is eerily close. 

"Alita: Battle Angel" 2019

Some ways in which the uncanny valley can be observed is CGI in movies, realistic humanoid robots, or in video games. Though there hasn't been one official explanation for the uncanny valley there have ben several proposed ones. One explanation links the uncanny valley and its ability to create fear is its ambiguous nature. A paper done in 2016 showed that seeing something that was so close to being human but wasn't created a tension that was very unpleasant to the brain. Another explanation views the uncanny valley as a biological response for survival as it might create a similar feeling to seeing something dying.

Though I am not certain on how or whether I will utilize the uncanny valley in my film opening, I feel like the overarching theme of uncertainty and ambiguity will be important things to try and incorporate. Aside from research, a lot of this has to do with the fact that I myself find that media that use those aspects scare me the more than anything.

What makes something scary?

After some consideration over the last week, I have decided that going the horror route was the way to go. This led me to doing some research to learn more about the genre and what makes certain pieces of media within it more effective than others. I found myself looking on YouTube when I found a video that could be useful to my research. The video was titled "Kairo | anatomy of the scariest scene ever" and it analyzed/broke down a horror scene to see what made it so effective. 

                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfoU_Z1uVfc

After watching the video, I felt I learned a lot about the different strategies in making something scary and a little about the psychology behind fear. Some of the points I took away from the video are the following-

• creating a vulnerable space for the protagonist
• framing the antagonist as part of the background
• defying the typical conventions of a horror film (no jump scares/jump cuts)
• frightened by sudden sound/ appearance is temporary surprise not fear
• fear is in ambiguity, the unknown, uncanny valley
• lack of sound can be used as effectively as sound

Ultimately, if there was only one thing I could take away from the video, it would be that ambiguity and the uncanny valley are very effective tools for invoking fear.  Small subtle details that make something just feel off just creates this uncomfortable feeling that lingers in yourself.  Resorting to sudden loud noises or jump scares may work at causing surprise but they also break the tension that helps make something scary in the first place.

Week one

    Now that we are beginning our portfolio projects, the first thing I've been thinking of is what kind of story I want to create.  Even though creating a schedule or plan on how to tackle the whole thing might be a more efficient way of working, I find that it always simplifies the process for me if I have a pretty good idea of what I am trying to make. 

     I haven't quite settled on a specific genre but I am leaning towards doing something horror related. Recently I have enjoyed watching a lot of horror related content on the internet and have always been fascinated with the ways in which certain media are able to invoke fear into a person. I've also always been interested in how the feeling of being scared can invoke both a positive and negative response. Because of all these reasons, I feel inclined to try and experiment with making a horror story. The only thing that is mostly preventing me from doing so is my uncertainty on how I would approach it. Things like what type of horror I would do, would the antagonist be supernatural or human, what would the setting be, and ultimately how could I make it be genuinely scary.

Music marketing post #2

     Since I've completed my music marketing project, I feel like I've gained a lot of insight on what its like to work on a longer term project like this one. For one, I realize now how important the beginning stages are in making the rest of the process flow much more quickly and smoothly. The initial brainstorming my group and I did was very useful in giving me a general idea/grasp of what we wanted to do and helped lead a lot of our decisions down the road. The making of the schedule in particular was something I hadn't done before but thought was useful in staying on track. 

    

    During the production phase there were some minor hiccups but the beginning stages like the storyboard and schedule really helped make it less complicated. Starting out, I knew that the production process might be very time consuming due to the decision to use animation in a large portion of the music video. I scheduled my work accordingly so that I could finish the video at a steady pace that was in line with the incoming due date. The program used to edit and put together the video, premier pro,  was one I had never used before. This caused me a little trouble at first but now since I've put myself through that process I can say that I have a general sense of how to use it (which could prove useful in future projects)

    Having finished the presentation, my biggest regret or the main thing I would have done differently would be to have practiced the slides a bit more and worked more on making the slides easier to understand. By this I mean that I feel that the information in the slides could have been better if they had communicated better the ideas we had. 

    Overall I think this project has taught me a lot about managing my time, planning out my work, and experimenting with new mediums. Typically with most projects, I struggle to stay on time and usually end up having to rush a lot of the work. This time, since I knew it was a big project, scheduling and creating an outline of what needed to be done by what date, I feel really helped. In terms of trying new mediums, animation was something I had little to no experience with so deciding to make several animated parts for the music video was a little bit of a risk. In the end though, I'm glad I went through with it as I learned a lot about the process of animating and a new found appreciation for the effort professional animators put into their art. Another thing I gained from doing the project was trying out a new editing software. This in particular is something I could see being helpful for my Cambridge portfolio as it had helped me become better at editing and just overall more comfortable with editing.