Conducting Genre Research, Horror.

I gathered the research for the Iconography of Horror movies I have presented this research as images in a collage, including the typical aspects of horrors.
Below is the collage made on Photovisi (All images are from google and youtube)

This collage contains the stereotypical things that people expect to see in horrors such as blood, knives and weapons. The villains in horrors always have either a mask on or media make up, this is to try and create the scary vibe by disguising there identity. I have also included common horror film scenes for example the big haunted house and being in the shower. All of these images are dark and eery. This represents the basic expectations of a horror film.

I also researched into the certificate rating on horror movies and the reasons behind the ratings.                                                                                               All movies have certificate ratings on and when you look at horror movies they
normally range between 15 and 18, this will be because of the contents of the movie have bad language, violent scenes, sex scenes and horror scenes these things are what cause the films to fall under the category of 18 certificate ratings.
Horror films were very hard to pass as an 18 certificate rating in the past because violence was a problematic situation and caused a lot of moral panic, in order for the film to get the rating certificate and be able to be shown in cinema's they would have to remove the scenes that are inappropriate although these scenes will be shown in uncut video versions. Now days a lot more is accepted in movies, for example until recently actual sex acts were not allowed in any 18 certificate rating movies.
An example could be Cannibal Holocaust this movie had to be cut by 5.44 minutes because of sexual violent scenes and animal cruelty.

Movies such as the saw series are all 18 ratings, this will because of all the blood, gore and violence. Movies like this need to have the ratings because the contents is not suitable for anyone under that age, since saw contains bad language and is filled with loads of different violent ways of killing people. You can also see from movies like this that entertainment has changed so much over the years because the content of saw would not have been accepted even as a 18 certificate rating movie where as over the years they have had to be more lenient and accept more into 18 rating movies because it is what the audience now want to see and they want.

A group member Georgia created a prezi presenting the conventions of horror film and narrative, including narrative theorists. Embedded below.

Group members Georgia and Faye created a video to present the typical conventions of a horror movie. (youtube clip embedded below)

History of the horror genre on Dipity.

We will be using all this information we have collected to help us produce a perfect horror movie opening, we wanted to find out what typical conventions we should use in a horror movie and which ones not to use. This information will also help us create something that will appeal to our target audience, helping us know what conventions are typical in popular horror movies now days, also helping us avoid the typical conventions used in historical horror movies.

Preliminary task

Preliminary task screenplay

This preliminary tasks displays the camera techniques we have learnt, 180 degree rule, shot reverse shot and match on action. We will use the editing techniques in our final piece. This tasked should include dialogue between two people and present our camera skills.

Shot list:

Story board:

Script:

Doctor sitting at a desk typing
Doctor: (shouts) Next please!

Patient enters the room

Doctor: Take a seat please

Patient sits down

Doctor: So what seems to be the problem?

Patient: I’ve recently had red, itchy eyes, a blocked nose and have been frequently sneezing

Doctor: It sounds as if you are having symptoms of hay fever

Patient: Ok what can you prescribe to help?

Write out a prescription

Doctor: I will prescribe you Cetirizine, which will help with these symptoms

Hands the patient the prescription

Patient: Ok, thank you very much

Patient exits the room

Final video:

Evaluation
Below is a Prezi evaluating our preliminary task.

Match on action

Match on action is an editing technique where you will film an action in one shot and then it will cut to the second shot and complete the action, when this is edited you're presented with a continues shot of an action that may not be noticeable because it is edited seamlessly. For example someone could be opening a door and then the camera will switch to the inside of the door to finish the action of the actor entering the room but it will be edited in such a way that it will seem natural and unnoticeable to the audience.
As a task in lesson we was set to film our own version of an action match edit. Our group had decided to get someone sitting down on a sofa and then getting up to walk away, first of all we created a birds eye view plan of how we would set the area up with two camera's, we used two camera so that there was good continuity and it would be a lot easier to edit. We had to make sure that we placed the two camera's in a place where we could clearly see the actress, but also couldn't see the other camera in either of the shots. Below is the edited final piece.




Faye and Georgia were in control of the camera's while filming, this was quiet simple as the camera's did not need to move at all once they was in the right place all that needed to be done was to hit record, I was acting in our clip. The editing of the clip proved a lot more challenging than the filming, this is because as editing the two clips together the timing had to be perfect to create a seamless edit. We edited two versions of our match on action so that we could see which way worked best, we had switched the clips around so the camera angle started differently in the two shots.
Through out this task i have learnt that match on action needs precise editing otherwise the cut will not be effective, timing is so important when trying to edit two clips together, to help improve with editing match on action skills we could create a clip where there is to different cuts.

180 degree rule script

180 degree rule script

Two characters are engaging in conversation about a recent homework task.

Character 1: [Enters room]
Character 1: Hi
Character 2: Hi
Character 1: [Questioning] Have you done the homework?
Character 2: [Shocked] No, what homework?!
Character 1: The media work that was set last week - we've had had eight days to do it!
Character 2: [Confused] Oh... what was it?
Character 1: That work we started in lesson
Character 2: [Relieved] Oh thats okay, i'll do it this lunch time!
Character 1: You better do it!
Character 2: I will!

End.

Our video using the 180 degree rule



Through out this task my main roles where, filming and editing. While I was filming I had to make sure it would come out in good quality to ensure this I used a tripod to keep the camera steady and I also stuck to the 180 degree rule to prevent any continuity errors. The 180 degree rule insures that character one always stayed on the left and character two remained on the right. While filming this I continuously filmed one character saying all there lines and then filmed the next character saying all there lines in one continuous shot, this was to help keep mise-en-scene the same through out. While myself and group member Georgia were editing our clip we had to present the clip in a way to show that the two characters were having a conversation and from us editing in shot reverse shot this has portrayed that the two characters are talking to one another, we also had to ensure that they were clean cuts, we did not want to use any transitions because this would cause the clip to seem edited and we wanted to keep it as realistic as possible. Next time we could improve things like our lighting, as in this clip the lighting between character one a two is different, although this could be natural lighting from windows but it causes the clip to look inconsistent. 

Camera shots

The 180 degree rule, this way of filming helps to maintain continuity. To understand the 180 degree rule you can imagine a circle around your characters and have a line going through the centre of them, if you wanted to film them talking to one another you must say on one side of this circle because you want to ensure that one character is always on the right and the other will always stay on the left, this will also keep there eyesight in the same direction no matter where you stand in that half of the circle.

(This picture i have uploaded from google images)

The picture above helps to understand my explanation of the 180 degree rule and how you must stay on one said of the circle because as shown the blue person is on the right in the picture where they have decided to film (the green half) and when they filmed on the opposite side the person in blue ends up on the left. For these reasons it is important to stick to the 180 degree rule.

Shot reverse shot is an editing technique that is most commonly used in conversations. To create this effect you will film the first person then edit a clean cut across to the second person then again cut across back to the first person. 

Introduction

My name is Kala-Louise Hill, my candidate number is 3075 and this blog is going to present my journey through my AS media foundation portfolio which is to create an opening sequence to a horror movie.