What is a horror movie?

The personal convention of a horror movie:
Horror movies tell a story while, through out the film, try to achieve one objective. This objective is to scare the audience. Horror movies attempt to provoke emotions of fear, horror and terror from the viewers. The plot usually involves themes of death, the supernatural or mental illness.
The audience usually receives a vicarious thrill through witnessing a story that deals with the fears of the audience as it places us in situations we would not usually experience, or wish to experience. The audience holds no control over the situation and as the conclusion of a characters life draws near the audience begins to receive an adrenalin kick which is what the audience wishes to see.

The ideological conventions of a horror movie:
The implicit (hidden) or explicit (obvious) messages are rooted inside the narrative, as to provide ideologies so that the audience is made to believe that the people who abide to the rules are the ones who survive. There are themes of punishment, rejection and/or revulsion at subject which move away from ‘correct’ thinking for example the girl who indulges in alcohol and sex is probably the one who will die early on however the innocent girl who does none of these things will not die at all. Horror movies tend to up hold dominate ideologies by taking people who are not like us, e.g. patients from a mental hospital, and making them the killer within a movie because they are not like us and thereby different and should be feared.

Intro to stills camera (brief account of our lesson)

A camera captures light which then goes onto a photographic film which then can create the picture. When beginning to learn about how to create a good picture, we were told that if we wished to create a good picture we needed to be alert the following topics, which were the hotspots, zoom, focus, angle and lighting. They are all factors which can improve the overall image as they take into account the variation of objectives which are needed to make a good picture. For example, with the hotspots we followed the rule of third so that there is not a big empty space within the image which makes the picture appear boring. While using a tool such as focus we can also create a multiple layered picture were something behind something less in the picture is in focus so that it draws the attention of the eye were as the object in front does not as it is not in focus. We could have also used angle to give an object a level of status. For example a low level shot could give the impression the status of the object is very high. However, a high angle shot could give us the impression that we are higher status than the object. Lighting can create the mood and feeling of the shot. For instance if we took a picture of a person with soft light we would make the person feel more delicate or look even more beautiful.

Prelim Post Production

With our post-production of the preliminary task we began by accessing our own videos from the server (Final cut server) by checking out the edit proxy and saving it on our computers. An edit proxy is a digital copy of the original film file which can be easily manipulated and moved. When we finished with the footage we checked it back in to save our edited footage.
We then moved on to the actual footage. However before we did anything with the actual footage we had to open up ‘Final cut’ and create a ‘Log bin’ where we would place the best shot from each angle. We then moved on in ‘Final cut’ to ‘cut’ shots together. To do this we basically moved the play marker until we reach a part in the sequence on the timeline where we wanted to begin the shot. After that we pressed ‘I’, for in, to show where we want to begin the shot and we moved on to the end and pressed ‘O’, for out. This would then mark out the shot we wanted. We then had to press on ‘Modify’ and created a ‘new shot’. This then placed the shot on the side bar. We then could edit the name of the shot so that when we came back to the shot we would recognize what the shot was. We placed the shot into the ‘Log bin’ and moved on to the rest of the shots.
By selecting the best shot we could remove the shots which were no good for our sequence and we could also develop the way the story was portrayed with more ease as the camera footage was not holding us back.



This is an example of 'Final Cut', showing the basic layout for editing shots.



When editing shots we made sure we used continental editing so that shots were placed together in a way that made sense. For example we wouldn’t have someone on set saying something to another person on set and then cut to a shot where the first person comes through a door into the room where they were talking in the previous shot. It just wouldn’t make sense.
As we slowly began to place shots in order, we made sure that they all came together to make sense and tell the story but also came together in away which made the audience feel something towards the character. We victimised one of the character on the set with a high angle shot to make the audience feel as if he is weak and a push over. Which is then put in juxtaposition against the low angle shots of the man who enters the set; the high angle shots made the audience feel as if the man was superior to the other one and also feel as if he was in charge.
As we finished our sequence of shots they came together with a follow which told the story without and excess footage.

Prelim task evaluation

For my groups preliminary task we were filming in the studio. The studio was the most useful location for filming as it allowed us to use more advanced equipment which would improve our video, e.g. real studio lighting, blue screen.
When filming I would usually take care of the bubbling of the camera by myself but I worked with the group when we moved the camera into position as the position of the camera was worked out with the entire group and not just myself. I occasionally took care of the height and locking of the tripod as well as setting up the camera so it was ready to shoot with (focus, contrast, brightness etc). However as I was in the actual footage as well I sometimes had to remain on set and could not help with the actual filming.
As for the lighting of the sequence we went for a dark and hard look to emphasize the brutality of the area within which the scene was situated and the darkness of the situation which the characters found themselves. I personally found the lighting very useful as it helped establish scene and setting for the audience.
When we began filming we started off by placing the camera into the tripod and locked it in properly so we no longer needed to worry about it falling out. We then placed the camera in a wide shot position for an entire run through. When the camera was in position we increased the height of the tripod, to not give a hero aspect to both characters, and made sure it was balanced. We then bubbled the camera so that the footage wouldn’t be shown at an angle. As for the camera we set it up just before shooting so that no conditions were changed before shooting without us knowing about it. We made sure that the contrast, zebra, and brightness; peaking, tally lights and focus were all set up correctly. Making sure the camera was set up correctly made sure the shot we took would not be out of focus, too bright or too dark, too grainy, have too much empty space and would not be awful to look at. We moved the camera into several other positions as well, (close up, over shoulder, medium close up, two shot), so that we had all the footage we needed before post-production. Each time we moved the camera we had to set it up from the very beginning again so we wanted to move it around as little as possible so we had to make sure that we had all the footage from one position which we wanted before we moved on.
We made sure that the actors knew their markers so that when we did the other shots we could transition the shots without them actors firstly appearing on one part of the set and then in the second shot somewhere entirely different. We also had to make sure there weren’t any unwanted objects on set we filmed a run through, for example lighting cables in the background, which would ruin the shot. When we were about to begin filming we made sure we used the appropriate terminology to make sure everybody on set knew what was going on. I tried to make sure that we lead in and lead out of every shot successfully however I noticed some times that we did not lead in and lead out properly or as I would have hoped as several times the cameraman was too fast with the action and the cutting of the part of the filming. The leading in and leading out of shots would have been useful for us as it would have allowed us to get everything out of the shot we wished to get but what is done is done and it would seem we might have to deal with the post-production out the leading in and out shots. Overall I think we successfully captured all the shots we wanted to capture.