My Goodness...What has happened to your face?!

So the other day, my group were discussing about how our horror film should be an 18, there are only a few ways to do this:
*Make it very scary!
*Make it extremely violent (fighting)
*Make it very Gory

So we thought... how about all three?

Luckily, as so happens, I knew someone who was currently doing a theatrical and film make-up course, so I asked her whether she would be able to help us with our media film and provide the make-up for this.

So she went ahead and did some tests on me, this make-up will be showed in the final scene of the film, when Jenny is getting killed, and also when she is trapped in a mirror.

Hand burns/cuts:

Face Burns/Cuts:

So there we go! We are well on our way to making a horror film! Hooozah!!

Credit goes to Sarah Ashby for the Make-up.

So, What Scares you?

There are many things that scare people, I asked a few people as to what scares them, and a lot of them trurned out to be typical horror conventions.
Here are a few examples:
Inanimate objects coming to life

This is scary since it's something 'that should not be', by this I mean that objects should not be coming alive and it also creates the fact that something is always watching you.
Hearing Things

This is always freaky as if you've got a good imagination the easier for your mind to wonder and start to create mental images of what you are hearing (often creating situations ending in death).

Spiders

This is because they are 'freaks of nature' they are one of the only creatures that has eight legs, and their crawling like movement often freak people out, also they seem to get everywhere and you cannot escape them.

Young Children

This is because they're supposed to be innocent, however...they are not, their voices are often shrill and they can hide in small places meaning they could really be anywhere, from in your wardrobe...to under your bed.

Masks

This is because you cannot see their face, so they seem to have the same expression all the time, this freaks us out because we don't know what the 'killer' is hiding, it often keeps a distance between the victim and the killer.

There are many other horror conventions such as vampires, however for our film we have decided to go to a more non-traditional approach since we don't have supernatural element, since we decided since we are making a student film it will look a lot more realistic as keeping to the more 'creative' path means it won't look as fake meaning we will maitain the verisimilitude.

Location, Location, Location!!

Some areas that would be suitable for the filming!
All were taken by me within the Attenborough Nature Reserve

Creepy forest places are good for horror films as a killer could be hidden within the trees without the victim noticing

Poster For Our Film

This is our poster made for our film:

The poster shows a girl on the poster who is the main character (Olivia) and is looking somewhat worried, she takes over at least half the page to show that she is important within the picture. In the top left corner there's the logo which I had made earlier on, this clearly shows what the name is of the productions which created the film. To the left of the girl there is a mirror with someone's hand within it, this gives a hint as to what the film's may be about and who the antagonist is. Over the top of the hand is a not very detailed drawing of the main character (shown dead) in blood to show that the 'person within the mirror' is after her. The title takes up a quarter of the image so people will know what it is called and to the left in gothic like text is the tagline of the film.

Favourite Horror Movie

My favourite horror movie, is more considered to be a pyschological horror, but does have a lot of horror conventions such as you can see on the poster that ghosts are present.

What is it called
The Orphanage

Who directed it?
Juan Antonio Bayona, produced by Guillermo del Toro

Have they directed any other horror films?
No, he's a new director, mainly has directed Shorts and videos.

When was it released
2007

Does it have any well known stars in it? If so, Who?
Not really, as it is a spanish film, mainly spanish actors which only act within spanish films, however Geraldine Chaplin (Charlie Chaplin's daughter) does feature in it.

List the horror conventions of this film:
Young Children, Creepy old house, Ghosts, Not much talking, heavily influenced by music
Masks (Pretty freaky actually!!) ---->

What elements created fear and suspense in the film?
The fact that throughout, there was not too much speaking and was heavily influenced by music, but ghosts and masked children are a key point and sure make it a whole lot scarier for the audience!!

What elements failed to create fear and suspense in the film?
I could not find any, I found the film throughout good and did not fail to create suspense since throughout most of the film I was on the edge of my chair!

Our Logo (My Concept)

Our production name is RedXProductions, which needs a logo which would be shown within the opening squence! And this is what my concept of what the logo would like is:

Why call our production name, RedXProductions in the first place?
As we were thinking up of typical conventions of horror such as ghosts, haunted houses, spiders and other such terms, we thought of having our productions to include something to do with blood. Blood is red, so that is how we came up with red in our title. We were originally planning to name it just 'Red Productions', but one, it doesn't sound that interesting and two, it was already a real film company! Therefore! We came up with RedX, and added productions on the end so people would know that is the title of our 'company'.

So...Why choose X?
There are many things that an X could be portrayed for.
1.) Wrong, such as a question in a test you haven't got right, which is a bad thing. Also, often X's are done in red.

2.) X can be represented as Danger such as warning signs of a railway crossing.

So, what's good about my logo?
The X within the logo is clearly highlighted in a different bright colour within the picture, and also located within the middle of the image showing that is the most important part of the image. In the background, there are faint X's to show that the term 'x' is in fact important. And finally, dark colours are used, which not only makes the X stand out more but darkness is a convention of horror!

Preliminary Task

This was our groups preliminary task which was to show match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule, hopefully we have showed those techniques clearly!! The filming was what took the longest in order to make this, as there were many different camera angles which was also filmed within our college, filming in the college meant that it was difficult to control the sound levels for each scene we took, however editing for this did not take long as most of the shots were taken to the required length of time needed!