So the journey begins. My partner, Kayleigh, and I have decided to create a horror film opening. This means I had to start researching about our genre, such as their conventions, vital elements, and past successful openings. I figured that if I begin to get some inspiration I can start thinking of techniques and a story line for my own opening.
I just finished watching a video on the top ten best horror film openings according to WatchMojo, and I really loved the openings of Scream (1996) and Jaws (1975). I liked them because they both drew me into the film and left me wanting to watch more. One thing I noticed while watching both openings is that the use of non-diagetic sound was used in order to create suspense, where as up until something goes wrong or the director wants the viewer to begin uncomfortable and question what is going to happen next, it is all diagetic. I thought that this would be important to use in our film because it exposes the reader to the suspense of the opening but without it being very noticeable to the viewer. This made the scenes seem very natural and real, up until the the shark dragged Chrissie into the water or when the killer reveals that he is watching her of course. Within the video POV was used in many of the openings. I love me some good POV. The POV was used along with a hand-held camera, used usually by the murderer or the victim, which makes it easy to show the characters expressions while either murdering or being murdered which can create a very real fear for the audience, which is exactly what we want.
After I examined a few different openings mentioned in the video, I began searching what a horror film consists of and why people like horror films. According to Psychologist Dr. Glenn Walters, there are three things that make up a good horror film: tension, relevance, and unrealism. The tension within the film provokes a need to continue watching to find out what happens and how the problem resolves. When it comes to relevance, it can be explained in many different ways: universal, personal, cultural, or subgroup. This is important because if the movie is not relevant to the audience they will not be interested in the film at all. Unrealism is what allows the viewers to actually sit and watch these horrific images, because since "it is just a movie", they understand that it is a highly manipulated image that has been made to make people feel a certain way, and not an actual young couple parked in the woods for a make-out session about to get eaten alive by a crazy forest man, because that would obviously not be an enjoyable hour and a half.
Other things that I have found to be important are the score, elements of suspense and surprise, and a remorseless killer. The best killers are the ones that are straight up crazy. The ones like Jigsaw from the Saw franchise that is so crazy that when people watch the films they are in complete shock, and almost angry that some one is letting this crazy person put people through such horrible things like in the film. If it weren't for Jigsaw's confidence that what he is doing to his victims is actually him trying to help them, the francise probably wouldn't be that huge and they wouldn't have created six different Saw films. I think this is super important for trying to develop a plot because now I have an idea of how the killer should be based on past success. The elements of suspense and surprise were evident and part of the reason as to why we chose to create a horror film, but what I did find very helpful was knowing how important the score is. I've never thought about it until I read it in many different articles, including The Six Most Important Things That Make a Good Horror Film. I realize that many successful horror films have their own score that becomes a major symbol for the films, for example Jaws, Halloween, Alien, and Psycho. These all have a signature score that makes the film so much better. If you're ever in the ocean at night and someone starts going "duuuuu-dun" (that's the Jaws score in case you didn't get that) you will automatically become terrified because that song is now linked with fear and sharks. This made it very clear to me that I have to include an original score within my opening for the film in order to really scare the viewers. I've noticed a pattern that I would like to follow, which is that the music can be in the background while the conflict arises, but very softly and once the killer comes out the music crescendos into a very evident part of the scene. The subtlety yet presence of the score will and suspense to the conflict and will cause the viewer to be on their toes.
Tomorrow I'm hoping to begin working out what exactly our plot will be and begin brainstorming.
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