Starting Up

1/21/20-Starting up the project has been difficult, choosing groups and what not. After asking numerous times, I finally convinced Ethan Wiley to let me work with him, now we have to talk about what we are actually going to do. We are about to start planning out our opening, so I will update this post after we talk more about the project. Leaning towards horror at the moment, very defined conventions make for easier filmmaking.

Update: Upon brainstorming, we decided on a doing a horror film. We talked and, given our 2 minute timeframe, we have decided that a cold open is a great idea. That way we don’t have to think TOO hard about the plot, keep it within our timeframe, and limit the number of actors we need. As a bonus, we could have the killer be human, monster, or just up to the imagination.

Update 2: Ethan and I have decided to make the movie a slasher type of film. We will keep the monster/killer hidden from view to add an element of mystery and make it more of an attention grabber. Opening with a character dying in the woods, dragged away into darkness, careful to leave the killer/monster out of view, will be easy to make fit the 2 minute timeframe, and immediately show the tone of the movie. Ethan’s father works at parks, so we can shoot our scene there. Our opening so far is as follows: some person is walking through a wooded area and hears something. They begin to get scared, and slowly begin to speed up. Eventually they hear a loud sound and break into a sprint, but before long they trip and fall. Then, before they can regain their footing, they are dragged backwards screaming. We will have to work on storyboarding and more specifics later, but this seems like a good starting place. I’m hopeful about this project, going well so far. We will meet tomorrow to continue discussing, I’ll update again then.

The Plot

1/22/19-Upon further discussion, Ethan and I have come up with a rough outline of the plot. So basically, there is this forest where people go missing. Could be anything from a random forest to a park, that part doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it is a wooded area. The cold open will set the mood, then we will cut to a group of teens who are gonna go camping. Our story will focus on them during their trip turned nightmare, as they try to survive a night in this haunted forest. To fall more in line with the whole slasher aesthetic we are going for, we will set the movie in the 80’s, and thus for research we will focus on 80’s horror movie like Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and Friday the 13th. The main monster will probably be the goatman, as it is known for haunting forests. As of right now, while we haven’t decided on our final title, the running idea is A Night in the Woods. We will use mostly offscreen gore, hiding gruesome bits and making them implied. While that general basis of plot is fairly set in stone, one more undecided plot point is the use of radios/walkie talkies. If we did this, we would split the campers up and have them communicate through radio to try to find and help each other, only to have more and more radio signals go silent. The last survivor would probably break down for a minute when nobody responds when they try to talk to their friends. Otherwise, we will probably have them together in small groups where one person gets separated from their group and killed. Then someone finds them, wash rinse repeat until all, or at least most of them, are dead. Now that we have a rough grasp of our movies opening, and overall plot to a lesser extent, it is time to begin research. For the next probably week or two my posts will be research analysis of the openings of the movies mentioned above, as well as a choice documentary and game about the goatman to give us a better idea of how our monster will act.

Halloween 1978 Opening Analysis

1/25/19– The reason I am analyzing the opening scene of Halloween is because it is a horror movie, like the one we are making, and it came out around the 1980’s, which is when our movie is set to take place.

Halloween Opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg3E8NhyJ74

Looking at the opening, one part I would like to incorporate is he perspective. Most of the opening is shot from the killer’s perspective, which keeps the monster hidden but lets us know its there. Given that we are going to not show the monster in our opening, using this technique would be useful to help us build suspense. Another aspect I liked was the relative lack of dialog. The scene was carried by the music and atmosphere. Seeing as we don’t have professional voice actors, limiting dialog will help keep people grounded in the reality of our movie. However, while this opening had a few good parts to take inspiration from, it had quite a few bits I’d like to avoid. The death scene itself, for example, was a big no for me. I mean, it was SO BAD. I know it is an old movie, but that shouldn’t excuse such awful acting, cinematography, and overall quality. The acting of the girl dying was terrible. It sounded like she was having sex, not LITERALLY BEING MURDERED. Her reaction in general was so unrealistic, she just sat there and died. Additionally, they show the girl being stabbed to death, so where is the blood? This whole sequence really took me out of the scene because of how unconvincing it was. Very anticlimactic, especially considering how much build up the perspective and music gave the scene. On top of that, while the girl was being murdered, the killer looked to the side at their knife, and the motion was so unconvincing. The knife just moved up and down, and it was so far to the side there was NO way it got even remotely close to hitting the girl. Also, the killer only held the knife in one hand, so what was the other one doing? I’m left to assume it is just hanging at the killers side, and that makes the scene feel very robotic. The camera doesn’t move that much, which really seals the deal on the robotic feeling. To show you what I mean, stand up. Now look straight ahead and slightly down, and do a stabbing motion using your right hand and only moving your elbow, keeping your shoulder still. Make sure to keep your left hand at your side. Now you should see how robotic this moment feels, and that is the image the scene paints in my head. All of these alone might not be that bad if the others were done well, however all of them together really take me out of the scene. This is a big no-no, and really reassures me that we should not show the death, and only imply it. I’m not confident we could do a death scene that is good, and I’d rather leave the audience in suspense than ruin the scene by trying something we can’t do. Overall, I am glad I analyzed this clip, as it has given me a really good idea of showing the monsters POV, and shown me what NOT to do with a death scene.

Nightmare on Elm Street Opening Analysis

1/26/19-So, just as Halloween was a horror movie released around when our movie will take place, Nightmare on Elm Street was also released around the 1980’s. November 9th, 1984 to be precise. So, today I am going to analyze its opening to see what I might use in my movie opening.

Nightmare on Elm Street Opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn_DjzN8410

After watching through the clip, I don’t think it is going to do all that much for our opening. While it did a good job of establishing its villain, and gave hints at the rules in the world of the movie, it didn’t do much that I think would fit in our movie. First of all, it showed the monster, which we aren’t planning on doing. Secondly, it is set, for the most part, in some sort of industrial building,while our opening is going to be in a forest area, so we can’t get much in terms of lighting or background. However it did give me idea that I’m going to call the bait and switch. At two separate points in the movie, the character hears movement as the score builds, but the movement is then revealed to be something harmless like an animal, and the score cuts out. Then, when you think its over, the monster pops in and the score abruptly starts really loud as a form of jump scare. Now if we did this we would only do it once. Two seems to be pushing it, as once you do the trick once the audience begins to suspect something next time it happens. We would also have to change it around a bit, because we aren’t showing the monster it wouldn’t be able to jump out. Instead, I think we could have it do something to the character, like rip them backwards or something. That way the affect of the bait and switch is still there, without tipping our hand on what is killing these people.

Update: Upon looking more into the clip, it could actually be very useful. While I was reviewing the opening again, I realized that it has the same style/format our opening is gonna have. While its setting and use of the killer itself are things I can’t take note of, the mini narrative within the opening itself is very similar to our general idea I talked about earlier. Starting off slow, having our character begin to panic as noises and what not plague the surrounding area, and then they run until the monster later catches them. The pacing of this opening can serve as a guideline of how to pace our own opening to help us build more suspense. The cuts grow more and more frequent as the scene goes on, helping build tension with the rising temp of the movie. We could do something similar in our movie to mimic the pacing this movie has to make our opening more tense/suspenseful. While reviewing this, I thought about how we couldn’t use a lot of the clip due to its setting, such as lighting, background, ambience, etc. However this made me think of Friday the 13th, which is another horror movie from around the time period that takes place in a forest, just like our opening. That will probably be my next opening to research, so stay tuned for that. Overall, this opening, while being of minor use with lighting, setting, background, ambience, etc., is going to be very useful in the A.) pacing of our opening, and B.) possible use of the bait and switch technique.

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