Starting Pre-Production- Full Plot

 Now that my partner and I are done with preliminary research, we can start with pre-production of our trailers. 

We are going to start with establishing the full plot of the movie then figure out what parts are significant enough to put in the trailers without giving away what the ending will come to. 

As I've established in my blog titled "Our Pitch!", there will be 5 main characters and the main setting will be a wooded area plus a gas station. 

Full plot:

Four people going on a ghost hunt after hearing about mysterious murders that happened around 10 years ago in the 90s. They are the Leader, Sound guy, Camera guy, and the leaders friend/person they decided to bring along. They are desperate for fame and views so they do outlandish things like this all the time. They're high school drop outs, around 18-20 years old. 

After the long car ride they stop to get food and drinks from a gas station and are talking loudly about apparent murders that horrified the small town over the years, when someone overhears. The 'expert' starts explaining that its more than just basic killings, that the story that was in the news was more of a coverup to stop any questions from happening within authorities. 

They end up bringing the expert with them making it five people, and the expert has someone that got lost in the forest a long time ago when the killings were coming to the end, her brother. Her motive is unclear until the end but it seems she knows more than what she's telling the others. She fits in appearance wise but isn't like the rest of them. 

 Once in the forest, strange things start happening, and the leader and sound guy get into an argument about whether or not they have seen the same tree before; the sound guy convinced he's leading them in circles. The group ends up splitting up and the sound guy takes the expert, and the other two go with the leader. The plot/ending will not be in the trailer since we don't want to have a full movie in the trailers, just an overview of what's happening before it starts to develop.   

Full plot notebook entry

   

    This is a messy overview of everything my partner and I went over       with the full plot of the film. We decided with the shot types, half were going to be lower quality hand held found footage while the other half were going to be overview shots of all the characters, a non-diegetic perspective of the film and a diegetic one. 

   This is just a start of our production, we need to figure out how we are going to put this plot into scenes now. 

Last Comedy Research- trailers

 Moving on to the Comedy research, I felt like this element did not need as much research as horror did since comedy in film narratives can be established very quickly but I feel that I am missing something for how comedy can be used in trailers to hook audiences. So I am doing one last in depth analysis for comedy trailers before moving onto pre-production.

No Hard Feelings Trailer (2023)

This trailer does a great job of mastering elements of comedy. The main thing I can tell that I also have previous knowledge about from one of my past blogs titled "Genre research-Comedy" is that despite being a funny movie it does have to have a very complex and interesting plot or storyline with added elements of humor. This is prominent in the 'No Hard Feelings' trailer as we get an overview of the plot in the first minute then in the second we get an interesting montage of funny moments between her and the other main character who is discussed in the first half, as their relationship relates to the entire plot. 

Main takeaway from this trailer is how it is structured overall. 

The Blackening Trailer (2023)

Moving on to the next trailer from the movie 'The Blackening" which is a horror comedy that does an excellent  job on putting the two genres into perspective. The main thing I can take away from this is the pacing of the movie and how it frames the elements of comedy in a horrifying situation. The movie overall plays on stereotypes of black people and how they would realistically act in a horror movie, making it funny. Also taking past research from my 'Genre Research-Comedy' blog and apllying it to this research is that for comedy, you need to give a complex plot and add funny characters to conclude the element of comedy in a film. 

Tying  both of these together to get my main takeaways from this research is the dialouge and pacing of the music. And as the sound designer the sound and music of the trailers both added into the comedy and the dialogue but most importantly for the horror comedy, it presented itself in a way that it eased the horror elements and didn't make it to scary. 

Overall, comedy in trailers is showcased through a combination of visual elements, dialogue, pacing, and music. The goal is to give the audience a taste of the humor in the film while leaving enough room for surprises and laughter when they watch the full movie. Here are some techniques used to convey comedy in trailers:

1. Pacing and Timing:

   • Quick Cuts: Fast-paced editing and quick cuts can enhance the comedic timing of visual gags or punchlines.
   • Well-Timed Pauses: Brief pauses between scenes can allow the audience to absorb a joke or humorous situation before moving on.

2. Visual Gags:

   • Physical Comedy: Clips featuring slapstick humor, pratfalls, or visual gags can be highlighted to showcase the film's comedic elements.
   • Unexpected Situations: Scenes with unexpected twists or absurd situations that evoke laughter are often included.

3. Dialogue:

   • Clever One-Liners: Snappy and clever dialogue, especially one-liners, can be featured to demonstrate the film's wit and humor.
   • Punchy Exchanges: Scenes with comedic banter between characters can be selected to showcase the chemistry and humor in the movie.

4. Character Introductions:

   • Quirky Characters: Trailers may emphasize the eccentricities or unique traits of characters that contribute to the overall comedic tone of the film.
   • Fish-Out-of-Water Scenarios: Highlighting characters in amusing or awkward situations can generate laughs.

5. Visual Style:

   • Colorful and Lively Aesthetics: The use of vibrant colors and lively visual elements can convey a light-hearted and comedic tone.
   • Playful Graphics and Text: Animated or stylized text, graphics, and visual effects can add to the comedic flair of the trailer.

6. Music and Sound:

   • Upbeat Music: Lively and cheerful music can contribute to the overall tone of the comedy.
   • Well-Timed Sound Effects: Comedic sound effects can enhance visual gags and add an extra layer of humor.

7. Genre Parody or Satire:

   • Genre Awareness: If the film is a parody or satire, the trailer may include references to other genres or popular culture to highlight the comedic approach.

8. Montages and Comedic Sequences:

   • Montages of Funny Moments: A compilation of humorous scenes or a sequence of comedic events can be featured to showcase the film's comedic highlights.

Ultimately, the key is to create a trailer that captures the essence of the comedy without giving away all the jokes, ensuring that the audience is intrigued and eager to experience the full comedic impact when watching the movie.

Last Horror Research- trailers

 I already have research done for the overall horror genre, but now I'm going to research the specific aspects of a horror trailer that makes it good, or makes it a horror trailer. 

I'm using a source called make a web video for research. 

https://www.makewebvideo.com/en/make/horror-movie-trailer-video

According to them:

"Horror movie trailers are short and punchy, keeping your audience on the edge of their seats with intriguing visuals, creepy music, and strategic edits. The horror genre typically relies on jump scares, tense music, and terrifying images to excite viewers about the films. This makes them perfect for creating a solid connection with your audience. Therefore, using them for marketing your movie is a wise decision.

I'm going to look at some basic horror movie trailers from a YouTube search "horror trailers" and see what similarities I will find. 

Starting with a trailer for a film called "Imaginary," 2024.   

 

"IMAGINARY" Trailer (YouTube)

The main thing I've seen is that it starts out like any normal trailer, and you can't really tell it is a horror trailer until about 1/3 or 1/4 of the way through, when eerie or unsettling music plays. The horror genre takes more time to develop the plot compared to comedy, so the horror trailer will most likely be longer than the comedy to develop the story more. 

Moving on to another trailer called "Baghead," 2024.

"BAGHEAD" Trailer (YouTube) 

This trailer moves a bit faster than the trailer for Imaginary, but what I can takeaway from this trailer specifically is the tone and mood that all the elements of the film create. It does show more of an overview of the basic plot elements of the film yet it doesn't give anything away of how the film is going to end. 

For the sound in horror trailers and how it relates to the trailers I also found the following: 

Horror films rely heavily on sound design to create a tense and terrifying atmosphere. Tension, anticipation, and fear are enhanced, which adds to the total emotional effect.

Creating Tension:
Silence: A momentary pause in sound can have the same impact as loud music or other loud noises. Suspense can be increased by silence as it can build suspense and make viewers more perceptive to even the slightest noises.
Low-frequency Sounds: Tension and uneasiness can be induced by low-frequency tones or deep, rumbling noises. These noises frequently elicit a visceral reaction in the listener since they are felt more than heard.

Jump Fears:
When a jump scare occurs, a stinger is an abrupt, loud sound. It gives the spectator a start and heightens the frightful scene on film. One component adding to the shock factor is the sound's unexpectedness.

Dissonant Tones: When listening to music that is unpleasant or discordant, one may feel uneasy and anticipate something frightful. 

From both of these, I will draw the conclusion that the trailer must set the scene and introduce the central theme or storyline of the entire film. As for focusing on the sound design, I need to focus on the actual emotion it can play in trailers.  Compared to a comedy trailer, a horror trailer is far more detailed and requires more time to establish.

Our pitch!

My director and I have begun strategizing specific story developments for our film now that we have a general idea of what we would like to achieve. This will help us when we begin pre-production. 

Our horror-comedy film would have lasted around two hours. We opted to finish the primary narrative points because we are creating trailers for this movie, which will allow us to cast the roles and give the characters more complex characteristics. 

During the brainstorming process, my director and I came up with the following.

Since this is partially found footage, there will be five characters total: the camera guy, the sound guy, and the group leader.  We will also have a person that the leader drags along with them, either a family member or a close friend/significant other. We are also going to have another person that they find somewhere in the beginning of the film, the expert. 

The movie will be set in the early 2000s and will feature a couple of high school drop outs that have a Facebook page. These characters will be 18-19 and will do anything for views, including going to 'haunted houses', abandoned buildings and even murder grounds, as they are doing in this film. They drive up from somewhere in the south to Rohde Island after hearing about string a murders that happened in a woods near a small town in the 1970s-90s, which is still an unsolved mystery. 

While grabbing some food from a nearby gas station, they all run into a local from the small town who is an expert on the murders that happened a couple years ago. After a debrief they take them with them and they drive up to the woods. 

Once in the woods weird things happen. They explore and the sound guy realizes they are going in circles. An argument pursues and they split up; sound and expert, and Leader, camera, leaders person. All before finding out the true secrets of the woods. 

As for the genre elements and how we are going to achieve them/make them look different: 

The horror trailer is going to rely heavily on editing and different length clips than the comedy. 

So for the editing of it, I'll be using different lenses and filters for the trailers, the comedy will have a more saturated and high colorization while the horror will contrast this and have a blue toned lighting and emphasize shadows in the woods. As for similarities of the mise en scene in the trailers, they will be wearing the same costumes for each, and they will have a vibrant color scheme. For the comedy, this will go perfectly and look natural in the film. While in the horror this color pallet will create a chiaroscuro lighting technique and place more emphasize on the characters making them look like they are not supposed to be there, like they have been...misplaced. The characters will be the focal point and make them look harsh in a lifeless setting. This will place in perfectly to the context of the film, since they are really not supposed to be there, like the woods is telling them to get out and they don't belong there. And for the camera shots, besides the obviously hand held and POV shots for the footage, we will also be using Dutch angles for more uncertainty and extra footage the characters take. As for the comedy sound and editing will play a bigger part then mise en scene. Comedy will have more sound effects and will have much more dialogue included than the horror. The main part of this will also be the actors tone of voice when saying certain lines so that it will be more genre compliant. 

This is an image of a clip from the Blair Witch Project, and you can see the more monotone lifeless lighting it has. Especially since this is going to be a found footage, the camera quality is not going to be the best for those certain scenes, further adding to the genre choice. 

As for the angle, it's at a Canted/Dutch angle taken at a tilted horizon signifying the imbalance or uncertainty I would like to apply to our film.  

Blair Witch Project (1999)

As for the comedy, we can see here to the right an image taken from a comedy movie called Old School. We can see the visual differences between both this image and the one shown above, and how saturated it looks compared to the found footage horror. The difference between these two are the main visual differences I want to accomplish in my two trailers. 

Old School (2003)

Preliminary Research: Social media

 Now I'm moving on to the social media minor task, and researching some horror film official social media pages. 

SOCIAL MEDIA Minor Task: Inspiration Text One- The conjuring Official Instagram Account

Details: @theconjuring – official Instagram account  

Conventions: Pictures/videos of either promotional items or information.

Tropes: Social media that has behind the scenes, funny moments with actors/ social media trends or dances done with the actors, interview clips with actors, parts of trailers.

Clichés: Promotional items that ask you to buy things, or overwhelming advertisements.

Takeaways: Since the first  conjuring movie originally came out 10 years ago there hasn’t been much activity for the 1^st conjuring movie, but there has been some for the movies the came after it like The Nun, Annabelle, and the 3 other conjuring’s. The account has been throw backs but when it comes to promoting one of the recently released conjuring universe movies it shows trailers and casting calls.

SOCIAL MEDIA Minor Task: Inspiration Text Two- The Nun Official Instagram Account

Details: @thenunmovie – official Instagram account

Conventions: Pictures/videos of either promotional items or information.

Tropes: Social media that has behind the scenes, funny moments with actors/ social media trends or dances done with the actors, interview clips with actors, parts of trailers.

Clichés: Promotional items that ask you to buy things, or overwhelming advertisements.

Takeaways: Since the Nun 2 came out less than 2 months ago in theaters there has been much more activity than the other 2 inspiration texts, and some of the content has been stats of how well the movies doing(#1 movie in the world), videos from other creators drawing the movie, trailers, where to find tickets, teaser visuals, and other promotional content.   

SOCIAL MEDIA Minor Task: Inspiration Text Three- Nope Official Instagram page

Details: @nopemovie – official Instagram account

Conventions: Pictures/videos of either promotional items or information.

Tropes: Social media that has behind the scenes, funny moments with actors/ social media trends or dances done with the actors, interview clips with actors, parts of trailers.

Clichés: Promotional items that ask you to buy things, or overwhelming advertisements.

Takeaways: Since the movie came out last summer there hasn’t been much activity when it comes to promotion, but scrolling back it has many promotional posters, pictures from set, small teaser trailers/pictures, and small interviews with the cast. 

Preliminary Research: Major Print Task 3

 My last movie poster I am going to analyze is a found footage documentary movie that was also recommended to me by my partner and director. 

 

PRINT Minor Task: Inspiration Text- The Blair Witch Project poster

Details: The Blair Witch Project, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, released in 1999 a horror series.

Conventions: Horror movie posters tend to be either dull or monochromatic color scheme, either fitting the plot or setting of the story. The weather tone amplifies this and creates a horror effect. Close-up shot on face.

Tropes: The close up shot of the face, usually giving context to certain parts of the film. In this case it shows that the character is looking into the camera and seems to be recording himself, and this shows us the main part of the film being found footage.

Clichés: The scared woman in the poster cliché. Horror movies often have the ‘dumb’ one in the film as I mentioned in stage 3, but some posters tend to put this in the poster. E.g: “The Eye 2,” “Quarantine,” “Le Sang Des Innocents”.  

Takeaways: This specific poster Does a great job at establishing the key parts of the film, the character who you can tell is recording himself, the woods behind them to tell the setting of the movie and since it is a found footage movie it gives some context in words at the top of the poster as it does in the movie. Found footage movies are slightly different than other regular horror films, as the characters are the main “directors” or film makers, yet that’s what makes it unique and challenging to do. This poster is simplistic and the information on the top gives context, as it’s a found footage horror movie. This gives a basic format of what we could do with our poster.

Preliminary Research: Minor Print Task Part 2

 Alright my next film poster I'll be researching and analyzing is the movie poster Smile. 

PRINT Minor Task: Inspiration Text Two- Smile Poster

Details:  Smile Movie, directed by Parker Finn, released in 2022 staring Sosie Bacon in a psychological horror movie.

Conventions: Horror movie posters tend to be either dull or monochromatic color scheme, either fitting the plot or setting of the story. Most horror posters have 1-2 main colors, close-up shot on face.

Tropes: The close up shot of the face, usually giving context to certain parts of the film. In this case it gives us a horrifying smile that shows the main aspect/plot of the film.  

Clichés: The scared woman in the poster cliché. Horror movies often have the ‘dumb’ one in the film as I mentioned in stage 3, but some posters tend to put this in the poster. E.g: “The Eye 2,” “Quarantine,” “Le Sang Des Innocents”. 

Takeaways: This poster is also very simplistic but gives the exact amount of information needed for the movie. Its horrifying and the plot is left to develop. It doesn’t give away much, just enough for this film.  Another thing I like about this specific poster is the placement of the log line and how effective it is. 

Preliminary Research: Minor Print Task Part 1

Now starting on the minor print task, which for the film promotion will be a movie poster, I'll be researching a horror movie, a found footage, and a movie i researched for the major task; Nope. I'll be organizing my research in the same 4 categories: conventions, tropes, cliches, takeaways. 

PRINT Minor Task: Inspiration Text Three: Nope Poster

Details: Nope by Jordan Peele, staring Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya. Released in 2022 in theaters. Horror/sci-fi genre. 

Conventions: Horror movie posters tend to be either dull or monochromatic color scheme, either fitting the plot or setting of the story. Most horror posters have 1-2 main colors, close-up shot on face.

Tropes: The close up shot of the face, usually giving context to certain parts of the film. This film has 2 really good final posters of the film, the one with the close up of the characters faces are looking up (at the flying alien), following the trope of the close up having to do with the main plot of the film.  

Clichés: The scared woman in the poster cliché. Horror movies often have the ‘dumb’ one in the film as I mentioned in researching major tasks, but some posters tend to put this in the poster. E.g: “The Eye 2,” “Quarantine,” “Le Sang Des Innocents”. 

Takeaways: Both posters show the overall atmosphere and weather/time of day the film takes place in. Both the posters together tell you everything you need to know about the film. It shows the motifs used and the main characters. 

These are the two posters:

Preliminary Research: Major Task Part 2

 More Preliminary research on the major task, My partner Kim and I have agreed that we are doing a subgenre of horror; found footage documentary. 

While we are getting our ideas together I will research some found footage that I've watched, as well as a movie Kim told me to watch. Again I'll be organizing this information into conventions, tropes, cliches, and things I'll take away from this research. 

 Inspiration Text Two: Hell House LLC

Details: Hell House LLC, directed by Stephan Cognnetti. Made in 2015 staring Gore Adams, Alice Bahlke, Danny Bellini a found footage horror movie. 

Conventions: Music that has an eerie tone, building suspense. The music/soundtracks of horror trailers really set the tone of the film and give the viewers watching a nervous feel. Found footage horror movies however are always of course is filmed by the cast and has shaky camera movements that are usually in 1^st person view./POV shots.

Tropes: Horror movie genres always have jump scares, or at least one. Horror films also always have horrifying backgrounds or a more complex plot that we see in trailers.  

Clichés: The “dumb one” always running in the opposite direction of safety or loosing all common sense when in a scary situation. In horror movies at least one of the main cast either comes possessed or dies or gets haunted in the end.

Takeaways: I’ll be doing found footage horror, so taking aspects of my favorite found footage horror movie would be best to analyze. The movie does a great job of being horrifying without the use of many jump scares. 

The main thing about found footage is the majority of the film is from the characters point of view, making it more intimate for audiences seeing their perspective of everything that is happening. In found footage, these films are shot in a more realistic and grounded manner than a slasher or another type of supernatural movie. Found footage makes demonic activity looks almost realistic. 

The picture to the right dictates one of the characters talking to the audience or the people who are watching it, breaking the forth wall and showing the movie from their explained perspective. 

Another movie I'll research, which happens to be the one my director recommended is called grave encounters, a very popular found footage documentary. 

 Details: Grave Encounters movie, directed by Colin Minihan and made in 2011 staring Benjamin Wilkinson, Sean Rogerson, Ashleigh Gryzko is also a found footage horror movie.

Conventions: Music that has an eerie tone, building suspense. The music/soundtracks of horror trailers really set the tone of the film and give the viewers watching a nervous feel. Found footage horror movies however are always of course is filmed by the cast and has shaky camera movements that are usually in 1^st person view./POV shots.

Tropes: Horror movie genres always have jump scares, or at least one. Horror films also always have horrifying backgrounds or a more complex plot that we see in trailers. 

Clichés: The “dumb one” always running in the opposite direction of safety or loosing all common sense when in a scary situation. In horror movies at least one of the main cast either comes possessed or dies or gets haunted in the end.

Takeaways: Similar to LLC, ill be referencing this since I’m doing a found footage horror movie. This specific movie though has exactly the ‘format’ of plot we want to do, with the character roles and starting off as a goofy little film before things start to get serious. Analyzing these will help me prepare for the major task of film promotion/trailers. 

I feel I have a basic understanding of the major task in the genre I want to focus in, now I'll be focusing on another genre and my minor task research!

Preliminary Research: Major Task Part 1

For researching specifically the major task, I am starting with Researching the horror/sci-fi movie 'Nope', by Jordan Peele. Some more details about the movie: staring Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya, released in summer 2022 in theaters. 

While researching this movie, and especially the trailers I took notes on some conventions, tropes, clichés and what I took away from this research and want to apply to my own film. 

Conventions: Music that has an eerie tone, building suspense. The music/soundtracks of horror trailers really set the tone of the film and give the viewers watching a nervous feel.

Tropes: Horror movie genres always have jump scares, or at least one. Horror films also always have horrifying backgrounds or a more complex plot that we see in trailers.

Clichés: The “dumb one” always running in the opposite direction of safety or loosing all common sense when in a scary situation. In horror movies
at least one of the main cast either comes possessed or dies or gets haunted in the end. 

Takeaways: The reason I decided to use the nope trailers as a reference (final trailer vs. first trailer) is because when the movie came out last summer, I had watched the first trailer thinking it was a horror, then watched another and realized it gave a completely different vibe than the others. Some people in the comments seemed to agree with me. One comment on the second trailer stated “I thank god I didn’t see this trailer before watching the movie. The first trailer was so goddamn good and scary and this one not only gives so much away but it makes it look like some action movie. But I saw the movie yesterday and not only was it absolutely horrifying but it was a MASTERPIECE”. My main goal is to make two different trailers that seem like they’re in two different genres, which I think is exactly what these two accomplished. Also, the main difference I can take away from these are the music choices. Analyzing the different elements of these two trailers will definitely help me prepare for making my trailers. 

1st trailer:

2nd Trailer:

 

Genre Research- Comedy

 Now, looking into the genre of comedy. Something I'm not very familiar with, but Some found footage horrors which my partner Kim likes has elements of comedy that we would be able to put in our film. 

My first website I am using:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/comedy-genre-definition-characteristics.html

According to Study.com comedy is a genre that places characters in amusing situations for the sake of humor. Comedy is often placed in opposition to tragedy. 

The definition of the genre comedy is purposefully broad to encapsulate the many different strategies that may be taken in order to make people laugh. While comedy and tragedy are imagined in opposition, comedies also have serious moments, and tragedies frequently employ moments of comic relief. 

Another website I'll look into is Premium beats' genre breakdown:

Comedy genre breakdown

They state that comedy is more than just a joke. It’s a rich, diverse genre that has consistently been a popular and essential part of the greater cinema tradition. 

There's many subgenres of comedy, including slapstick comedy, Screwball comedy, Parody Comedy, and black comedy. 

Now that I have a basic knowledge of the genre and its subgenres, I'm researching the use of sound in comedy, and I've found a great resource for information. 

What Makes A Comedy Funnier?

'npr music' uses quotes from one of the best comedy film composer Theodore Shapiro, using his statements to build ideas. 

"I feel like comedies often work best when the audience is just simply invested in those movies as stories," he says. "You know, even in broader comedies, like Dodgeball. When we played those dodgeball sequences as very, very serious sports sequences ... people became emotionally invested in the story." 

Serious music can make the comedy funnier. "You don't want to underscore the comedy, but you want to be able to work towards it or to go against it, or to amplify it by not pointing it out."

My main takeaway from this is that we need to build the full complex story for people to follow along with a hint of added comedy, to do this we also need to have the right actors to have this effect. Now, I am going to start researching my major and minor tasks in horror and comedy genres.

Genre research- Horror

My primary objective for the foundation portfolio is to create the impression of two distinct genres within a single movie. To accomplish that, I need to do some research on the two genres I hope to achieve with my promotion trailers, starting with the horror genre. As I'm focusing on sound in this production, I'm also going to research sound specifically after basic research of the genre itself. 

While searching for some background information, I came across this article by Master Class. 

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-horror-fiction 

According to masterclass the goal of the horror genre in literature, cinema, and television is to frighten, shock, and sometimes even disgust viewers. A horror book, movie, or television program's main goal is to make the reader feel uneasy by using terrifying scenarios, ideas, and imagery. In the horror genre, narrative and characters have equal significance to mood and setting. A horror story's study of the unknown frequently shocks and provokes.

There are 6 Sub-genres of horror novels: Gothic, Paranormal, Occult, Dark-fantasy, Survival, and Science fiction horror. Often more than one of these merge together to create a hybrid of these sub-genres, for instance The Blair Witch project has Paranormal, Survival, and Gothic sub-genres to create a horrifying horror film. 

Another source I looked at was the reliable no film schools 'Defining the Horror Genre in Movies and TV'     https://nofilmschool.com/horror-genre

According to them now, the goal of the horror film and television genre is to evoke in viewers feelings of terror, disgust, dread, and fear. It has thrilling rides, inventive monsters, ghouls, ghosts, slashers, animals, and gore. Since French director Georges Melies produced the first horror picture in 1896, the genre has undergone changes. The works of Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, and Edgar Allan Poe served as inspiration for the first horror film.

Horror movies frequently depict the advancement and social consciousness of society. Jump scares, haunted houses, slashers, zombies, and other ominous monsters are a few of the clichés. Certain movies, such as Scream and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, spoof these clichés by bringing them to the attention of the characters.

Now focusing on sound in horror, I found this article about the progression of sound in film. 

https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/125964757.pdf 

For a quick summarization: in addition to helping to tell the story, portray people and objects, highlight the environment, and serve other purposes, sound in horror films also reacts to the psychology of the viewer and works in tandem with the visual effects to incite fear and build anticipation in the viewer, which results in the viewer's natural identification and engagement with the film's content. All of these demonstrate how important sound is to horror films. 

My main takeaways to the horror genre and how sound effects it is how it is based on the human psychology of fear and anxiety. In this setting, the goals of both horror and sound design are to create a fresh scene that is full of fright, anxiety, and dread. The purpose of sound in horror films is to occasionally produce a jarring dissonance that evokes uneasiness and increases the likelihood of being startled. Something I've seen personally without doing research is a repetitive sound playing like the harsh dissonance of music, then a very sudden stop of the music as a character turns around and is met by the horrifying demonic presence. 

As Far as editing goes, I'm not entirely focused on just that since I'll be more focused on sound during post-production but something I will use as compared to our comedy trailer is the lighting and colourisation of the film as a whole. The ambient lighting will be a low saturated monotone blue scheme. This picture of one of the scream movies is the most accurate dictation of what I'm trying to explain. 

                                                                            

As for editing techniques, I'm going to try to challenge myself to use intellectual montages to give our story a deep meaning, and since we are doing trailers for a film that's never going to be made, using this editing technique we may be able to tell the full story without giving it away during the trailer (nobody likes that). 

I'll be using this research when planning our pitch for this project. 

Introduction!

 Hello again! My name is Nya and I am a media studies A level student. Currently I'm basically 17-years-old and am one of only two juniors taking this course this school-year! My media diet is pretty high, with social media as one of the highest used apps and takes up all my free-time like any other teenage girl in this society. 

Alright! This will be my forth media studies film I've done, and this time it is completely different than any other prompts I have done, and with a completely different group. As all my other projects, I'll be working in post-production primarily focusing on sound, but also juggling editing as I'll be working in a group of two with my partner Kim who will take on the role of director. We will both be working on the cinematography as I will be looking at shots taken/ plan to take as an editor while she will be focusing on how they look as a director. 

For the package we choose, we decided on the film promotion package: two different trailers, a movie poster, and a social media campaign. 

I'll be doing multiple parted preliminary research on these topics and our two genres we choose, which will be Horror and Comedy. 

Anyways here's a picture of me since this is supposed to be an introduction.