Ideas

“When we all fall asleep, where do we go?”

May 19, 2019 — Leave a comment

This blog will only be a small one explaining an idea I had, why I like the idea and where I am going to go with it from here, and although only a short blog I felt it was important to record my idea in a blog incase I go through with it and even in case I don’t so that there is at least some record of my train of thought. Earlier in my research I did a blog titled “‘hell’ in the music industry” which I have gone back to and referenced a few times since, in this blog I wrote about a few songs, lyrics and music videos that I found inspiring, one of these being “bury a friend” by Billie Eilish.

I was considering using some of “bury a friends”‘s lyrics as the script for my cult members chanting but didn’t feel they sounded very realistic in that context, and so ended up going with some Iron Maiden lyrics. Although I wasn’t going to be using the lyrics in the film or script itself I had the idea of possibly finding some remix or instrumental versions of the song to use as my backing track, I want to use this song because of many factors, I think it sounds very creepy but also the lyrics, “when we all fall asleep, where do we go”, fit perfectly with the plot of my short film. I am going to be looking into this a little more as I would like to be able to get some copyright free remixes but I know that can be quite hard so will have to look into it a bit more before writing my audio planing blog to make sure I can actually use a version of this song.

I will of course come back to this subject when writing up my audio planning sheet and will talk in more detail about what I have found and the copyright issues there may be, but for now this is just an idea.

Last years editing

May 15, 2019 — Leave a comment

I am further into my editing now but still with a long way to go, I have put all the clips in order, roughly edited the length and placement of them all, and decided which clips I want to re-film. At this stage I am very much ready to move onto the more artistic and stylistic editing, like playing around with colour grading, layering clips and deciding on the audio and how I want that to effect the atmosphere of my short film. I honestly had hoped I would have been further ahead than I am but now it’s just a matter of making the most of the time I have left on this project, I was hoping to be near finishing my edit by now but with still some shots to re-film and audio to find, I am realising I am only around half way done. Regardless, yesterday my mentor, Andrew, came through to see the rough edit of my work and to give me some feedback on it so far. He said he was happy with the work he was seeing and that I do have the potential to create something great, which is really what I am aiming for, but that I will really have to pull it all together through my editing and the style and direction I end up taking my film in because of the final edit.

All of this gave me the idea to look back at my work from last years FMP, I was extremely proud of my editing in last years work and think it was the strongest point of my work in that project. As last year was also horror, it work so well to use for inspiration, and because I did end up loving the way it transformed my work I thought I could use similar editing styles this time around. As well as looking at the finished product of last years work, I also wanted to look at some of my editing blogs from last year to really see what I did to get the effect I did. However, there is one key difference between my work last year and my work this year that makes using the EXACT same editing styles a bit harder. Last year I was creating a trailer and campaign for a film I had made up and was trying to sell to an audience, and so, because it was a trailer and because of the style I was going for, I didn’t have to worry about keeping any continuity or telling much of a story as it was just a trailer. This year I am creating a short film, meaning my editing must keep up with the story and plot of the film and not interfere with any of the continuity to help that everything makes sense for the audience.

First thing I wanted to look at is any inspiration blogs I wrote last year about any ideas I had for editing and then anything I wrote about planning my editing, I remember being very inspired by American Horror Story, and in particular, the title scenes for their shows. I loved the editing style and the way the visuals were very jumpy and distorted but still matched with the audio and you can definitely see I took on that style when it came to editing my final trailer. I would love to recreate some of this editing this time around, however, I am not as confident that it will work throughout the film, in the nightmare sequence, yes but in the other 3 scenes, probably not. Here is something I wrote in this blog about the AHS title scenes: “I am taking inspiration from the title sequences of the shows, the glitchy movement and disturbing images are really what interested me. Although they don’t tell a story as such, they provide us with the themes and idea of the show, for example the title sequence for AHS: Freak Show (season 4) was based around the circus and the ‘freaks’ and so showed imagery related to that, such as big circus tents and clowns.” I stand by this still, and am sure this will work amazing in my nightmare sequence but probably not the rest.

Now, looking back at my editing blog last year, all 184 words of it, I am honestly shocked that I managed to get a decent trailer out of any of this. This blog is extremely vague and literally only have 2 screenshots. Although, I do mention within the first paragraph of the blog that it was a very simple and “straight forward” editing to create as I was, more than anything else, relying on my use of cutting up my clips and placing them strategically along the audio clip to create something very glitchy and unsettling, and that is exactly what I did. Here is a screenshot from my editing time line last year, this was at the finishing point of my work and already my work this year, only half way complete, is a lot more involved than this.

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To finish this blog I wrote: “All in all the editing was quite simple for me, just time consuming as I wanted everything to look the certain way that I had imagined them looking. Apart from what I have just mentioned the only other forms of editing I did were simple things such as adding filters and/or transitions.”

Here is my final project from last year that, surprisingly from the lack of details in my blogs, managed to get to a point where I feel I have improved a lot and feel a lot more confident in my work from researching horror to implementing it into my own work. I am hoping to mimic some of the skills and styles I used throughout this project while also adapting this style to aid the story of my film a little better. Here is the link to this Instagram page with the video on: https://www.instagram.com/p/BjJxVOggT6f/

 

Riverdale

March 29, 2019 — Leave a comment

This blogs is to research how cults and rituals are portrayed through the media, film, art, and popular culture. The popular US Netflix show ‘Riverdale’ probably doesn’t seem like the kind of show that would give a horror short film much inspiration or things to research. However, their third season came with many new characters and storylines as well as their main plot focusing on some kind of cult, this is what I will be focusing on in this blog. The show includes many scenes of rituals and occult symbols, as well as drug abuse and a game that could illustrate a form of cult recruitment tactics. I think the way the idea of a cult and rituals is being treated in this show is similar to how I’d like to portray my cult (except in a dream rather than in real life like on Riverdale.) There are many physical aspects to the cult I will be doing similarly, like the use of costume to cover the cult members faces, although in Riverdale their faces are covered with masks, I will be covering my cult members faces with a hooded cloak. Another common thing in terms of the rituals in this series is the scenes of symbols carved or branded into human skin, mainly on their backs. This is something I would like to incorporate with my SFX work, I found some interesting symbols in the Satanic Scriptures book that I may use to inspire the SFX. I like the way they are feared but mainly because of the unknown aspect to them; Who are they? Why are they in a cult? Who/what do they worship?

Here are some screenshots from various episodes of the show all showing some kind of ritual or occult symbols and characters:

 

Previous work in SFX

March 27, 2019 — Leave a comment

Since beginning my project I have been keen to use my skills in makeup and especially special effects makeup, or SFX, I have built a business on my skills in makeup, as well as using these skills in many of my previous projects. Since I am working within the horror genre for this project it seems only fitting to utilise my SFX knowledge as well as my experience with using it in some of my previous projects. I am completely self taught in makeup and SFX and consider them some of my strongest talents, however before being enrolled on this course I had never had to consider how my skills had to be changed and adapted for film rather than just costume work for fancy dress or work for pictures. Here are some examples of my prior SFX work, some from previous projects and some done in my own free-time for my own benefit:

 

Most of these SFX were done with either special effects silicone or liquid latex, then coloured with alcohol activated paints. However the last photos, used for my unit 9 genre photography project, were simply just fake blood and a dirt I made out of various items I found in the kitchen, like ground pepper, ground nutmeg and hot chocolate powder etc. I would like to use this idea again in this project as I think it adds enough SFX to make it seem as though there has been a struggle. I think this, alongside my much bigger and complex SFX, will compliment each other very well.

I have done much SFX for my own portfolio, as well as using my knowledge for many of my projects during this course, I wrote a blog for my last FMP reflecting on my special effects work in this project and thought I could look at this here: “During the production of my trailer, I put my special effects makeup skills to use! I did have to slightly alter the way I coloured the cuts for film use rather than photography, which is what I’m used to. I used SFX silicone to create this, for this you have to mix equal parts A & B to create a gel like form which can be moulded and manipulated into a shape you like, it then dries into a hard form and can be pained and coloured to the desired effect.” Here I was referring to some slit wrist SFX I did on my mother who acted in my short film, I was, and still am, so happy with the outcome of this SFX and will be looking at the certain ways I painted these a lot more subtly to help me when it comes to creating some SFX for this project.

For this project I would like to do some bigger SFX (and possibly a little less subtle in terms of the types of injuries) however I will have to write another blog on this as I would like to fully plan this as a part of my characters costumes etc.

Nightmares & Night Terrors

March 15, 2019 — Leave a comment

We have all experienced nightmares and, especially when we are young, they can be extremely disturbing and terrifying and so of course would make a great plot of a horror film as being scary is in their nature. Using something, like a nightmare, that we have all experienced in our lives may be a great way of engaging an audience and creating some ‘relatable’ aspects to my short film. Of course a nightmare and a night terror are slightly different, and although the definitions sound fairly similar, from frequent experience of night terrors I can confidently say there are many differences between the two that make night terrors that more intense and unsettling.

I wanted to use the concept of sleep disorders in my short film for many different reasons, first of all to aid the plot and structure of my short film, of course I will be doing a blog once my plot is planned as well as blogging the planning stages, however I know I want to use a nightmare/night terror sequence in my short film as well as some kind of plot twist near the end to make the audience question wether this was a dream or not.

Another reason I want to incorporate this type of topic into my short films is to give me some more freedom with editing, filming, characters etc. If half of my short film is a dream or nightmare then I can portray it in any way I wish to, there are no rules to dreams and if I wanted to I could be as imaginative as possible in terms of everything from set to editing to characters. From personal experience, which I will go into more detail about in a bit, nightmares and especially night terrors don’t tend to have much structure and jump around a lot and, for me at least, tend to be extremely overwhelming and disorientating. Although I do want there to be some kind of sense to this dream and I want to portray a ritual happening semi-clearly, I think my freedom in terms of editing and camera work will help me in creating something that conveys the same sense of overwhelming and disorientating feelings I tend to get during night terrors.

The last reason I want to base my film around this topic, that I touched on slightly in the last paragraph, is my own experience (and that of others). I have been having nightmares since I was very young pretty much every night until I was around 15/16 and as well as also experiencing infrequent – but bloody terrifying – night terrors that also consisted of “confusional arousals”, which is where the body seems to wake up and is in an extremely confused state, this combined with the absolutely awful and overwhelming images I used to see when having night terrors is enough alone to base a full length horror films off, in my opinion. In my experience night terrors tend to go from 0 to 100 extremely quickly and can go back to 0 again just as quickly which is probably a factor to why I used to find them so overwhelming and disorientating. My night terrors wouldn’t consist of ghosts, demons and monsters as a lot of nightmares do, but more often would be a collection of flashing lights, strange images, jagged movements etc, really enough to make you feel like you are going insane. Although I have my own experiences and can only ever know what I felt rather than another persons different experience of the same disorder, I thought it influence my work to see what other people with similar experiences felt and encountered through their own nightmares, night terror, or any other sleep disorder.

Below I have included my responses from my questionnaire below, although many of these results will not be influencing my story line per say as I now have an idea of a plot I would like to create, I may use them to inspire my technical work and my editing work to try to create and portray some of the emotions and feelings many people described experiencing throughout their nightmares, night terrors etc. I really wanted to create a sense of disorientation but wasn’t sure if this was a common feeling or wether it was just my experience but now through the responses of my questionnaire I can see this is a common occurrence.

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Location Research

March 15, 2019 — Leave a comment

Since beginning this project, and even before changing my idea to just a short film rather than a whole campaign, I have had a very clear idea of what kind of location I wanted to film in, the trouble was just finding a location that I could film in. I wanted to find an abandoned or derelict building to use as my location, possibly a hospital or factory etc, I have had this idea in mind so sternly due to the extra eeriness I feel that an abandoned building has, as well an element of mystery surrounding the location. Abandoned buildings have a passed and have had a whole lifetime of use, and now have essentially been left to rot and die without maintenance. By using an abandoned building in horror it can help foreshadow and link into the idea of ghosts within the building from a time where the building was in use, the element of mystery within an abandoned building can be extremely useful in terms of the idea of ghosts and the paranormal because it proposes the question of “what happened here?”, at least in my opinion it does. Now that my reasons for wanting to use somewhere abandoned have been clarified, it is time to move onto the research.

To begin my research, as I really didn’t know where to start, I simply went to google to see if there were some websites or articles which could give me some further inspiration and a starting point and idea of where to look next. I searched up “abandoned houses near me”, this was a very vague question to ask google but definitely gave me an idea of where to go from here as this lead my to a website called www.shothotspot.com . This website ended up being extremely useful in helping me locate a few places of interest as I could narrow my search down to my location and how far away from my location I would be willing to travel. Below is a screenshot from this website showing some of the places within a 10 mile radius from me.

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A few of these places caught my attention a lot more than the others, for example, Bank Hall. According to its Wikipedia page (I know wiki is not the most reliable source for research but since I just wanted to know the buildings currents listing and a bit of brief history, I think wiki is perfectly appropriate here) here is some information on the building:

“Bank Hall is a Jacobean mansion in Bretherton, Lancashire, England. It is a Grade II* listed building and is at the centre of a private estate, surrounded by parkland. The hall was built on the site of an older house in 1608 by the Banastres who were lords of the manor. The hall was extended during the 18th and 19th centuries. Extensions were built for George Anthony Legh Keck in 1832–1833, to the design of the architect George Webster. Legh Keck died in 1860 and the estates passed to Thomas Powys, 3rd Baron Lilford. The contents were auctioned in 1861 and the hall used as a holiday home and later leased to tenants. During the Second World War the Royal Engineers used it as a control centre. After the war the estate was returned to the Lilfords whose estate offices moved to the east wing of the house until 1972 when the house was vacated. The building was used as a location for the 1969 film The Haunted House of Horror.”

I decided since this building has already been the location for a horror film then it may be very useful to look at some clips from this film so I can get a feel for the building, and although the film was shot in 1969 and the house will have changed a lot, this at least gives me a rough idea of the interior and the style of the house. From looking at some of the clips, I think , if I can contact the right people and get the permission I need, then this would be an amazing filming location for my short films nightmare sequence.

Moving along to another place on this map/list that seems to be perfect – in theory – for what I am planning is Brindle Service Reservoir, however with a place like this there is much more to consider in terms of electricity supplies and the lighting of the building to gather wether I would actually need artificial lighting etc. I don’t think I would really be able to film my whole nightmare sequence here, however, as it is near me, it may be a good location to keep in mind incase I decide to gather some extra shots in a different location, this of course depends on my further planning. I think  the fact that this location is pretty much empty and apart from the brick arches throughout, there aren’t really many distinct-able features, making it perfect for the background of the horror as it wouldn’t take too much attention away from the characters or the plot. To be able to get a feel for the look and atmosphere of this location I found a small blog written on a website called http://www.28dayslater.co.uk that shows many pictures of the location, the blog also stated that there was a planning application to demolish it in 2012, but the place was still standing in 2014 when the blog was written. I will have to look into this a little further if I do decide to use this location in my film, however for now I am finding it difficult to gather any more detailed information.

Plot Ideas

March 11, 2019 — Leave a comment

Although I haven’t come up with a full plot for my short film as of yet, I have had a few ideas in terms of subject matter, rough structure and sub-genre. I have decided to still use the concept of cults, rituals and satanism in my short film but have decided I do not want the whole plot to be just based on cults and instead have decided to as well focus on the paranormal; I would like my short film to fit within the paranormal sub-genre while still using much of my cult and Satanism research to help build my plot. I have also decided that I would like to base the structure of my short film around the idea of nightmares and/or night terrors as I think this may be a great way of helping build a plot/storyline. I do not know much about films to do with nightmares or night terrors and the only experience I have of this are my only experiences to reference and so may find it useful to do some quick research on this. I like the idea of creating the visuals to be quite distorted and glitchy as I want the nightmare section of my short film to feel very uncomfortable and disturbing. I also know that from personal experience, night terrors tend to jump from one horrible thing to another and that the continuity of the nightmare sequence is not as important as it will be in the rest of the short film, meaning that I get to be a lot more creative in terms of my editing style, techniques and visuals.

I will be conducting a bit more research into short films in the horror genre as well looking into short films, music videos and art that has been inspired by nightmares, night terrors or sleep paralysis etc. I have already looked in to a music video called ‘Bury a Friend’ which was my main inspiration into looking into the concept of nightmares. Once I have done a little more research I will be able to fully write my plot in more detail as a start to my official planning.

 

What is Satanism

February 26, 2019 — Leave a comment

I went into this thinking that Satanism was a church full of scary people, slaughtering goats and worshipping the devil, this, however, is not the case. Satanists do not believe in the Christian version of satan or that he was ‘banished from heaven’ etc, some don’t believe in Satan as a physical being all together, their religion is more about free will and to get away from the hypocrisy of Christianity. There are many different churches and groups inside Satanism, for example there is the Church of Satan as well as The Satanic Temple; “The Satanic Temple is not a group of devil worshippers but liberal political activists who oppose the increasing influence of the religious right in American politics.” Says VICE in an episode of The Believers on their YouTube channel. They tend to use Satan as more of a metaphor against the ideas and sanctimony of Christianity, I think this may affect my planning quite heavily as I would not want to portray someones religion as something it is not.

Through looking into Satanism and getting to this point of coming to the conclusion that it isn’t what I thought it was, I have decided to focus on the more fictionalised side of satanism. Of course I have read some horrific things about many satanic groups – most of which aren’t true anyway, for example the “baby-eating” cult in London – however, through research I find that their fundamental values and the bases of the religion itself is really not what we see portrayed through thee media and in the horror genre specifically. I will of course still tie in information I have found out through my research and bring in some of the more accurate sides of the religion but I feel I want to use the more fictional and sinister belief of what Satanism is in my work. I already have some ideas of my plot and would like to show an individuals experience with Satan, Satanism and rituals rather than a short film about the religion as a whole, as in my opinion, the actual religion is not what I want to fuel my short film off. I would much rather use the over dramatic and in many cases, simply non-accurate, representation of what many people think Satanism is, and that is much more violent and sinister than the reality of what I have been researching.

Starting my Project

February 19, 2019 — Leave a comment

I wanted to write a quite and small blog to explain the research I intend on doing so that I can look back at this once I am at my evaluating stage of my work to see if there was anything I happened to miss out or gloss over etc.

Plot & Sub-genre Research: As I would like to make the story line and plot more obvious this year and narrow my horror down to a specific sub-genre (so far I am looking into a cult-slasher type of film) I would like to do more research into topics such as satanism and cults, for example, I may want to look into buying the Satanic Bible or The Satanic Scriptures. I also want to focus heavily on the SFX side this year so have decided to show more gore than I did last year which leads me to think about looking into films such as Saw and other ‘torture porn’ type films.

Research from last FMP: I also intend on looking back at any flaws myself or others can pick out from last year and use that in my research and/or using this to create my initial questionnaires or focus group discussion topics.

Locations and Props etc: Other research that is extremely important for me is into the locations, I had the idea of filming in various abandoned or derelict places as I feel that would add an erie atmosphere that most places cannot give – the reason the research for this is so crucial is because of the legality of entering and especially filming in some of these places. I want to do this research fairly early on as I will need a back up plan if I cannot film in these places, which would most likely be my parents Hotel but it’s definitely better to know prior so I can plan with the location in mind. Planning and research for props also seems quite important at this stage as I am looking into using real animal intestines for some of my gore (from a butchers don’t worry, I’ll leave all actual animal sacrifices to the real cults) and so will have to see if any company or local butchers would be willing to supply me, although seeing as many work closely with my parents to supply the hotel with food I am sure it won’t be too difficult.

This of course isn’t an overview of all my planned research but instead just a few key points that I think are most important to start with.

Pitch Reflection

February 14, 2019 — Leave a comment

The first two weeks of starting this project have mainly consisted of coming up with my idea, decided what I need to research and furthering my concept as well as pitching it to my teachers and getting their initial feedback on what I have come up with so far. I have already written a blog roughly explaining my initial idea and briefly what inspired me etc, but I am very sure my research will influence my idea and how I put together a plot and storyline for my horror trailer and campaign.

My pitch gave me and my mentors the opportunity to look at my idea from a critical perspective and evaluate some of my points as well as giving me more ideas on how to effectively go ahead with my research and asked some questions that I had not yet looked at from that perspective. My pitch will be linked here: Pitch (google drive.)

A few of the questions I got asked were to do with the presentation of my work, last year I used Instagram for the whole campaign including my 48 second teaser trailer. This year I intend on creating a full length trailer (1 min 30s – 3 mins roughly) and so Instagram’s limit of 1 minute videos will not be the best place to present this, I will of course do some more research into Instagram TV as I am not sure how this feature works yet but I  am considering the idea of posting the final trailer onto YouTube while still using Instagram to promote my campaign and build up to the release of my final trailer.

Another thing that was mentioned by Ste was looking into other horror campaigns and how they have utilised social media, I don’t want to go into to much detail about that right now as I think that will take up quite a large amount of my research and so I will have plenty of blogs about that over the next week or so. Looking further into campaigns is something I think I could have done better last year and is definitely something worth going into in depth.

I am very confident with this project and it seems like my tutors are too and have no doubt I can achieve what I want to if I apply my skills and knowledge.