I chose to work around the horror genre for this project as I feel I have the best knowledge of this genre than any other and I have consistently worked within this genre throughout the past two years of being on this course, because of this, I feel the most comfortable and confident creating a project in the horror genre. Our last project before this Final Major Project was a specialist study, we could either write an essay or create a practical piece around anything we enjoy or wanted to explore within the subject of media. Although it was not compulsory to link this work into our FMP, I knew I would be working within this genre and so decided to write an essay that I could essentially use as a reference point in my primary research for this project. My essay question that I decided to explore was: “Why is the horror genre so popular? And has its rise in ‘popularity’ let to desensitised viewers?” Throughout this essay I explored a lot of important subjects within this field of research, for example; who the viewers are; why people enjoy horror and the phycology behind it; how horror has changed; and how/if society has influenced the horror genre and our attitude towards it. Through this blog and the next, I will be using my previous work in this essay to show my further understanding of my audience and of the horror genre, I will be doing this in two separate blogs, one specifically about my understanding of the genre and the next one specifically about my understanding of the target audience and demographic I am going to be trying to reach.

Why is Horror so popular?

I started this essay with my opinions and my personal understanding and point of view on why horror is so popular, “To begin this essay, and to even begin starting this discussion, we must look at why the horror genre is as popular as it is.” Although I did gather information and opinions from other sources to back up my points here, much of this is based from my personally understanding and interpretation of the genre. For this section of my essay I looked at Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema, this is a TV series analysis of genres, this episode looking into horror specifically, looking into many of its key factors and what builds up the nowadays very iconic horror genre we know and love. Using information gathered from this source and my perception of this information, in the first paragraph, I briefly discuss the idea of why the plots of horror is possibly seen as more “interesting” rather than plots of other films, “One of the main reasons is due to the plots of horror films, many people tend to find them more ‘interesting’ than the plots of other genres, this may be mostly down to the tense build up and the inevitable release of fear which is obviously the most important part of the horror genre.” As a consumer and lover of all things horror, I do still strongly agree with this point and feel I did well in explaining and backing up this point throughout the essay. In Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema he says, “horror is a genre defined, not by its subject matter but by its style“, my analysis of this, or at least my explanation of this is as follows, “The subject more or less makes up the sub-genre and the treatment of the subject is how it is portrayed through such other things as characters and settings etc. The reason the subject matter makes up the genre is because if the subject is of ghosts for example, the film would be in the paranormal sub-genre, and if the subjects were to be that of a serial killer, the film would then be under the slasher sub-genre.” Hopefully my work here can start to help explain my understanding of the genre and how I interpreted Mark Kermode’s understanding too.

Important Aspects of Horror.

In this section I explain my understanding of many of the most important features and technique that build up the suspense and genre of horror. Understanding the technical parts of a genre is key to being able to create something within the genre effectively and to b able to convey the most key features well enough so that the genre is easily distinctive, I feel like I have a well enough understanding of the genre techniques to be able to do this project effectively, I think this is very well shown through my essay. Two of the main key features in horror I decided to look at were the settings and the music, as well as gathering examples of these techniques used in some of the classic horrors to back up my points. I started by explaining why the locations and settings are as important to the genre as they are, “the use of the settings as an important factor in horror has been a key element since the very beginning of horror, back to the 1800’s when Frankenstein was written and Dracula was first conceptualised. Locations in horror  build up the mies-en-scene, the atmosphere, and feeling of the scenes, due to this many directors and horror creators tend to stick to the classic gothic themes. Gothic themes are extremely iconic and recognisable in horror as many people immediately make the connection to something more sinister and evil; these locations tend to be portrayed in a way that makes them obviously dangerous to the audience, places that people clearly shouldn’t go but, keeping in with the irony of this genre, they do anyway.” This especially shows my understanding of horror in both film and in literature, for example in the novel Frankenstein. The location is something I am planning on researching and looking into in quite a lot of detail to be able to create the environment and atmosphere I desire in my short film, the location, along with other visual techniques, like SFX will hopefully tie everything together and convey the horror aspect as effectively as possible.

The other important part of the horror genre I looked at was the music and sound effects, music plays a huge part in building suspense and aids in telling the story of the film. I decided to use Jaws as an example here as I am sure many are familiar with the iconic soundtrack of this classic film, “the music for this film was arguably the most important part of creating tension, anticipation and suspense in the film. By using music to signify an upcoming attack or a shot of the shark this creates a sense of dramatic irony as the audience have been, in a way, told that the shark is near while the characters are completely oblivious to the sharks presence.” Music is going to be a huge part of my short film as, at this stage, I do not intend on having much dialog or speech as I feel I tend to work better with visuals rather than script writing, and so the use of music in my work will help to carry the storyline in a similar way that the dialog may if I were to use some.

Who Watches Horror & Why?

“Now that we have an idea of why horror is so popular and why many feel so enticed by this genre, we must look at who watches horror.” In this next part of my essay I decided to look into my knowledge, understanding and personal view on who tends to watch and enjoy horror. Although I did quite extensive research into the phycology of who ‘should’ like horror and why this may be, I found that often the modern day audience tends to be far different to what the phycology tells us. For example, I looked into an article from a professional phycologist who suggested those who enjoy horror had “lower empathy levels,” and in response to this argued the point that in my experience, sometimes it can be the very opposite; “One theory in people that enjoy horror is that they must have lower empathy levels, through some of my research this was described as “self-reported” which may be slightly unreliable. Although many people are reported to have these “lower empathy levels” one could argue that some that enjoy horror may be the complete opposite and have higher levels and therefor feel some kind of reliability to the characters and circumstances in horror.” Another point that was made was that men tend to enjoy horror more than women, there are many factors to this theory but the main being that men tend to be more aggressive and so are thought to enjoy horror a great deal more than women may. Again, this is debatable because although it is true that, on average, men have more aggressive tendencies, we cannot ignore the rise in female horror fans.

Further into my essay I decided to look at the idea of horror and the characters and plots to many horror films being somewhat ‘relatable’ to the audience, both consciously and subconsciously, this I felt was a huge aspect of looking into the horror demographic. I discussed the significance of gender roles in the genre and how the gender and character roles tend to stick to a specific structure in most films in this genre and is almost a must to consider when wanting to create something in the horror category. Through my research and while looking into the phycology, I raised this point, “Gender roles in horror allow people to relate to their ‘traditional’ gender roles, for example, the men want to be the one a women – or the damsel-in-destress – clings to for protection and the women want to be looked after and protected by the bravery of a man.” The roles of the men and women both in the films and the roles while watching the films can link quite undeniably to the relatable aspect and therefore appeal of horror.

The rest of my essay discusses the idea of if viewers of the genre have become desensitised by either the horror in film or just the horror in our day to day lives as it is. Although this is definitely a very interesting topic of discussion and is something I feel is (or hope is, at least) communicated well through my essay, it is not directly relevant to my understanding of the genre and I do feel I have shown in this blog how well knowledgable about this genre I am and how fitting it is for me to have chosen horror as my pathway with this project.

In a previous blog I mentioned briefly that during my first read of The Satanic Scriptures by Peter H. Gilmore, I read about the “Nine Satanic Statements” and decided to write a short blog on what they meant to me in terms of if I could use them or felt they would be useful to influence my planning as well as what my interpretation of their meaning and how I feel I could use that in my work. I used The Satanic Scriptures to find these but the original Nine Satanic Statements were created by Anton LaVey when he initially wrote The Satanic Bible in 1969.

1. Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence – This is the first on the list and is the begging of a common pattern within satanism, that indulgence and self gratification is encouraged and that you are urged to sin in order to satisfy ones own desires. I feel like this is a common theme throughout my research so far, and even just the first 9 statements and so feel like this will most likely influence my planning in many ways.
2. Satan represents vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams – This is actually quite an interesting one, as it pretty much means to live life by ones own desires and beliefs rather than following a religion based on man-made faith.
3. Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit – This statement is mainly to do with understanding yourself and accepting things about ourselves rather than convincing ourself of things that are undeniably false.
4. Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates – This statement is pretty much the opposite of the “respect your elders” bullsh*t we are told as children, this instead tells us to only respect or show kindness to those who really deserve it and if they do not deserve our respect why would we give them it. I think this could be a very interesting concept to look at a little more once it comes to planning as I think it could be viewed from a few different perspectives to really aid the storyline of my project.
5. Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek – This statement could definitely be looked at from different perspectives and manipulated in a way that would give an excuse of violence, something I want to focus on heavily in my project.
6. Satan represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for psychic vampires – Again, like number 5 this could definitely be looked at from a point of view that could end up condoning violence, so think it may be an important statement to keep in mind if I end up using it in my project.
7. Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his “divine spiritual and intellectual development” has become the most vicious animal of all – Man definitely is the most vicious animal of all, a concept I can really play on when planning and filming my project.
8. Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification – This statement link very closely and is very similar to the first of the 9, this is about self gratification and satisfaction through ‘sin’ rather than being unhappy in fear of sinning.
9. Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years – This is just tying in the concept of Christianity with Satanism, and will be an important aspect to look at while planning and research becomes more detailed, wether I incorporate Christianity in a large portion of my work or only subtly I feel it is important to use it in some way shape or form.

For a large part of this project and to help compose a well thought out and well portrayed plot, I wanted to explore the idea of satanic cults and satanism in general, so I have bought myself a copy of “The Satanic Scriptures” by Peter H. Gilmore. I was initially looking into buying The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey, the creator of the official Church of Satan, however, this book I did end up purchasing seems to talk through a lot of the subjects in LaVey’s books and his work with the church, as well as also helping explain a lot of it to someone who has no prior knowledge of the Church of Satan.

So far I have just read a few pages from the first section “Satanism: The Feared Religion”, this section seems to open the book by explaining satanism and breaking down a lot of the key points and misconceptions of the religion. I have read through the “Nine Satanic Statements”, “The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth”, and “Nine Satanic Sins” all created by LaVey around the time of creating the Church. These all seem extremely helpful so far in giving me a rough idea, as well as a new perspective, on the religion; how I end up illustrating these visually, as of right now, I am not sure but through more research and reading I am sure inspiration will come soon. Even if these pages don’t directly influence my visuals or plot line or anything of that nature, I will at least have some more knowledge of the religion to be able to creating work in the most accurate and, importantly, most respectful way possible.

Although not being  part of this religion and, until now, not knowing much about it or having anything to do with it, it is still a lifestyle and belief of many which I intend to respect and treat as if it were me on the receiving end. Again, not that I entirely agree with some parts of satanism (but then again also don’t agree with many part of christianity, my own religion) I think anyone belief should be considered equal and treated with the same amount of regard as any other. I will, through my research, make sure my work does not cross to many boundaries and when it comes to presenting my work will make it clear that this is from a fictional and intended horrific point of veiw and is not my actually opinion on the religion.

Once I have a better understanding of the book, more blogs will come and more research will be played out.

As I have already mentioned in my initial ideas blog I want to create a horror campaign which is what I did last year and as I have already mentioned through my first few blogs and my pitch, I wanted to use some of my work from last year, especially my evaluations and feedback as part of my research for this year. First thing I personally remember from last year that wasn’t so good was my time management, this meant I ran out of time to do some of my promotional material such as my poster that I had planned on creating to release along with my trailer. I also ran out of time before the deadline to upload a very last minute questionnaire I had sent out, although I forgot to upload this to my blogs I do still have this in my google forums so can view it and use it for my primary research. Although I didn’t have much time to get a decent amount of responses, I did get 8 which is enough to get some small form of feedback to use for my part of my primary research.

Now let’s look at some of the questions I asked, some of the useful feedback and what that means and how it may effect the planning and further research of this project. Three out of five of the questions I asked were just to get some statistics on who watched and followed my account throughout and wether they found it scary or not, these questions are not really important nor are they helpful to my research, however, my other two questions are. They are both very similar questions but worded differently to provoke a slightly different response each time, they are: (1) If you were to improve anything, what would it be? And (2) If I were to do this again what advice do you think would be helpful for me?

Many of the responses are fairly vague but there are a few I think would be useful to take on board when it comes to further research and rough planning ideas, for example, in response to question (1): “Give more context of what the film is about.” This is something I intend on focusing on in quite a bit more detail and from a more critical point of view than I did last time, this will mean spending more time researching and planning my plot and how to properly portray a rough plot line and sub-genre themes through a minute to 3 minute long trailer. Another interesting piece of feedback I got from this questions was: “Maybe include actual footage of a trap or someone being killed to make it seem more enticing.” Again, another good point to take on board when coming to shot  and scene planning – I already have a rough idea of creating a scene with someone tied up in the centre of some kind of satanic ritual – I think creating some moe tension will make this a more enticing experience and will make the audience want to see the film more.

Now let us look at the other question I asked about any advice for doing this project/campaign again (2). First of all we have a response that ties in with the idea of giving more context to the films plot/sub-genre, which states: “Do more posts. within the posts try and give a bit more of an insight as to what the film is.” As I said, this time round I plan on heavily focusing on the plot etc to make sure the film and what it is actually about is portrayed as best as possible. Another very useful piece of feedback is: “Maybe use more promotional methods as if I didn’t follow this page I wouldn’t know about the film.” I agree with this point a lot, I want to look into the best platforms for promoting my work and am going to make an effort to post outside of just Instagram so I can reach a more wider variety of people and demographic.