Horror Stills Report

Horror Stills Report

Genre

· Western

· Musical

· Science Fiction

· Romantic

· Comedy

· Horror

· Thriller

· Gangster

· Animation

Genre is a term used to categorize a film into a certain type. It takes the elements of the film and places it into said category, e.g. Blood, gore and victims generally fall into horror categories. The audience uses it so that they get a brief idea of what they are about to watch, and also what they may not want to watch. A film producer can use pre existing methods for a certain genre to make his or her film more impacting on the audience. The conventions in a film genre are generally well know via the category, e.g. a Western is presumed to have cowboys and standoffs, and a horror is presumed to have victims and masked murderers, blood gore etc.

The Task

The task we were instructed to do was to take a total of 10 shots of different perspective and angle. These photos are known as stills, and the 10 angles are as follows;

· Establishing shot

· Close up

· Extreme close up

· Mid shot

· Canted angle

· Long shot

· POV (Point Of View)

· Over the shoulder

· High angle

· Low angle

Our first idea as a group was a basic setting; Man walks into elevator, gets attacked by zombie. The idea itself was appealing at the time, so we focused on the camera shots. The storyboard itself was done on post it notes in case we needed to change shots around. One of our particular shots was from the perspective of a CCTV surveillance camera, which was used for the cantered shot. Our ideas changed in the means of location and characters, only two people were used in the stills; Tom and myself. We all added images off of Google to compensate for this, I used zombies from Half Life 2 as there were not many other images available at the time, but even though they were computer generated, they worked extremely well In the stills. As for the location, out first set up was the elevator in the reception area, but this was unfeasible at the least due to people constantly going through the place. Our luck changed however when we were given permission to use the G block elevator.

Production and Construction

Shooting was simple in some areas but more complicated in others. The establishing shot for instance was the easiest shot to do as it was a simple matter of having a man walk towards an elevator, and the area was relatively open, but the cantered shot was extremely difficult on my account, as we had to put a chair into an elevator to get the elevated position. But the shot itself paid off in the long run by my standards. By taking several blank shots we were able to edit in Photoshop and add effects such as dismemberment, blood and zombies. By using the lasso tool I cut off some of the limbs of the victim and placed them elsewhere, then I used some custom-made blood spatter brushes to add the after effect. I also changed the layer to multiply to make it seem more realistic. Whilst in Photoshop I also added an image onto one layer, then another image onto another layer to create a sort of overlapping effect instead of having to use the eraser tool. And as for the soundtrack, I picked each piece to have a sort of build up effect to make the audience believe that something shall happen.

Reflection and Evaluation

On the whole I believe my short to be good overall, minus having some plot holes. But what I would prefer to do differently next time would be to have a change in location, as the elevator scene was something I jumped into too quickly. But aside from all of this I have learned several different techniques in Photoshop, such as how to add certain effects, plus how to make a shot film on Final Cut.