After looking at a few generators online, we found one that gave a lot of options. The website "Behind the Name" gave a lot of customization options to work with, from name origin to name origin.
We rolled the generator a few times to land on names we liked. There were a lot of random names that were ridiculous, such as the last name "Pickle" came up a few times. But ultimately, we agreed on a name, Carine Sylvain.
We agreed for the character to be from Germany who moved to the United States to attend university. Her decision to move that far from home was due to her complicated relationship with her mother, which caused her to want to distance herself from her family. By studying in Florida, she has a physical barrier between her and her mother.
From the mistreatment she faced at home, she developed anxiety which takes a toll on her relationships. Even though she is separated from her problems, she still faces social isolation. While having a roommate, she is not close with them. I want to include this in the opening to reveal how this will effect her later on, especially when being tracked down by a killer.
Her mental health is a large part of our overall project, as our antagonist is a reflection of her insecurities, hunting her down and becoming a constant fear.
Our backstory for her most likely won't be shown in the whole opening, but it will help us become more familiar with who she is, which will help with our character design.
As for her outfit and aesthetic, we took a look at Pinterest. There are hundreds of ideas and mood boards that can be used for our character. I personally think darker colors could be used for her at the beginning of the film, mostly the opening, to represent how overwhelmed she feels with her mental health. If the film were to progress, her clothing would get lighter to represent how she is persevering through her anxiety and mental illness.
We realized how some of the ideas on Pinterest were way too warm for our location. Not only would it not fit with the setting for our film, but it could cause a hazard for our actor wearing something that hot. A cropped white shirt would provide contrast to the solid black jeans. It will display the internal conflict she faces. We want her and the killer to have predominantly dark clothing in order to show their connection. If other characters were to be shown, they'd wear lighter and colorful pieces of clothing, separating themselves from the conflict of Carine and the killer.
As for our killer, I suggested a masked character. As mentioned in my research post, masks are very common in slashers. We want to use this in order to have a mystery for our character to solve. We originally considered the killer to be male presenting, that typical slashers are. A majority of well-known horror characters are male. However, we thought a female character would be very interesting.
Our female killer was created because we thought the crazy boyfriend character would not be as intriguing and possibly to obvious to the viewer, as this trope is seen a lot in slashers. For example, in Scream (1996) and in the rebooted Scream (2022), the boyfriend of the protagonist is the one of the main killers. We did not want to fall into this trope by instead using the idea. We want to display how women can display that aggressiveness and evil, as it is not typically shown in slasher films.
The killer is the girlfriend of a male friend that Carine has, showing her insecurity. It is that jealousy that drives her to go after her and others. We have not decided on a costume design for her, however I want to design a mask idea on Adobe Fresco or Ibis Paint to draw out a few ideas.
The costume while in disguise may be rather simple, possibly a solid black hoodie and black jeans to blend in with the darkness. The hoodie will conceal the rest of the character's head, leaving the audience without clues for any identifying factors.
Our film is hoping to have a dark color palette. Dark lighting is typically seen in horror, especially with dark tones and red hues.
For example, this is a color scheme from IT (2017). There is both black and red colors used in this shot. Red signifies danger, and often blood in horror. By using red as the main color of the shot, it contrasts the innocent white color of the costuming. It is a contrast to reveal the intentions of the character.
Red is guaranteed in horror. However, there are other colors that can have the same effect that red has to display danger.
This shot from Saw is using green, which often symbolizes nature and the earth. However, with the person in the center of the shot twists this meaning. The green makes this seem more disease-ridden and disgusting. The green twists your stomach rather than calm you down. Horror can still be effective without red tones.
While knowing this, we still want to use red as our main color scheme. It will be a better match for our film.
As horror is my decided genre for my opening, I decided to look at some film openings of the horror genre, ranging from the subgenre of monster and slasher movies, to psychological and supernatural horror films.
Scream (1996) dir. Wes Craven
The opening to Wes Craven's Scream is among one of the most famous film openings of all time. This opening begins with Drew Barrymore's character, Casey, answering the phone while home alone. An unfamiliar voice is on the other end of the line, of which is the voice acting is provided by Roger L. Jackson. This generated one of the most famous lines in horror, "What's your favorite scary movie?"
The scene takes a twist when Casey threatens to hang up, but the other voice gets upset over this. She hangs up and the voice gets verbally aggressive, threatening to kill her. The scene intensifies, then leading Casey to see the body of her boyfriend outside. In order to save him, she must answer questions based on horror films, althoughs he gets one wrong pertaining to the villain of the original Friday the 13th. As the boyfriend is killed off, she realizes she is next. She runs out of the house, only to be chased down by the killer.
This opening scene reveals almost everything about the rest of the film. The killer is a horror fan, which sets up the commentary on slashers that the film is trying to tell. It is a slasher about slashers. The self-awareness just in the opening. Drew Barrymore's character would have been read as the "perky, innocent blonde as Scream's main character and been primed to relate to her." It acklowedges the tropes set by other horror films and twists them. She was presented as a typical "final girl" character but was killed at only the beginning of the movie. It sets up the idea of how the film will break the cliches of the genre before we even see them on screen.
In addition, the use of a mask character, which is common in the slasher genre, adds an element of mystery already to the piece. The costuming of ghostface, the alias of the killers in the movie, is used to obscure their body. The black robe they wear obscures their body, leaving a harder time for the audience to discover who the main killer(s) are. The mask also aligns itself with other masked horror icons, such as Michael Myers, Leatherface and Jason.
Nope is a blend of the sci-fi and horror genre. It takes the typical conventions of horror, like its sound elemnts, and combines them with the aspects of aliens in sci-fi. However, its opening does not align itself with aliens at all.
The scene depicted is increadibly graphic, so if you are made uncomfortable by this, I suggest skip to after the scene summary and video.
The film opens with the production company logos for the film but with cheesy dialogue and a sitcom laugh track in the background. The only name we are given through the exchanges of birthday gift giving is "Gordy." We are not shown the character yet, but they do not speak. The audience claps as the final production logo is shown, but the screen goes black accompanied by a hitting noise. The screen stays on this black screen and this fight continues, hearing pleas for help, the audience left unable to do anything to make it stop.
A bible quote appears on screen, of which the quote is from Nahum 3:6. The quote is about how a path of exploitation only leads towards death and destruction. This is a main theme of the movie about how you cannot make a spectacle out of danger, yet it is confusing when no chracters have been shown. This can only be assumed to be connected to the sitcom-type show being played in the background.
The first shot in the film is the perspective of a child on the show. We are shown a sitcom set that has been destroyed and a chimpanzee in the foreground. The site is covered in blood, especially on the costume of the animal. The animal calms down as a show is upright on the ground with no explanation. The shot closes with the chimpanzee looking directly at the camera, before the film cuts to black one more time.
This opening sets up the themes shown later in the film, the danger of a spectacle. The audience can infer this monkey has been trained to be in this live-studio production but snapped. This show is making a profit off of a creature and taking advatange of him, enforcing how you cannot tame a wild animal. However, it only fits in to one of the character's story and development. Jupe, played by Steven Yeun, sees the alien creature, later named Jean Jacket, and wants to use it for one of his shows. His background with Gordy shows his ignorance for not learning the dangers of wanting to make a profit from a wild animal.
The sound design really sticks out, once the first attack happens, the audience is gone. There is no laugh track, applauds or screams, just the people on set. It adds a sense of loneliness and danger as it is feared that no one will come save them from this animal. Sound is the main element of this opening, as there is not much movement in the visual elements, so the audience relies on it to piece together what is happening in the film.
Re-Animator (1985) dir. Stuart Gordon
The opening scene of Re-Animator, like Scream, shows every aspect of the film in just a few minutes.
We see a Swiss university in the establishing shot, shown by the university sign displaying the city "Zurich." The bottom of the sign can be interpreted that this location is one for medical purposes. This is solidified by the costuming of some of the people in the halls, as one woman is wearing a white coat that is synonymous with doctors. This womans leads a man and several police officers to a door, briefly displaying a name tag on the door for the name of one of the doctors, but the name being called does not correlate with the one on the door. There is screaming as well, adding mystery to what is happening in the sceme.
As the screaming starts spiraling into the sound of glass breaking, this causes the officers to spark into action. Herbert West, prtrayed by Jeffrey Combs, is restrained away from the screaming man on the floor. The man, named Dr. Gruber, on the floor stands up, his eyes exploding with blood before collapsing once more. West is accused of murder for this gorey scene before delivering the name "I gave him life" as it cuts to the opening credits.
The audience is left to question what West meant with that line, especially after seeing Gruber die on-screen. However the makeup and special effects done on Gruber add some strange aspects as his skin had a greyish-purple tone to it, almost mimicking that of a corpse.
The sounds from before they entered the room also speculate that this is something that West may have caused. This is cleared up later in the film with the introduction of his reagent, but there are slight hints of it in the dialogue in the opening, with West stating the "dosage" was too large, a slight explanation for what exactly happened to Gruber. It is a conscious choice to not directly reveal what caused the death, but to listen to the dialogue for what may ahve happened.
What Did I Learn?
Watching these openings really helped me understand the important of dialogue. Out of the three film openings I watched, both Scream and Re-Animator had phrases that connected to the main theme of the film. The opening is meant to give a glimpse into what is to come, so using dialogue is especially important. These are also naturally said, which does not talk down to its audience into what exactly is happening. Looking into more horror scripts may help with typical conventions used in popular films so I know what I have to write make my opening effective.
Costume design is also very important. Each one of these films openings had distinctive looks to each character that represented who they were without much development. Gordy from the film Nope is the best example out of the three. He is a monkey dressed in a yellow sweater. Yellow is often associated with happiness, but can also represent danger. By dressing Gordy in human clothes, it represents how he was tried to be tamed for the purpose of being a spectacle, exactly what the film's message was.
Each element of an opening is important. By analyzing these, it gave me a better look into the ideas I want to create in my opening, especially when having no budget.
I will most likely watch some more openings over the weekend, possibly more independent films since that is the style I want to replicate the most.
In order for our projects to be successful, my partner and I made a thought organizer. This is for sharing our ideas to expand upon the other. Currently, we are discussing possible locations and timing for our films. I have a location in mind, however I have not reached out to know possible dates where it will be good to film. It is just permission from my sister, since she will most likely be the star of my film opening, so I need to know good times for her.
Sound is also very important for our projects. I proposed to look at some royalty-free music now, just in case we do not find any we like we can reach out to a musician to ask permission to use their music. It will be easier than asking later on, and it will save a lot of stress as well.
The thought organizer was very helpful to get our ideas out. In my head, they seemed complicated and difficult, but the document is extremely useful. This doc will be further expanded upon either this week or the week after when we find our plots for our openings. But for right now, it is a great startig point.
In a blog post from October, I made a post about horror comedies. It is a genre I am a big fan of, but I think horror on its own is even better. As horror is the genre I want to use for my portfolio project, I need to know how and why horror works, how it's so captivating.
Horror films that focus on action tend to be slashers, such as John Carpenter's Halloween or Wes Craven's Scream. They cater to the male gaze, having a female hero defeat the killer. They were first called "Final Girls" in Carol J. Clover's novel, Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Since the golden age of slashers in the 1970s and 1980s, the final girl has evolved into a more feminist role, often less sexualized as well.
A great example of an action horror movie is The Purge (2013). The film is an alternative version of the United States, where one day a year all crime is legal. It is not a typical slasher, but still uses symbols that would be seen in those types of films. Slasher horrors often have masked characters, that this film uses. It is an easy way for the audience to identify the villain by just their costume.
Ex. Masked characters standing outside the protagonist's home in The Purge (2013).
Paranormal horror has taken on many forms lately. These films can be religious, such as The Exorcist or The Nun. These types of horror use this universal idea of religion and turns it into something terrifying.
One of the most famous uses of paranormal horror is The Blair Witch Project. This found footage horror film changed the genre forever. Many of modern paranormal films use social media and the internet as a common space for the movie's scares to take place, like the 2019 horror film Countdown which created an app to connect with the film. The Blair Witch Project, however, came out at a time when the internet was new. People believed most of what they saw online, which contributed to people perceiving the film as real. The virality of the film had to lead the filmmakers to come out and say the film was not real. Though it may not be possible to create the same virality again that this movie caused, it changed how film is perceived over social media.
Experimental horror is a fairly new aspect of horror, of which tends to be more paranormal. It can often be seen on YouTube, as many small creators can use the site to share their horror videos online while having a small budget. YouTube creator BiteSizedNightmare used this platform to share his video titled "Heck" that was a predecessor to his full-length film Skinamarink.
Ex. The short film that was the premise of Skinamarink
Skinamarink is a newer film that takes the idea of the paranormal and mixes it with the childhood fear of the dark. Even when the shots show dark empty hallways, the graininess of the scene plays tricks on our eyes that makes it seem like there is a creature there, so, when there actually is, the audience is not sure. The camera placement reinforces this, making it look to be from the perspective of a child. It solidifies how clueless we are in the situation, and even how helpless the victims of this situation are.
Ex. A common child's toy is menacing in the darkness.
It feels so weird that it’s time to already start planning my final project! I have so many ideas that I need to plan out now.
I am undecided on a genre. Horror seems like a good choice. For the filming location I have in mind for that type of film, it already has that eeriness that would benefit that type of visual. However, a type of satire does not seem that bad either, possibly even combining the two to make a horror comedy, much like the genre posting I completed at the beginning of the school year.
A comedy is also interesting, with satire being an aspect of it, but I don’t feel it will translate well. Comedy is dependent heavily on actors and scripts. I’m partially worried that the people who will star in my film opening may not get the delivery just right, making the scene awkward instead of charming.
But back to horror… there is something so interesting that someone can use their creativity to make a living nightmare. There has been some low-budget horror films recently that have really worked, such as “Skinimarink.” It takes the analog-horror sub-genre into a greater level, not using scary images but using childhood fears, in this case the dark.
I will have to figure out genre this week anyway, so I may write down and describe a few story ideas I had in a future post. I may run it down with one of my group members as well!
I had originally planned to work alone, thinking it may be easier, but someone had come up and asked me if they wanted to group up with me. I said yes, realizing how beneficial it would be. I knew it would be easier to ask for help, especially with the editing process, as I am only familiar with more simple apps like CapCut.
This project is one that I have been excited for this whole year, and extremely nervous for. It feels great to actually start it, as I can finally make something of my own, instead of trying to appeal to a group. I had an issue like that with the film pitch project where I felt too nervous to express my ideas, thinking it would confuse the other group members. But since then, it is clear of the growth I’ve achieved with being more confident in my work.
The R&B genre was much more difficult than I thought. Each of the artist we recieved were ones I had never heard about, nor had I ever heard any of their music. There are not many R&B artists that I actively listen to, so it was a given, but it was an added challenge. Compared to other groups, these felt like more unfamiliar songs. There is not an issue with that, but it made brainstorming more difficult.
Our plan was a promotional music video. We could not think of a story that would fully capture the song, so having someone sing it for the video made the most sense. Our storyboard was rather simple, seeing as we had a variety of angles in a park with the person singing. We did not include any instruments, fearing it would be much more difficult to sync. However, we could not film until the weekend, since many of us were busy after school with extracurriculars or academics. This was expected, so we planned to work on our powerpoint instead while we waited for that Saturday to arrive.
One member in our group even made a website with Squarespace to showcase our artist, a better insight into what we wanted to pitch. She even added a small merchandaise section, showcasing potential products that our artist would sell. We created a logo as well. This image was also on all the showcased merch.
Ex. A Blue Logo labeled "Purely Blue"
Sadly, I got a really bad cold that weekend we needed to film. I reached out to my partners and informed them of this since I would not be able to go out to not get them sick. They understood and one of the other group members volunteered their friend to be the face of the music video. I am not sure of the details of how long it took to film or how many shoots were taken of each, but I had the clips sent to me.
I quickly realized the difficulty of syncing the audio with the video. Some parts were easier than others, but some I had to play around with the video speed settings to make it even seem like the person in the video was actually singing along. I used CapCut, as it was more accessible since I did not feel well enough to sit at my computer, which actually allowed me to use effects. I added a blue-ish filter to help with out branding, and a few transition effects too. It was not my best work, as I had never had to sync video and audio before, so it was an interesting learning experience.
The presentation, however, was the most difficult. That is just personally, as presenting in-front of 20-30 of my peers is very stressful. I had tried to think of what to say before, but it all slipped my mind the second we stood at the front of the class. I was nervous, fidgeting with my hands to keep myself calm wanting it to be over. My anxiety made it feel like an eternity as my classmates' eyes only stared back at me. But... it was over. It was like a wave of relief as I got to sit back down. I reflected as I waited for the next group, and I realized I handled it well. I wish I had prepapred more, probably bringing note cards, but it was an improvement in my public speaking.
This project was hard. I know my classmates will say the same thing. It is very difficult to come up with a music video idea, then having to execute it while under the stress of school. It was a test of our time management, a skill I need to practice more. Making a schedule took most of the stress away, as we had an outline for how long each component should take. I know this will be used in my film openng project, which I hope is easier than this. It helped my editing skills a bit, making the video seem as natural as it can be, though the audio had its flaws. It made me realize it is not like social media editing, where it is fast-paced shots with no regard to composition. It is instead to feel natural, not just a video in poitrait-mode. I'm hoping what I learned here will apply to my future projects.
