How to Make a Horror Film: The Tragic Case of Gilly O'Connor
It’s been a while since I last blogged for this module. And although it has been quiet around here regarding my FMP module, this does not mean that I was inactive in meantime – on the contrary.
Ever since our pitch at the end of September, I spent my time not only on my Minor Project, but also on numerous production meetings for my project Pillars of Creation; discussing the set built and set design, various drafts of the script, the colour palette, the lighting design, and so on. And whilst all this was happening, the relevant research has been documented within my Minor Project module (for those of you who want to reread this, this was done under the blog hashtag HCFF650).
Now, looking at my previous research, this might give you the impression that I am currently only working on Pillars of Creation. However, nothing could be further from the truth! As a matter of fact, I am also working as a cinematographer on another project. And to jump right into it, let me introduce you to “The Tragic Case of Gilly O’Connor.”
The Tragic Case of Gilly O’Connor – The Idea
This project, which was initially pitched as “Madame Nomvula”, is a horror/psychological thriller and the brainchild of our scriptwriter and director Lynley: A female exorcist is called to investigate a curious case of a demon attacking a child, thereby unwantingly attracting the attention of said demon, who repeatedly hijacks her into the shadow realm.
Despite her constant efforts to escape from the demon’s wrath and despite the aid of the charming bellboy Tom, the demon – who in the end reveals himself to have been Tom all along – manages to outwit the exorcist, sending her into an early grave by pushing her over the edge of a cliff.
Previous Changes
Previously, this idea was centered around the character of Madame Nomvula, a witch doctor of African descent practising her craft in the UK. However, due to our location in the North East and the lack of actresses of colour in our area, our director decided to swap the African witch doctor for a Celtic druid of Welsh origin, making it easier for us on a student budget to cast for the main role.
Reading the Script – First Impressions
Whilst reading the latest version of the script, I immediately envisioned the colours and tones of our prospective short film, which I’ve tried to encapsulate in this moodboard that I did:
Running it past our director and the crew, the colour palette and style got approved and my vision of the script immediately communicated to all crewmembers, which is why I then set about researching films that employed the style and mood as captured in my moodboard.
Looking at the summary above, it was obvious that the genre of horror and even of psychological thriller would apply best to the storyline. This would pose a real challenge for me, as I am very easily scared by visuals and not a horror fan at all. Which is why I was initially struggling to recall a repertoire of horror films to draw references from. With psychological thrillers it’s somewhat better, however, it was obvious from the get-go that I would have to conduct more research into image and genre references.
Script and Genre References
As such, and to have a starting point, I began my research by asking Lynley for her inspirations in creating her project. As such, she came up with three TV/Netflix series: Stranger Things, American Horror Story: Coven, and Supernatural: The Big Empty.
Whilst these references were helpful for understanding certain visual effects – especially in regard to the void that Lynley wanted as a reference for her project – they were not really helpful in regard to the overall visual style as they usually consisted of a wide colour palette that was sometimes even suffused with bright colours and a slightly brighter lighting style.
In the case of Stranger Things, one issue was furthermore the fact that this series emulated the 80’s style of horror film, which is not really considered scary by contemporaries anymore and rather relied on the application of a vintage filmmaking style than the actual creation of suspense.
This was not only reminiscent of the lighter ‘TV show interpretation’ of horror – just about scary enough to still warrant the ‘horror’ label, but not so scary that you could only show it past a certain time (think e.g. Buffy the Vampire Slayer) – it also did not fit the impression and mood I had gained from reading Lynley’s script.
As such, I decided that I would venture into the research of some more horror film and psychological thrillers to see whether I would be able to find a more befitting colour palette and visual style and maybe even glean some references images from it. As such, and after a bit of research, I decided to add the following to the mix:
Gone Girl (2014)
Since the betrayal and reveal of Tom being the demon are a major plot point in our project, I felt that researching psychological thrillers with the theme of betrayal at their core would be beneficial for us.
For this, I decided to have another look at a film that I have watched previously and which did that reveal rather nicely; Gone Girl. This was also majorly helpful as I realised that some of the images would make for splendid reference images in regard to action, framing and especially lighting.
Arrival (2016)
Adding this Sci-Fi film to the mix might seem a bit counter-intuitive, but I did so because of the moody visual style that this film used for many scenes. In analysing the visual style of the film, I realised that filming Gilly with this kind of light will require a lot of soft light that has been shaped and is set to a very low intensity.
30 Days of Night (2007)
Sure, sunrises and sunsets are usually a good motive to use for mood in general, however,
I’ve picked this film because I liked the way the exterior shots were filmed to still get that eerie feeling in a setting that is placed outside and thus hard to control.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)
This film made it into the mix for its use of composition and colour. Although you could argue that this footage is brighter than the other films, the mood is still unquestionably the mood of a horror film, most likely due to the use of cold lighting as well. As such, I thought it couldn’t hurt to study it further as a variant.
Under the Skin (2013)
This film made it into my selection purely for the depiction of certain colours in otherwise desaturated imagery. Although the colours, at times, can be really strong, the overall effect still creates an unsettling feeling just by looking at it. I’ve furthermore selected it since it came closest to what I envisioned for Gilly, and thus might serve me well in my studies of colours and lighting.
Hold on!
Now, you might yourself be asking: How did she research the visual style of horror films if she is afraid to watch them?
Easy, by looking into screenshot databases surrounding film.
Screenshot Databases
One good way to analyse the imagery of any given film would be looking into screenshot databases. Whilst it would be lovely to take screengrabs of every film and/or TV series you liked to emulate, Netflix, Amazon Prime and other online hosts have inhibited manual screengrabs of their contents ever since 2015, resulting in either a white or black image once you took it from the screen.
Whilst I am aware that this serves to prevent people digitally copying films frame by frame to reassemble them and sell them on as a self-made copy, it also tremendously inhibits the study of any film student as you would inevitably be forced to search the internet for a particular image you like or buy a copy of the film in order to make a copy of a certain scene or frame for research purposes.
Thus, I found the subsequent development of screenshot databases, such as e.g. Filmgrab, Movie Screencaps, and ScreenMusings a helpful intermediate solution (especially if you want to analyse scary bits of a horror film without having serious nightmares for weeks on end).
Whilst it does not liberate you to then read up on the synopsis and other vital elements of the story, you would be able to gather the visual aspects and symbolism for your job as a cinematographer.
The Visual Style
As such, and resulting from my second-hand research of the genre and visual references so far, it was obvious that we would not only have to go for a darker style, consisting of cold light within low-light conditions, but also for a muted, largely desaturated colour palette with exceptions of certain key colours.
Having moved on from African-based witchcraft to Celtic druidism, this shifted the colour palette from a dominance of dark browns, dark greys and blacks to something more based in nature, which in this case would mean dark greens, dark reds and greys in order to create a moody atmosphere.
As such, one proposition could be to use desaturated images that are pushed into tints of dark green, dark red and dark grey, such as e.g. done with Under the Skin (2013) above.
How to Make a Horror Film
Since I am not big on horror movies, I thus conducted some more research into genre-specific elements of filmmaking and cinematography to get a better understanding of what will be required of me, and what I could use to portray the eerie feeling of horror films.
While it is a no-brainer that sound design and colours are having a tremendous impact on the psyche of any audience, especially horror, I wanted to explore more options of cinematography in regard to the horror genre style.
As such, my resources provided a couple of helpful tips and tricks that I summarised here in the form of a Cheat Sheet for myself and for the sake of brevity.
In Terms of Cinematography:
Shoot through things (like glass, bush work, etc.) as it evokes the impression of being watched as well as serving to depict isolation of a certain character
Add haze or fog to enhance the texture of the image and add to the mood
Find unique and/or extreme camera angles (such like e.g. a dutch tilt) as it strays from convention and thus aids in creating an unsettling feeling, the same goes for extreme high or low angles
Use space and perspective to your advantage; using deep focus can create tension as the audience is awaiting someone or something to turn up in the background. The same goes for the liberal use of negative space and the space off-screen (such as would e.g. be created and/or enhanced by foreshortening the looking space of a character)
Use of tight framing to exclude what’s immediately surrounding the actor, creating suspense
Confine the action so the character is trapped in the situation and cannot easily escape
Treat the location like another character, if it is scary, it’ll keep the horror alive
In Terms of Lighting:
Underexpose, as it creates mysterious feelings and insecurity – what’s left lurking in the dark – for this, you want to already light the set to be “organically underexposed”, this is usually already reached by underexposing by one stop
Use coloured gels, especially red, to create a stylised and unsettling look
In Terms of Sound:
Use sound design that relies on the use of nonlinear sounds which are not necessarily connected to what we see on screen but that trigger the audience’s alertness, as well as the use of low frequency infrasound that is more felt by the body than heard, amplifying unease
In Terms of Acting:
Don’t rely too heavily on stylised acting as this may impede the emotional contagion between actor and audience and thus impede the cinematic illusion
Use irregular actor movements if feasible; anything that moves irregularly is unsettling; which is considered one of the reasons why some people fear spiders
Create a main character you feel empathic about and which you want to come out unscathed, if there’s no empathy, there’s no horror
In Terms of Editing:
Use subliminal images for the duration of the eighth of a second 3-4 frames to unnerve the audience
Use non-linear editing that uses jump-cuts to scare the audience
The scares need to escalate – every scare needs to be more frightening than the one before or else you’re loosing the audience’s tension
In Terms of Story and Narration:
Be mindful of certain historic eras and places as they might add an unsettling undertone to a particular storyline
Take your time – with horror, the suspense and the waiting for something to happen is actually more unnerving than the actual horrifying event occurring, which is why you should not rush an otherwise suspenseful moment, let alone the entire film
Horror doesn’t need to be otherworldly, sometimes the unexplicable, the mysteries of daily life can be horrifying as well.
When in doubt, crank up the intensity; of the music, the pace, the succession of events, everything. Intensify as much as possible - Suspense is more engaging and emotionally taxing than surprise
There needs to be a subtext to the horror story, people are not afraid of demons per se, but of the uncertainty that you never know who the people surrounding you really are on the inside
Conceal the monster – don’t show the audience who the monster is in disguise; the most memorable monsters are the ones that are mostly partially veiled – in shadows, cloth, what have you
This Cheat Sheet is a good starting point for me when developing the storyboard together with Lynley, but also for the rest of the crew, which will be one of the first action points in the new decade.
2020, here we come!
References:
FilmGrab (2019) Homepage [online] Available at: https://film-grab.com [Accessed on 16 December 2019]
Fincher, D. (2014) Gone Girl [DVD] USA: Twentieth Century Fox et.al. Images taken from: https://film-grab.com/2015/02/13/gone-girl/ [Accessed on 16 December 2019]
Glazer, J. (2013) Under the Skin [DVD] Switzerland, UK, and USA: Film4 et.al. Images taken from: https://film-grab.com/2014/07/14/under-the-skin/# [Accessed on 16 December 2019]
Koehler, M. (n.d.) How to Make a Short Horror Film the Right Way [online] Available at: https://www.lightsfilmschool.com/blog/daily-dose-textbook-short-horror-film-lights-out [Accessed on 15 December 2019]
Kroll, N. (2015) Cinematography Tips for Horror Filmmakers [online] Available at: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/cinematography-tips-for-horror-filmmakers/ [Accessed on 15 December 2019]
Movie Screencaps (2019) Homepage [online] Available at: https://movie-screencaps.com [Accessed on 16 December 2019]
Øvredal, A. (2016) The Autopsy of Jane Doe [DVD] UK: 42 et.al. Images taken from: https://film-grab.com/2019/09/28/the-autopsy-of-jane-doe/ [Accessed on 16 December 2019]
Rife, K. et.al. (2015) How to make a good horror movie: 9 lessons from the genre’s latest triumphs [online] Available at: https://film.avclub.com/how-to-make-a-good-horror-movie-9-lessons-from-the-gen-1798277684 [Accessed on 15 December 2019]
Screenmusings (2019) Homepage [online] Image taken from: https://screenmusings.org [Accessed on 16 December 2019]
Shelton, J. (n.d.) 15 Ways You Didn't Even Realize Horror Movies Are Manipulating You Into Fear [online] Available at: https://www.ranker.com/list/horror-movie-tricks-for-scaring-the-audience/jacob-shelton [Accessed on 15 December 2019]
Sipos, T. (2014) Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear Jefferson: McFarland
Slade, D. (2007) 30 Days of Night [DVD] USA and New Zealand: Columbia Pictures et.al. Image taken from: https://film-grab.com/2019/10/09/30-days-of-night/ [Accessed on 16 December 2019]
Stranger Things [Netflix] 15 July 2016. Images taken from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4574334/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 [Accessed on 16 December 2019]
Supernatural [Netflix] 23 October 2006. Image taken from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460681/episodes?year=2005[Accessed on 16 December 2019]
Tiemstra, R. (2016) 10 Golden Rules For Making The Perfect Horror Movie [online] Available at: http://whatculture.com/film/10-golden-rules-for-making-the-perfect-horror-movie [Accessed on 15 December 2019]
Villeneuve, D. (2016) Arrival [DVD] USA, Canada and India: Lava Bear Films et. al. Image taken from: https://film-grab.com/2019/06/28/arrival/# [Accessed on 15 December 2019]