Moodboard

Here I have an image of my moodboard that I have created. It shows typical conventions of horror through images of popular horror film covers, screen shots from movies and common locations that could be used.
The images are surrounded by words that can be associated with Horror.

Below, is a picture of me presenting the moodboard to other students to get feedback on what they liked, as they will be part of my target audience. I will use their advice as ideas too.

People said that my mood board needed to show more of what I was planning to do rather than what I have done which was to show the genre of Horror itself. I will show them my planning and storyboards to tell the story as I think my moodboard still helps show what im planning as I will be using some conventions from it.

As I have now decided to create a short horror film rather than a music video I have been researching what Horror actually means and what common keys and conventions appear in the genre.

To begin with I looked up the definition of the word;

hor·ror 

/ˈhôrər/

Noun An intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. A thing causing such a feeling.

Synonyms terror - dread - fright - abhorrence - fear

Fear seemed to keep coming up, showing that a lot of different sources of information agreed that it is very important, therefore I will try and portray fear in my own work.

Photographs that I like which, i may be able to use to influence my own images;

To get some ideas I researched photographers that specialize in horror photographs, I found a collection of images that I really liked by April A Taylor. She covers a large range of horror which can help to influence my ideas as it can show me many different ideas in different aspects of the horror genre;

I like this image as it shows a key convention of horror very well. It shows a female protagonist who looks as though she has been in trouble due to blood on her arm and dress which could all be common features of this genre. The lighting is also quite dark around the edges with the only light onto her.






The picture on the right is a great image, showing the look of fear on the, again female, protagonists face. The dark colours show fear as you cannot see what else is behind the lights.








This image is really good as it shows both the female protagonist as well as a male antagonist. It shows typical horror in this image which I like.









The image below is dark making it look scary, it also uses props that commonly appear in horror movies which is why I like it.

Although this final image is not by April A Taylor is saw it and thought it would be a great image to include as it shows a feature I will possibly include. It shows a silhouette of a person and you cannot see anything about him which can bring up loads of questions about the subject, as you know nothing about him.

Location Shots

Here are a selection of some of the images that I took whilst on the location I am planning to film at.
I chose to use a forest for my short film as it is a common feature that appears in Horror movies. It is very remote and dark at night with nothing for miles making it the ideal location, creating fear and making the protagonist seem helpless in such a far out place.

The photos I took were not taken at the time my filming will take place because this way I feel it shows the location more in this lighting.

Taking this photo in black and white really hides what is in the trees, adding to fear as you never know what could be behind them. Trees will be used a lot in my film to hide the antagonist as that will help to add suspense and fear, both common conventions of horror films. 

The pinhole effect on the camera that I used in this shot darkens the edges of the image, leading the focus towards the centre of the picture, leading down the path. 

This photograph shows a straight line of trees. It shows that there is little change in the environment which would make it much easier to get lost which is an idea that I have had for the film.

I really like this image, I took it with a slightly slow shutter speed which has made it blur, leaving a distorted view which can be used to show confusion or some form of abnormality. 

HORROR - Codes and Conventions

Typically, the genre of Horror aims to strike fear into the viewer, as well as shock and disgust and other similar emotions. A common feeling is fright where people are often to scared to keep watching other than the fact that the storyline is good which keeps them into the film, often showing very startling scenes .
Horror falls into many different sub-genres such as Action Horror, Comedy Horror, Zombie films and Science fiction horror. There are many different sub-genres like these which are used to overlap the genre so the film has much more to offer viewers and covers a much vaster target audience. I may try and overlap some genres for my own film so I can also aim my film to a larger group of people.

Although most horror films cover a few different sub-genres, the majority of them include the same conventions such as;



- Darkness/ Low key lighting

- Isolation and loneliness

- Remote, eery locations often with strange history that links into the film. Some examples of common locations are....

Forests or Woods, Haunted derelict houses, Churches or Graveyards, Ghost towns, Caves, Deserts, Farms, Subways or Space.


- There is normally an attractive female protagonist who is used to engage with the audience

- Often there is a sense of surrealism and always there is a disruption of the normality

- A evil presence is always included, some examples of this are....

Ghosts, Zombies, Demons, Mutant, Psychopath, Deranged killer, Aliens, Young children that have been possessed by some supernatural being and Strange mutated animals.

- The films generally end with the antagonist being killed or defeated







Horror films create lots of feelings for the audience if they engage well such as fear, it is especially effective when the audience can relate to the plot and the characters as that way the story feels much more real.

My Idea's....

After looking at different ideas for a music video, I have changed my mind and decided to make a short movie as well as creating a poster for it too .
The genre that I am going to portray is, HORROR using many conventions that are usually seen in this.

 Some Horror conventions that I will incorporate into my own work;

 - Dark location, possibly a derelict house or a forest
- There is normally a protagonist that is generally female
- The evil character will tend to be male, often he will be masked or his face will be covered
- The sound tends be quite quiet, eery sounds with rise in tempo for building suspense
- The lighting tends to be dark with not much light
- There tends to be much more of an un-happy feel to it