Deep dive into horror

The Horror genre is one of the most 

popular in film, often pushing the boundaries of fear and suspense. Recently, new directors have been evolving it to a more psychological scary instead of a more traditional slasher film version. 

The main reason horror appeals widely today is its ability to attract a young audience wanting to feel that little adrenaline rush, and those who search it most are usually those in their teen years. A strong example of a recent horror film that did well is “It”, which changed Steven kings original story and made it more modern along with a sequel. 

Horror films include dark, scary themes like survival, monsters, and psychological terror. These stories usually have a main protagonist or group of characters facing challenges that push them to their limits.  In The conjuring, the Perron family battles supernatural forces in their own home. In a different kind of horror, like A Quiet Place, characters face a psychological battle with themselves, dealing with challenges  in their own head struggle to survive in silence.

Horror’s narratives cover supernatural entities, urban legends, and many other non-human things. Even when the plot involves the paranormal, characters react how someone like us would, often with dread and disbelief. Whether the antagonist is a demon or ghost, horror films treat the fake threat as a real one, connecting the story to the audience which then makes them more one with the story. A famous example of this is Halloween, where Michael Myers is treated as a real, unstoppable villain and the victims react like regulars instead of a hero.

Production techniques in horror often include low-key lighting and sudden cuts to create tension. Sound is another major component, eerie, soft music and sudden loud noises help make jump scares scary. Many horror directors also use close-up shots, shaky cams, and disorienting angles to emphasize terror. For example, Hereditary uses a blend of atmospheric sound and unsettling visuals to build a slow-burn horror experience. The art direction in horror films often uses dark, moody palettes to enhance the grim atmosphere. In The Babadook, the film’s shadowy, claustrophobic aesthetic reinforces the isolation and psychological tension felt by the characters.

Marketing for horror films typically involves shocking trailers, creepy posters, and viral social media movements to get an audience and build suspense for the movie’s release. They usually include a main part of the story like the Clown for It or the big smile for both Smile 1 and 2. In my opinion one of the best campaigns, they set up actors all over and their jobs were to just stand and hold a smile with a shirt advertising the movie. They even went to the extent to hire actors, buy them World Series tickets right behind home plate, most likely costing anywhere from 8-15 thousand dollars, to insure they’d almost always be in the cameras view and then the whole game the actors smiled at the camera in their direction without flinching. 

These are all amazing horror movies watched by myself and are sure to keep you at the edge of your seat and get that heart pumping.

Representation patterns

        In one of my favorite shows of all time, “How I Met Your Mother” or HIMYM, there are many objects which come up a lot that represent something between characters. The series is about the main character, Ted and his friends, Lily, Robin, Barney, and Marshal living the live of a group of friends in their 30s in New York. Throughout the show there are many scenes where it’s Ted talking to his future kids about his young life which is where the name comes from and we are just sitting with them experiencing the story. On the first episode Ted and Robin get into a relationship which quickly ends and turns into a “will they won’t they” through the show. 

       During their first date, they bonded over a blue French horn which then became a symbol for their love, after he stole it from the restaurant and proposed a relationship with her at her front door with the instrument in his hands. In the episode they broke up in, Ted went back to the restaurant which he stole the horn from as a symbol that their relationship was over. During their break up phase, Ted confessed his love to Robin by showing up to her house with an orchestra, using all blue instruments. There are many other mentions of the blue french horn throughout the show and here’s a photo of it in the original resturant with the couple staring at it.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/himym/images/6/67/BFH.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120203144149

Another important symbol is Ted’s and Marshal’s swords. When the 2 friends from college moved in together in the streets of New York, they bought 2 swords which were hung over the fire place and seen in every episode. They were given the story in the episode where Lily, Marshals girlfriend, wanted to take it down and replace it with one of her paintings but Ted refused as he held the blades dear to his heart. It was also used in an episode early on where they fought with the blades to see who would keep the apartment, here is a picture from that episode.

 

The show is an absolute masterpiece and easily getting that number one spot in my heart. Of course I’m leaving out very special representation patterns like the yellow umbrella or the beaten up house on the outside of town but I’d love for you to check those out for yourselves on Netflix. 

Sound project

 This week in media studies, we learned about how sounds are used in movies, the part we dove into most were foley sounds. Foley sounds are sounds made separately from the recording. Like if a film with a fighting scene, they’d record the actors fighting and separately record random metal objects clashing and match it with something shaking for the feet to make a good scene fit for a movie. 

I did the brainstorming sheet as my partner wasn’t there. Picking a scene was a little tuff, something with a lot of sound and that could happen in a short time frame. I landed on car crash and got to writing sounds. Split it up into 5 parts, the way before, the before, the during, the after, and the more after. It starts with a man driving then going faster until he crashes, you can hear fire and wind in the background with people’s voices until someone’s drags him out and says he’s ok. 

Next class I talked about it with my partner and he liked the idea and we got to work. Put all our sounds into a folder which was easy but the editing, not so much. I like iMovie but my partner likes adobe so he had the idea to add all the sounds in and while he does that I grab the foley sounds we were supposed to make. 

We were assigned to make 4 foley sounds and use them in the project. Using a paper for wind, a fork scraping on a plate for the car breaking, a sink running for rain, and a believe metal water bottles hitting each other for the cars colliding. 

While I was doing this, my partner got all the sounds in order, we couldn’t figure out how to share the document so I sent the sounds over text and he put them in before submitting the assignment. 

It was quite rushed at the end and as much as I tried to understand the adobe app, it was pretty confusing, doing it on iMovie I think was the better option but not the one we landed on and still managed to complete it.

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