Narrative Theory

Aristotle
Aristotle proposed that all narratives should have a 'unity' of time and place, suggesting that they should be told in chronoligcal order and in real time

However, from our own experience we know that consuming narratives has changed vastly since then, so we will not be applying aristotles theory to our work as we have decided it will be more interesting if we tell the story in a non-chronological order.



Freitag
Proposed there were 5 parts:

• Exposition
• rising action
• Climax
• Falling action
• Resolution/Catastrophe

Although we are making a film opening, so will include exposition by showing the young woman first who is clearly the protaganist, and the setting which is an abandoned school, we will also include the rising action, as we feel by beginning around the middle of the narrative it would create mystery for the audience and heighten the tension so we will use shots of broken glass and blood to foreshadow conflisct, and of the little girl advancing towards the young woman to create the rising action, building up to the climax, which is where our opening will end.

Levi-Strauss
He proposed that in every narrative there should be binary opposition, e.g good vs evil or light vs dark.
We will create this opposition in our opening by using dark and bruised makeup and low key lighting to demonstrate to the audience that the little girl is the evil force, and the opposite for the main character, keeping her fairly well lit, but with some shadows to make sure there is an undertone of fear in the opening.

Vladimir Propp
Came up with the theory that every character is part of one 'sphere of action' which included heros, villains, helpers, dispachers (who send the hero on their quest)

In our opening we will include only two spheres, as there are only two characters, neither of which are speaking roles, the main character will be a victim hero (the centre of the villians attanetions) while the little girl will be the villian.

We think this will be particularly effective as young children have connotations of innocence, and to make the villian a young girl will shock the audience.

Fake Blood

We were keen to use fake blood in our film opening, we thought we could use it to creep and scare our audience, we thought we could also use it as a colour element as we wanted to experiment with having the blood as the only colourful item.

So we made different batches of fake blood and tested them. We thought the less we made the more blood like it looked, as it was darker and thicker, however didn't spread on paper well so we experimented with different thickness and came to the conclusion to use a thinker substance made it look more blood like.

Classifiction

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/15

After reading the British Board of Film Classification we decided to rate our film a certificate 15. It could be a 12 but the main reason for choosing 15 is this statement on the site

'What about horror works? - Many horror films are rated 15. At 15 there can be strong threat and menace (as long as it is not sadistic or sexualised), although the strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable.'

Target Audience Research

We have considered our target audience and have come up with a few questions ot ask them about what scares them most about horror, and what horror films they like, as well as a few specific questions relating to our own ideas such as balck and white and children. Below is an interview with two 16-17 year olds and afterwards there is a short paragraph of what we have concluded from the research and how it will impact our film opening.

From this research we have decided that:

• The film will be at least partly in black and white (but probably not all in B&W)
• Our location will be one of the abandoned buildings we have investigated, as the target audience find these the most creepy
• We will try to include a doll/dolls in one of our shots
• We should have a long build up to increase tension and fear

Target Audience Research

After we interviewed two of our target audience, we also decided to create an online survey to obtain more quantitative data from a larger sample. Only females answered our survey and they were all either 16 or 17 which is our target audience (see below)

 Because of the mostly negative response to Black and white film, combined with the comments in the interview that young adults find it 'boring' we have decided to make only small parts of our piece black and white, as a visula effect to show the child is from the past to create more tension and as it demonstarted to the audience that she is long since dead.

Rocking horses and dolls were the most scary according to the target audience, so we have managed to source a small rocking horse and at least 4 china dolls which we will use in our piece as props for close ups. We could not find a music box, but we are basing the sound on a music box type instrument which should have a similar impact.

Abandoned building was by far the most popular place to set a horror film, and we have investigated a few different possible locations (see Location research) and found an abandoned school, formerly Lillesden school for girls, in which we are going to set our horror opening.

The fact that over 50% of our target audience said they find children scary 'a lot' in horror films stongly supports our decision to focus on a young child from the past, as from our reserach into other films (see Analysis of 'the children'  and 'Uninvited') we discovered that one of the most primal fears is innocence being ruined and this is an idea we want to explore in our piece. 

This supports our own personal views that we should have a girl actress in our piece, as visually they can be made to look more innocent which makes it all the more twisted when they become monsters.

Japanese Puppetry Experimenting

We were interested in using Japanese Puppetry so we experimented using it and edited it together.

From the experiments we concluded we didn't want to include Japanese puppetry in our film opening as to make a successful and effective piece of puppetry we would need more resources and the skills to produce an effective piece. We also concluded that it would take away from the action we wish to include in our film opening and does not fit in to our early decision of Victorian, so we thought it would be better to exclude this from our film opening.

Japanese Puppets Cut Out

We have been interested in incorporating puppets in to our film opening so we wanted to experiment with Japanese Shadow Pupperty so I made a few puppets in the style we intend to use.

Japanese shadow puppetry

Shadow puppetry is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment which uses flat cut-out figures to create the impression of moving humans and other three-dimensional objects. Shadow puppets are cut-out figures which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen. A talented puppeteer can make the figures appear to walk, dance, fight, nod and laugh. They normally tell a folk tale that may have a moral message too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_puppet

Used in Tim Burtons, “Lemony Snicket’s a series of unfortunate events” title sequence.
http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/lemony-snickets-a-series-of-unfortunate-events/ 

Horror Makeup

We looked alot at special effects and creating our own inguries. We decided not to use any in the end as we thought the child had a scarier effect looking more innocent, rather than obviously asphetically scary.

Phobias and fears

You wont make a good horror film if it doesn't scare anyone or a big enough audience which is why its important to pick a subject that scares allot of people. We chose the idea of haunting, death, children and possession by looking at common phobias.

'A phobia is more than a simple fear. It develops when a person begins to organise their life around avoiding the thing they are afraid of, whether it’s an animal, object, place or situation.' - from the NHS website http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Phobias/Pages/Introduction.aspx  

We looked at peoples top 10 phobias and coming in a number 10 was Necrophobia (fear of death or dead things) http://www.hypnotherapykettering.co.uk/page/10mostcommonphobias.htm

'Necrophobia is fear of death in general and things associated with it, e.g., of corpses, mummies, etc.' The child in our horror is a tormented soul that died in the late 1800's Victorian era. shes a dead spirit that haunts the house she was abused and killed in. she lures unsuspecting passers by in and kills them as her revenge on people.

Uninvited

I looked at the trailer for the film uninvited, and found a young girl character who is meant to be dead, which is similar to some of the ideas we discussed for our own project. 

 This picture is of one fo the recurring themes which is ink, however I thought this is useful because we could use similar ideas but instead with blood.

 This image links with two ideas we discussed which were bathrooms and relections so we could combine these in our own opening.

In the last picture you can see the blur of the children moving and also it's in black and white which was something we're thinking about.

The Children

 The Children,  2008.
Some of the images that I particularly liked are shown below, and we could use them as inspiration for our own film opening

One of the repeated images is toys, and I think this adds to the horror, as children are seen as innocent, and particularly the defaced doll shock the audience as it is the opposite to what they expect of a childrens toy.

The third picture is also effective as it uses a blue filter, as this makes the boy look pale and deathly, making the audience uneasy and adding to the tension.

Innocence of children

We wanted to create a horror where a child was the main evil and scares the audience by playing on the idea of innocence in children. Children are not usually considered harmful of scary so we wanted to play on this and challenge that idea.

There are many examples of other films that have used theme of children too:

Orphan (2009) -
A husband and wife who recently lost their baby adopt a 9-year-old girl who is not nearly as innocent as she claims to be.
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Photo Inspiration

Here are some pictures that i recently took for my art project and i think that they link into what we are looking at for our coursework. The traits i think that these represent are:

• The young girl 
• innocence
• alone
• afraid 
• the dark make up 
• the victorian type clothing 
• reflection 

The innocence of this photo and her eyes are showing emotion. I like the way her hair is styled with the ribbon and the costume she is wearing. I think that this outfit looks victorian like and i think that the make-up looks scary and makes the audience want to know whats happened to her. 

This is just a shot which shows the outfit off and how it resembles an outfit they would wear in the victorian times. I like the detail of the dress and the ribbon tied around the middle. 

 I like the way that she is holding the teddy in both these photos and shows her innocence. Instead of using a teddy we could use a old doll that looks a bit distressed to add the olden time feel to the video.

This photo is using reflection which i think we should include in our coursework.

Women in Black opening Scene analysis

·      Women in Black Opening Scene

 

 

 

 

 

 

China set very Victorian

Pretend playing with dolls.

Young girls

No speaking

Wearing Victorian style dresses

Erie music

SmilingThey see the woman in black in the corner and she takes over their minds and makes them possessed.

They stand up crushing everything they have been playing with

e.g dolls and china teacups

They all work at exactly the same time up to the window and then jump out.

The only words you hear are a piercing scream and then “my babies’

They then do a close up of the scary doll face and then an establishing shot panning out until you see the back of the woman in black standing in the corner.

Inspiration

This has key themes in it that we would like to incorporate into our movie opening. Things such as:

Victorian Dresses

Dolls

China

Erie room

Scary music

Young girls

This has really helped us with different aspects of our opening because of the type of dresses the girls are wearing and the dolls they are playing with. I think the use of no words until the end is really effective and allows for dramatic effect.

Music in Horror

Music is really important in creating a scary horror film as it adds to the suspense. What builds the suspense is the build-up of music accompanied with acting until you reach the climax of the action (scary part is finished). This is done by beginning the scene in often a simple melody and as the second the story gets more horrific, more instruments are added and the dynamics (volume) become more intense, and this uneasy mood is created by increasing sharp, quick and sudden bits of the music until finally it really loud and the murder for example takes place. The sharp, quick and sudden bits of the music scare you because they are unexpected, alarming and irregular.

There is often a jarring motif that is a tiny little musical thought that repeats itself through the movie. Like when Jaws had that repetitive motif when the shark's fin was exposed.

What you need to make a scary horror movie sound track:

• Orchestral instruments like violins or flutes

• Steady build up

• Steady volume increase

• Edgy and sharp pieces of sound

• Repeated motif

Black and white film

We love the idea of making a black and white film as part of our opening. This is because its helps show the early time period (Victorian) which is what we want the child's spirit to be trapped in. It also gives a dream like feel that will help with creating the horror because it will make the audience uneasy as to weather it real or not and therefore whether it could happen to them. Black and white can open up more opportunity for mood with your film that colour cannot achieve as well for the simple reason that colour can tend to overwhelm the viewer. It therefore makes our piece simplistic but still terrifying. Also with black and white you can really extenuate an important colour by letting it be shown for example only showing the colour red can indicate gore and horror.

Marc Lees article from 'The Telegraph' about 'Why I Love: black and white films'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/classic-movies/7979564/Why-I-Love-black-and-white-films.html

Experimenting with fonts for the title

Here i am experimenting with different fonts that we could use in our opening titles. I think that the use of blood trickling down from the letters is really effective and i think that this would look good in the titles. 

Gothic Sub-Genre

We chose quickly that we wanted to have a sub-genre as Gothic, we were inspired by films like Sweeney Todd, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Lemony Snicket and also by the director Tim Burton. The make up and costume used in the gothic theme is something we can experiment with a lot.

We interpret the Gothic film genre as dark, gloomy and mysterious with subtle horror and focuses more on terror than blood and gore (which would be slasher).

Collage of Gothic Film Posters.

Victorian moodboard

We discussed basing parts of our opening in victorian times, to give a gothic feel, as we were inspired by films such as Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper.