Unit 19: Research
Intro:
While over at his
grandma’s mansion for a visit, a young boy accidentally rips his shirt, and now
must go through the creepy mansion in search of his grandma’s sewing kit.
This horror movie is
inspired by horror games like RE and Spooky's House of Jumpscares.
Research:
Primary:
The primary research
was obtained by way of a questionnaire answered by an array of people.
Here is a list of
the questions included in the questionnaire:
1. What is your age?
2. How do you feel about
horror as a genre?
3. Do you feel like a lack
of dialogue can ruin your enjoyment of a movie?
4. Would you be scared if
you got lost in an antique dark mansion?
5. Which of these color
combinations makes you feel cozy and calm (example images provided)?
6. Do you think the
protagonist should always change by the end of a story?
7. What would you expect to
find inside a box of butterscotch biscuits?
8. Did you enjoy this
questionnaire?
The Answers:
13 people answered.
1. What is your age?
The main demographic
for this questionnaire is 15-18 year olds, which fits the movie.
2. How do you feel about
horror as a genre?
13 people answered.
Most people have a
liking to horror related media, or to horror as a genre.
3. Do you feel like a lack
of dialogue can ruin your enjoyment of a movie?
Other answers
included:
“It would depend on
how long the movie was, and if there was any other type of noise in it.”
“I like Charlie
Chaplin movies and those are silent mostly, but sometimes a movie needs
dialogue like in Interstellar.”
There is a big rift
in opinion on this topic, the movie is not gonna change much dialogue wise, but
we will work on ways to make up for the lower amount of dialogue.
4. Would you be scared if
you got lost in an antique dark mansion?
The setting of the
movie fits the horror atmosphere required for horror is.
5. Which of these color
combinations makes you feel cozy and calm (example images provided)?
A – 2
B – 4
C – 1
D - 6
A
B
C
D
This question helps
with designing the inner aesthetic for the mansion in this short movie.
6. Do you think the
protagonist should always change by the end of a story?
This gives me a
better idea of what angle to approach the characters from.
7. What would you expect to
find inside a box of butterscotch biscuits?
Other answers
included: “sewing kit” and variations of that (sewing tools, knitting tools,
etc…).
Our target audience
is those who answered other.
8. Did you enjoy this
questionnaire?
Answers included: “yes”,
“very much so”, “yes very much so we love you nasr so much we love you”.
Thank you for your
time.
FROM.BEYOND
Narrative (and a bit of camerawork):
This short film is structured as footage strung together, moving
in a linear timeline to show the happenings.
It consists of interviews, speeches, footage of go pros in cars
and held by people, captured footage of people, captured footage of the alien,
research footage, and unidentifiable shots of... something.
The
footage is linear in its timeline, but the story is told in a less direct way.
Unidentified biomass lands on earth, people gather round it.
Scientists get hold of it and start research on it. Failed.
Couldn’t understand or identify it.
The event is announced to the world.
A contagion spreads.
Life has changed, and certain people get into a deep existential
depression in the fallout.
A cult of worship forms, and congregate infront
of one of the biomasses, and they go wild with it. Classic cult rituals.
We are shown the biomass taking over humankind, through a 50s
style animation scene.
The last shot we see is of a fetus
with spores growing from it, indicating the biomass integration has reached a
new level of unlocked evolution.
Characters:
The head researcher/public figure.
The cultists.
Minor characters such as the interviewer, the civilian
interviewed, and the man setting up the speech.
Other background characters also shown.
The characters are
created and tied to the story through commentary and repetition.
The public figure we see is introduced through his announcement
speech as an important figure to the narrative. His repeated showing on screen
also shows his relationship to the biomass, and the world of the story.
Other characters are tied in through their commentary on the
events taking place, such as the cultists interviewed, or the man interviewed
on the street.
The characters are created to mimic real people and their
reaction to this event.
Using ordinary people (relative to the unordinary visuals and
plot) who act like real persons helps set in the existential horror of this
situation by way of making it feel real, and making them feel relatable to our
real life.
Mise-En-Scene:
It is to make you uncomfortable. To make you uncomfortable. You’re
uncomfortable.
All the locations used are generally recognizable in what they
are i.e. a conference room, a lab, an open field, a house. Or they are places
like in the middle of the woods... somewhere.
We see a lot of barely identifiable locations used, and places
that are framed in a way that makes them seem familiar, but also different
enough to where we will be offset by them. They’re almost uncanny.
The contrast between places like a conference room with a man
making an announcement, and in a very dark forest looking area are used to make
us feel connected to the world, by making it similar to ours and as normal
looking (at first), but then showing us what may lurk in it, making us lose the
comfort that may have been set by seeing places that we recognize.
We see a lot of extended scenes where the camera just shows us a
scene, and in the background lays something that sticks out to us. A foreign
shape, an alien object, an invader.
There aren’t any jumpscares, but those scenes work to build a
lot of tension and unease in us.
Unease. We feel uneasy when we see those things.
We feel uneasy when we see a child’s drawing depicting the
existentialism of this cosmic horror through the innocence of a child’s mind.
We also see the biomass’ parasitic integration with humankind
through a stylized 30s cartoon.
This is the first time we get a “good” look at how the creature actually looks.
One thing to note is that we never clearly see people’s faces.
This is used to give off an uncanny feeling; they’re humans, but I can’t see
their face, and I can’t fully connect with them. They always feel off.
This is also used to make the movie feel classified. Like this
is a big revelation that was hidden away from us.
Camerawork:
The movie is shot in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio (I think).
This constricts the viewer’s vision, but it helps focus their
attention on specific things on screen more.
The camera uses medium shot and close shots in scenes that
include people, and it is angled at eye level. This is the standard for
interviews and is used to relate us to those people, and to show them off in an
open way.
We also see the usage of wide shots that focus on the
environment, or something that lurks within it, without clearly showing us, or
explaining what that thing is.
The camera holds these shot for an
uncomfortable amount of time, so we, the audience, will get uncomfortable. The
point is to make us uneasy, as we may expect to see something scary, but we
just never get a direct look.
Editing:
The editing connects the very different scenes and footage
together in a way that connects them to form a coherent narrative.
There were a lot of VFX used in this movie, but I can’t tell you
to what extent.
We know shots like that of earth are computer generated, but I
think some shots that show of the biomass are done in a more practical way,
with maybe some light tweaking done for them.
The editing is used in a way that helps the audience understand
the story, while also terrifying them through its usage.
Sound:
The sound design is immaculate.
The usage of diegetic sound effects for the biomass works to
amplify it's disgusting otherworldly-ness.
We also hear sounds like chairs being moved, and most
importantly people speaking.
One thing to note is that the people don’t speak in English.
Now this could be because the creators aren’t from an English-speaking
country, but considering that all written text is in English, then I think this
was done to spool the audience and add a conspiratorial feeling to the movie.
This is because English audiences perceive the spoken language
(which I think is Russian, unless it’s Scandinavian) as threatening in a sense,
or foreign enough to them.
This is an after effect of the cold war, and the red scare.
Now, the non-diegetic.
The soundtrack hits them mark for horror films by being eerie
and spooky enough to shake up the audience, but
being ambient enough to not take away from the movie, rather just add onto it
(one of the best examples of this is the Sinister soundtrack)
This keeps the focus on the visuals, while having the soundtrack
still be effective and hard hitting, but in a more gentle, existential,
ethereal way.
Great soundtrack.
Conclusion:
This film is more than effective at leaving the audience uneasy,
shook up, and satisfied with what they saw.
The main take aways and inspirations this movie gave me were by
way of Style, and by way of narrative.
Having a coherent, linear narrative, without having to spell out
what’s happening to the audience is something I will do.
The characters not having their faces shown was already
something I thought about doing.
The camerawork and editing will influence the way I make my
work.
I will work on having a more visually pretty, and slightly
uneasy etherealism to my work.
The soundtrack is fire, and it is the thing that inspired me the
most.
It will be used for inspiration.
The base takeaway is building up the atmosphere, and is the main
point of this analysis.
SECOND HAND RESEARCH:
The focus will be on setting up and building the horror, as
people have been found to react better to horror with buildup than if we were to
just jumpscare them always without a set up.
The article talks about empowering the audience and making them
vulnerable to give out better scares.
This will take the form of showing vulnerability through the
scares themselves, and empowering them through the protagonist’s attitude towards
these scares.
We will focus on the psychological and through connecting them
towards the story by way of the protagonist.
The next section of research focused on just looking at antique
and old mansions online.
This helped with the design of the actual place itself.
(thor psych horror short video)
We learn how to actually build the atmosphere of horror but using the audience's expectations as their enemy, and setting up the horror mood by utalizing their fear and letting them make themselves afraid.
Re:
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