My Horror Film Narrative

Narrative

Five girls who’ve been best friends for seven years have received their results for their final year of college and are pleased with what they have received. Because of this, the girls decide to throw a party in celebration of their hard work. The girls have made a reputation for themselves over the years and are very popular amongst their peers – especially Aisha who is the leader of the group.

Three years before this Aisha, Seda, Leyla and Stephanie went on a road trip however Tiffani couldn’t make it as she had to attend a family wedding. On the car journey home, the girls had too much to drink which resulted in a car accident and a young male was killed. When the girls rushed out to see what had happened they realised that they had accidentally hit their best friend Tiffani’s boyfriend. In a panic, they got back in the car and drove away never speaking of what happened that night again.

The next day the group set out to prepare for their fancy dress party and it wasn’t long before their friends started flooding in.  During the party, a mysterious figure kept appearing within the crowd however; because it was fancy dress no one suspects anything.

After a great night of partying, the five best friends pass out (from tiredness) at Aisha’s house and are woken by a loud noise during the early morning. As they get up the girls notice that Tiffani is not there but they are not alarmed as she is very ‘adventurous’ and often goes off on her own. However not long after, Leyla and Stephanie notice a trail of blood leading outside and quickly inform the rest of the group.  The four remaining friends fear the worst and start searching frantically for missing Tiffani. As they run outside to search for her, trails of her belongings such as her phone, bracelet etc. are found in the garden and the girls begin to panic.

Moments later, a scream can be heard not too far from the house and so the girls decide to split up to look for her. Leyla and Seda are too scared to go out alone (as they play the innocent, shy and nerdy characters) and therefore end up going out together. Aisha and Stephanie go into a wood type location, whereas the others stay in familiar territory and look for their friend in areas close by.

The girls agreed to meet back every half an hour at a spot near the house to get updates on each other’s findings however one by one, at every meet up, another girl disappears. As Aisha and Stephanie explore the woods in the hopes of finding their best friend, Aisha catches a glimpse of the mysterious hooded figure that was present at their house party. She quickly turns to tell Stephanie but she is nowhere to be seen.

After half an hour, Seda and Leyla go back to the meeting point to tell the others that they have had no luck but already waiting is distressed Aisha. She tells the others that Stephanie has also vanished and about the hooded figure she saw in the woods. The group then decided that it would be safer to stay together and so they set off for the final time in the hopes of finding their two best friends.

The girls reach the woods a final time still desperately searching for their friends when suddenly a loud noise startles them and they start to run. Aisha trips and falls over a mysterious object but soon realises that it is the foot off Stephanie who has been buried and covered with leaves. Before she even gets the chance to scream the villain covers her mouth and drags her away.

After a tiring struggle, she manages to break free, and out of nowhere, Seda hits the villain over the head with a log of wood and the hooded figure falls to the ground. The three girls struggle to reveal the identity of the villain but when they do they come to the shocking discovery that it’s their best friend, Tiffani.

In disbelief the three friends ask her if all of this was some sort of joke but they soon realised that she was far from playing games. Tiffani then hurtfully explained how she knew what they had done to her boyfriend three years ago and thought that through getting revenge, she could finally move on and get on with her life.

Aisha, Leyla and Seda began to cry and tried to explain how sorry they were and that the whole situation was an accident. Tiffani began to get angry and pulled out a knife from inside the hoodie. She proceeded to stab Aisha and the others but before she got the chance to the ‘thought-to-be-dead’ Stephanie appeared out of nowhere and turned the knife back on her, stabbing her in the side.

Narrative Mind Map

In this post I will be showing you the mind map I created for the narrative of my horror trailer. I decided to do a digital version as well as a written one in my book to help organise the ideas that myself and my group came up with more clearly and effectively. 

Below is the brain storm (Please click to enlarge). 

Further Research Into Classifications, Age Ratings and Restrictions

I decided to do further research into age restrictions on films and why they are important and I came across some interesting findings. The BBFC regulates and monitors films to give parents and carers a guide on what is appropriate for their child and if certain content can be harmful or disturbing to them. 

 A number of studies have shown that children who are exposed to graphic, violent and sexual scenes will be affected negatively one way or another. This is because children take in what they see, hear and will remember them throughout their lives. Children under a certain age (usually below 15) are unable to differentiate between fact and fiction especially when watching films of a violent nature e.g. horror and may even attempt to copy these things that they have been exposed to.

Experts in this field have come to the conclusion that children who are exposed to regular scenes of violence will carry feelings of resentment, anger and will find it very difficult to empathise with others as they have become immune to the pain and suffering that they have seen.

I also came across a magazine called ‘Digital Parenting’ that had some useful information on this topic and felt it worth reading and blogging about. Below are the images attached. 

From this, I will ensure that the content in my trailer is suitable for people 15 and over and will follow the BBFC's guidelines on this classification as closely as I can. When the final product has been uploaded to YouTube, I will also be putting on an age restriction which will only allow people 15 and older to view the content.

Questionnaire Findings: Analysis

Preliminary Task

For the preliminary task, myself and two other students were put together in a group and were instructed to create our own version of a short scene from any horror film of our choice. This was done in order to help us get familiar with the cameras, editing software and anything else that we may come into contact with whilst filming our final product (the three minute horror trailer).

My group and I got along well as we each had similar ideas as we all wanted to do a classic bathroom/toilet scene. After a little while of discussion, we came up with our narrative which involved a teenage girl in a sixth form/college environment who encounters a mysterious person in the bathroom. Time was very limited as we were only given 1 and a half hours to gather all our shots and edit what we had produced so we thought it most realistic to film it in school instead of finding a location elsewhere.

We decided to remake a clip from Cry Wolf and incorporate elements of Psycho (e.g. the drain and tap scenes). We also ended up changing the narrative slightly due to limited time and so that we could add some of our own ideas to make it more original and not an exact copy.

We faced a few challenges during the shooting process as we were using a public toilet, meaning that many other students had access and kept walking in and out – disrupting the footage. Because of this, we then decided that it would be necessary for one member of the group to stand outside and explain to the other peers what was going on and ask them if they could kindly wait for us to finish filming. This meant that we had to film very quickly as we felt it unfair to keep people waiting for long periods of time. 

We had previously discussed the shots and camera angles that we wanted to use and the challenges that would come with it e.g. the CCTV scene which required me to climb on top of one of the doors and balance whilst trying to keep a steady hand to film. Another challenge that we faced was trying to get the camera to focus as it was a manual DSLR. Getting the camera to focus was sometimes difficult as a few of the positions we had to get into to film made it almost impossible to check if the focus was on and change it if it was not. An example of this is a gain the CCTV footage scene as I was in a very unusual position as it was high angle shot looking down which in turn caused me to have to film scenes such as these multiple times.

When editing the footage, an effect that myself and the other members of my group wanted to incorporate was the surveillance camera effect. In order to do this we had to create a darkish green filter to lay on top of the video, download a time code from YouTube and superimpose it on top of the screen to make it look as realistic as possible.  After I had finished editing the footage, myself and my group felt something else could have been added in at the end to make it fit in more with horror genre as there were no real horror ‘icons’’ present except for one scream.

Because of this, we decided to film a drain/tap scene where fake blood can be seen dripping around it. We did initially decide to have fake blood coming out front the tap but we didn’t have the time or the resources to do so. At first, we used red paint for the blood in the sink but as soon as it came into contact with water it turned purple which made it look very unrealistic and so we decided to use fake blood provided by a teacher instead.

Audience Research - Fears (15-19 yrs)

In order to aid my future horror trailer in being a success, I decided to do some secondary research on what people in my chosen target audience (age 15-19 years) most common fears and phobias are. This research especially is very important as if a movie of the horror genre is not based on something that a lot of people fear/current moral panics, then it becomes less likely for the audience to get emotionally connected or react in the way that we would like; making the film an un-success.  
Other than personal issues such as family, school, relationships etc the main fears and phobias that repeatedly came up in this age group are as followed:

The Fear Of:
Death/Dead things - Necrophobia 
Spiders - also known as Arachnaphobia 
Flying - also known as Aviophobia 
Enclosed Spaces - also known as Claustrophobia 
Heights - also know as Acrophobia 

I also decided to conduct my own Primary research on a number of peers at my sixth form by asking them what their biggest fears were:

From this I found that the majority of people questioned feared either supernatural beliefs such as ghosts, demons or dangerous animals such as snakes, sharks and dinosaurs. The rest of the fears mentioned were just things that could potentially cause harm such as falling from a great height. When comparing both my Primary and Secondary research It is clear to see a link as 3/5 fears listed above were either named or referenced by the individuals being interviewed. 

However, the final person to list their fear mentioned 'love' which is a more personal topic and because of this, I would find it challenging and difficult to incorporate into my trailer as it is too vague (the aspect of love they feared was not mentioned).

In carrying out this research,  I have now gained a better understanding on the different types of fears that I could play on and incorporate into my horror trailer to make it more current, attractive and appealing to my chosen age group. 

Audience Research - Reaction Filming and Discussion

I decided to conduct an observational study by filming a number of participants whilst watching a variety of different horror trailers. In doing this I was able to see the sections of the trailer that caused the most obvious reactions which has been useful in helping me decide on the content that I will be putting in my own.  After the participants had watched the trailer,  I discussed with them in more detail how they felt  asking them a series of questions in order to deduce useful information which will help guide me when making my own horror trailer and confirmed the definite target audience that I will be aiming my trailer at.

When looking at the obvious reactions in both footage, I found that music and sound plays a major part in setting the scene and causing the audience to react in fear and shock (e.g.jumping, covering eyes etc).  From this,  it is clear to see that soundtracks help to heighten suspense and horror and create an uncomfortable atmosphere that fans of the horror genre look for, and without,  the scariest most uncomfortable footage can be made bearable to watch.

I decided to research even further into this and came across a study from professor Daniel Blumstein  from the university of  California, Los Angeles which also involved composer Peter Kaye from Kingston University London. Professor Daniel found that  horror films had a higher than expected number of abrupt shifts up and down in pitch and came to the conclusion that the use of non linear sounds were not random - but used to 'enhance the emotional impact 'of scenes. From these findings, I will now be very careful and thorough in the selection process of choosing the music and sounds for each and every moment of my trailer in order to portray and enhance the horror and shock elements correctly and to the fullest.

When speaking with one of the students, she expressed her interest in the film as the story line was unique and different to anything else she had seen or heard before. This highlights that people of this age group find originality an important factor when trying to attract viewers as many may argue that horror films have become too predictable over the years and fans of the horror genre (such as she) can usually predict what will happen in certain scenes. 

All the participants agreed that even though the trailer they watched was not 'gory' as such (The human centipede) it was still very disturbing to watch as part of the promotion package of this film was that the surgery is 'medically accurate' meaning that this could actually be carried out in real life. This has showed me that film classed in the horror sector do not have to be all about blood and gore to be eerie and that people find realistic scenarios more frightening because they fear that there is more of a chance of it actually happening to them. 

Lastly, one of the students noticed that the actors and actresses used fit and portrayed the characters in the film perfectly. I also agree that this is very important as using someone who does not fit the role will make the film seem very unrealistic whether in a horror film or any other genre. I will now cast my actors/actresses very carefully when deciding what characters they will play in order to ensure that the actors are character appropriate. 

In the second session, one of the students mentioned that she feels the trailer would have been scarier if it had followed Todorov's narrative theory as there was no build up because equilibrium was never present at any point; just chaos right from the start. This has showed me that audiences of this age group enjoy watching a horror that builds up tension and doesn't just get straight into the blood and gore. I will now ensure that I myself will do the same by leaving the gory parts (if any) more towards the end.