Friday, March 7, 2025

Research for #1 CCR

Genre conventions of a horror/slasher film: Horror and slasher films have certain characteristics that make them easy to identify. These films usually focus on a killer, who is often masked and murdering a group of people one by one. One common factor is the "final girl," where one person, usually the innocent character, ends up surviving and faces the killer in the end. The characters surround the final girl often make bad decisions, which makes the situation worse. At the end of the film, usually the masked killer gets exposed and their motive is related to some kind of vengeance.

The scenes are know for being gory and over the top with blood which adds a humorous element to the film. The setting is also usually in a small town or isolated place like the woods. And the victims are teenagers which makes sense since the primary target audience for slashers are young people. Also a very common trope is that the final girl who doesn't have sex or drinks, survives simply because she didn't do those things. The weapon of choice is also typically a knife or machete, anything that isn't a fire arm.



Source: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-a-slasher-film-definition/

In our film, we use some typical genre conventions like the setting in the woods and teenage victims, but we quickly move away from the traditional slasher narrative. The audience might expect the typical masked killer hunting down teenagers, our film goes in another direction. The story gradually shifts from a slasher to a psychological thriller, where the real threat isn’t just a villain, but the protagonist’s increasingly unreliable perception of reality. This shift creates a more sinister and disturbing atmosphere, as the audience realizes the true danger might lie within the main character herself, making the horror more unsettling.

The striking use of bold colors and the drastic shift in tone set the film apart, making it its own entity. Unlike slashers like Scream, where deaths are exaggerated and desensitized for shock value, our film uses violence to delve into the psychological toll it inflicts on the characters. The slow build of tension following the shocking opening keeps the audience on edge, constantly questioning who can be trusted. By focusing on the main character's mental spiral and blurring the lines between victim and perpetrator, which I believe makes the film all the more terrifying.

In our film, representation plays an important role, particularly through the main character. At first, she appears to be a stereotypical nerd: just a girl who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. But the audience quickly realizes it's more complex than that. The opening scene sets expectations for a conventional slasher, with a killer chasing down a victim and probably a final girl to follow after. However, the film quickly challenges these expectations, turning into a psychological thriller. As the narrative goes on, the audience discovers that the girl they perceived as a mere witness is actually the main character, and she’s much more complex than they thought.

While she initially follows common stereotypes: Star Wars t-shirts, glasses, and no makeup, these outward appearences act as a mask, keeping her trapped in a box. As the story goes on, she begins to break away from these expectations that society gives her, revealing a depth and darker nature that challenge the typical “nerd” persona. Her outward changes throughout the film isn’t just about shedding her physical appearance; it’s about how she evolves mentally and emotionally, confronting her trauma and the psychological toll of the events around her. By the end, we see that she is far from the stereotypical "dorky witness" but instead, she’s a complicated, unpredictable character, defying from typical conventions.

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Post-Production- Sound

So for the sound of the film, me and my partner realized while filming that there was literally no way we could use the raw audio for any kind of background audio so we will be working on two things: Foley and Voice overs.

Since the audio while the characters speak in the second half of the film opening is in a public bookstore, you can barely hear the characters talking but I spoke to all the actors and they are all willing to do some voice recordings soon so we can put those into the film. Also, I think we are still going to use some of the ambience sounds from the bookstore in the scene still because I think it adds a cool element. However, i'm definitely not relying on the actual audio from the recordings.

That is an easy fix, but we also do need to work on the foley for the scenes in the forest. I want the title sequence to have almost like amplified hearing of all the things that you hear in the woods in the scene. So like the sound of leaves crunching under feet running needs to be loud and I would like it to feel heightened. Later on there will be background music, but for the beginning, it's crucial that the foley sound is really good so what i'm planning on doing is recording the sound quite literally by making the exact same actions. 

I found this cool video to help with creating the foley for the running in the woods and thought I would share!!



Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Post-production: Coloring

Post production has begun! We are almost nearing the end of the project and i've begun with the most crucial part of this entire film opening which is the coloring. We are using this factor as a tool to help convey certain symbols and meaning to the audience in ways that we can associate with color. I have attempted a couple examples and i'd like to show them.

First example:


As you can see by this before and after picture, I am editing the first minute of the scenes in a vibrant but also spooky at the same time kind of way. I am saturating the scenes so it could have some of the essence that of an 80s slasher, but the low exposure and use of vignette helps still hold the true elements of a spooky and mysterious slasher film. 

Of course we want to still keep the genre conventions of these films, but we do want to create our own creative element too. 

Second example: 

Now, this 2nd example is a lot to take in and I completely understand if you don't really like it yet, but i'm trying to create an artistic expression using color to convey death and dread. Like the scene is supposed to overwhelming and over stimulating in a way and maybe even sometime you want to look away, but that is exactly how the character feels in the film as well. This use of color puts the audience in the main characters shoes and allows them to feel a semblance of what she feels.

I understand that this may not be a popular choice to go with, but i'm hoping that it's effective in the way that I want it to be perceived in. We will alter some of the like shadows and maybe lower the exposure a little more but this is the idea of what I want going on in this portion.




Monday, March 3, 2025

Production- Filming day 2!

 So today was the 2nd day of filming! We recorded the other minute of the film and i'm really excited for how it came out. Since the library was closed, we filmed at barnes and noble and we came up with some pretty creative shots and I think the actors did amazing. Here are a few freeze frames from our footage!


In these shots, I wanted to convey a darker and more sad/drained tone so you'll notice that I had low exposure on all these scenes. In this scene, the girl was starting to realize the severity of the crime she witnessed and is almost going on a downward spiral, so her blue clothes helped represent coldness and isolation that she was feeling.


In this clip, we are going to edit it along with another clip that we got the last time we filmed, and create a cool and unique match-cut to show the passage of time and how it passes without her even being present in it. I think this is what i'm most excited to see at the end of editing!!


And lastly, this shot really shows how deeply the crime she saw affects her because she is doing something completely irrational (talking to a dead person) in public, and it's evident that she knows its wrong. She is almost arguing with him even though she knows that she saw him die.

With all our footage, we can finally put the entire project together and I can't wait to show it!! Hopefully it matches up to our expectations!!

Saturday, March 1, 2025

Production- Filming day 1

We filmed yesterday!! We filmed at Markham park and got all of the scenes we needed to get done. We ran into a couple of issues and I discussed them in my last blog post but today i'm going to talk about how it went.


As you can see, it was a nice day out so it was great to not run into problems in the weather like rain and extreme heat which can be pretty common in Florida. Also, there wasn't a lot of people out so we weren't having interruptions which was nice. We found this little dock which I thought was very Friday the 13th and immediately decided we needed to use it.


Here is a picture I took on the way back from filming which took a little longer than I anticipated. However, we did start filming later because we were on the hunt for fake blood but we couldn't find any at Walmart or Target :(


And lastly here is the wonderful killer with the mask I made!!! The actors did amazing and we are half way done with filming. I'm very happy with how it came out and i'm super excited to see the whole film come together.





Research for #1 CCR

Genre conventions of a horror/slasher film: Horror and slasher films have certain characteristics that make them easy to identify. These fil...