Audio in horror

 The tone of any story no matter the genre should almost always be established early on as it allows for the audience to understand what kind of movie they are watching and create an atmosphere. Horror movies use the use of music to create suspense and at times use other auditory cues such as door slamming in order to scare the viewers. A horror movie with no soundtrack will find it to be very difficult to scare the audience, as usual, they feel more in the moment when audio is in the movie. A movie that does this very well is the movie The Conjuring. In a scene where both daughters are in bed, we can hear unnerving music in the background and after the daughter point to a corner where there is nothing, she says the person is standing right there. While on-screen we see nobody in the corner we can almost feel the presence of the being. The suspense builds on this and finishes off with the door slamming shut and the girl's screams being heard. This movie was one of the scariest movies made during this time due to the use of its audio and visual effects. It creates suspense that can make any person hold their breath and is a perfect example of how horror movies would not be the same without audio.

Schedule

 I have decided to make a little bit of a schedule for myself since it will allow me to coordinate how much time the entire process will take and how much time I will dedicate to it. Of course, if I ever need to change the schedule to get some extra time I will need to adjust the schedule in the future.

This week: This week is already coming to a near close, so for now I will be doing as much research as possible and try to find a suitable mask for my killer. The research can include past movies, productions, and their development process.

Next week: I need to have most of my costume design worked out for both characters, the setting established, and decide whether I want to play one of the parts or need two separate actors. The actors are also something I will need to find. Since I decided to do this project by myself it will be a little more challenging to find actors, but I will find someone suitable for the position.

In the following weeks: I will need to dedicate some of my weekend and the time I have in class to either finding actors or filming. I will most likely use my Friday or Saturday to record since on Sunday I have school the next day and will not be able to film that late into the night. Once I have finished recording all of the visuals for the film I will also have to include all of the audio. I will most likely use music from a copyright-free audio source. I will create all the other sound effects including, breathing, screaming, walking, and possibly the electricity turning off. More sounds to come.

Written Storyboard

(Establishing shot): A long shot of the house the lights inside are turned on, it is nighttime. The camera is angled at an angle from the right. Then in walks the killer to the shot with a weapon in his hand. the camera at the moment can only see his hand, weapon, and some of his pants and shirt.

(Another long shot, then medium): We see a character in their room listening to music and either dancing or singing along.

(POV shot): We are in the killers perspective and see them walk up to the electrical box and turn off all the lights.

(Medium shot): The lights turn off, the music turns off, and the character stops dancing. Gets annoyed and walks of the the left of the camera.

(Over the shoulder shot of character looking at the stairs)

(Closeup of the characters eyes)

(Another medium shot of stairs)

(Over the shoulder shot of character walking towards the stairs) character is then jump scared by killer appearing

(A closeup) The knife comes up and then swiftly comes down towards the camera then fades to the title screen 

The mask and setting

I already have my storyboard mostly complete with some details I may change later. What I need to focus on now is the fact that my killer has no mask and no real costume design yet. This is of course difficult to think of as I need to come up with a unique idea as to what to do for the mask or weapon. Usually, a killer's most defining character trait is their costume design, and in the case of a serial killer, it is either the weapon they use or the mask they wear. Of course, some movies such as psycho do not have masks, but in my case, I believe that a mask will be easier to record and have a more lasting impact. It will also keep the mystery horror element to my story and add a bigger horror element.

The mask was the main factor I have to take into consideration, but there is also the fact that I have not defined any setting for this. While my house would be a very good option for at least the inside portions of the shots, I feel that another house may give off a more creepy feel. I will have to either stick to my house or find a more suitable house in the future when I start filming. When I film it will of course have to be nighttime and hopefully not raining or storming outside.

My somewhat finalized draft

 As the title has indicated I have a much better idea of what I wish to create. I want the focus to be mostly on the killer, because the character will die at the end of the 2 minutes. I want the killer to appear as a stalker as well as a professional serial killer. What I mean by this is that I want the movement of the killer to seem fluid like and seem as if this is not the first time they have done this. The killer will not wear a mask but will instead be in the shadows at all times. This will be difficult to light up correctly, but I want this to make it seem like the killer could be anyone. This will hopefully create a mystery horror, where the plot will derive around who the killer is and trying to find what they do before they kill more people.

What I plan to create

 I know what I want to do now , because upon consideration I enjoy playing with the concept of a killer entering a person's house. There will be some POV shots and then an establishing character shot. At the end of the 2 minute segment the killer will most likely slash at the screen and the title will appear on the screen. For the music I may find some eerie background music to build up the tension and will also create my own color scheme and possibly a cool title sequence. This still needs some work in order to iron out the problems but I hope that I will come up with a solid plot in order to start my storyboarding project as soon as possible.

Audio design

 I continued to research horror movie aspects mainly looking into the sound effect aspects of them. Something that really caught my eye was a youtube video series called the Mandela Catalogue. It uses many sound effects and creepy visuals in order to demonstrate its horror elements in an interesting and working way. All in all, I will most likely take some inspiration from this and use it in my opening in some way. This demonstrates that any person can make a creepy video and that all that is needed are skills and time. In the future, I will start to develop my plot in order to start finding places to record and develop my horror character and possible protagonist or protagonists.