Research: Codes and Conventions Of Horror Films

Codes

Codes are an arrangement of signs which generate a denotation of what is being represented. These codes can be separated into two categories, technical and symbolic.

Technical codes are all the methods of which equipment is used to tell a story in a media text, for example the camera movements, shots and angles, the editing and the use of sound (diegetic and non-diegetic) in the clip.

Symbolic codes show what is beneath the surface of what we see and is not as evident and technical codes. These codes are usually seen through the aspects of mise-en-scene, for example, a characters decisions or actions will show you what the character is like and how they are feeling, their clothing and how much they wear can be decoded to help us better understand what type of person they are and certain props have suggestions or connotations which can have a common meaning interpreted by the audience.

Some codes fit both categories - non-diegetic music for example, is both technical and symbolic.

Conventions

Conventions are generally accepted ways of doing something. There are general conventions in any medium, such as the use interviewee quotes in print article, but conventions are also suited to specific genres. For example an action movie convention would be a large explosion.

Conventions found in the horror genre from MarvinAddae

Analysing Codes and Conventions In Existing Teen Horror Films

To further understand codes and conventions in existing horror films, we decided to watch 3 horror movie intros and analysed the use of camera, editing, use of sound. mise-en-scene and conventions

Research: The History Of Horror Films

1900s
Horror movies all started off in 1896 when the film The Devils Castle was released. This movie had revolutionised the genre of movies all over the world, bringing a new aspect of media to the people. In this early time, The Devils castle had no colour and there was no way of recording voices for dialogue, although there was piano music playing in the background to create a sense of atmosphere. With the limited resources so early on they were only able to record the movie for just over 3 minutes. Overall the movie did not really portray any fear in my opinion, but it may have to people 100 years ago.

1910s
In 1910 the first version of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' was made, this movie also continued some of the aspects found in The Devils Castle including it having no character voice audio and piano music being played in the background to further help the viewer understand the mood. although in 1910 they made up for no character voice by adding a frame after every scene briefly explaining the events that have took place in that the scene corresponding to it. They also managed to add an orange tint throughout the film, but this trend did not last long. The short film was made 4 times longer than in 1900, but still did not give me any fear. This clear shows that our generation has a different view of what was believed to be scary.

1920s
In 1920s became a lot more popular as several movies were created, in 1922 a popular movie named Nosferatu was made and it shared almost all the aspects from the 1910s, such as the frame explaining the story and no character voice, but they did not use colour, this may have been to create an effect and better set the mood of the movie. This movie was able to run for an amazing hour and a half, and in my opinion was the scariest out of the films so far as the story was a bit more explained and the bad character looked out of the norm.

1930s
The 1930s was a big year for horror as never forgotten classics were made such as several versions and sequels of Frankenstein were made, Dracula, The Mummy, King Kong and many more. For this example of how horror movies were like in the 1930s I will use another version of Frankenstein to compare. In 1931 was when it was made and this year introduced character voice to movies, which really changed how people would view movies, although the movie was still in black in white it was still self-explanatory in terms of explaining the story to the audience, this helped provide a better understanding of the film which increased the chance of someone experiencing fear as they now know what is going on.

1940s
In the 1940s movies were like the previous decade I terms of film production (no colour voice and audio). A popular movie made in 1944 was the mummy's curse which was more focused on the supernatural and gave more fear to people, as they were not used to it, and it is known that you are more afraid of the things you don't know. In the 1940's movies really started to progress to show something scary.

1950s
In the 1950s horror movies showed a lot of villains that were out of the norm, such as the blob, a creature from a lagoon and demons. This continues on from the 1940s aspect of giving the audience fear. in 1953 a film called The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was made and its main character was a Godzilla like creature that would cause havoc across a city, this movie was not really a horror compared the examples in the 50 years before them, but for all we know the audience then may have found it terrifying, if that was the case, it really shows how horror has changes over the years.

1960s
The 1960s made the drastic change in horror films as they were now more focused on killing people and mortifying the characters within the movie with supernatural, creatures that are inhumane and a psycho. In 1968 a movie called Night of the Living Dead was made and it involved a lot of killing by the un-dead (zombies), this also involves the common incidents we see today in horror movies such as, running around the house instead of out, and investigating a strange noise.

1970s
In the 1970s colour was introduced to horror movies and completely changed how people view them, this gave producers more to do with the movie, such as make it graphic with blood and use different colour lighting for effect. In 1973 a phenomenon named The Exorcist, this movie changed the whole aspect of how horror movies were represented and brought the idea of possessed people, items and other along with it, this really revolutionised horror movies for our generation now.

1980s
The 1980s extended the trend of the 1970 whilst taking it to a whole new level by adding more deaths, more graphic brutality and more supernatural things to the horror content. This became extremely popular and quickly became a very favoured genre. In 1981, the movie The Evils Dead was released and it expressed the characteristics of the un-dead and supernatural more than ever before. This very similarly maintained the theme of horror movies from the 1970's and made them even more terrifying.

1990s
In the 1990s horror movies took a big leap to our generation of scary films, this included the feature of people running around the house and not escaping, being cornered and exploring an odd sound. In 1996 another major blockbuster named Scream was made and it was identical to the formula used in the previous decade, this theme of how horror movies were set out and made was very popular and quickly became the most common technique in horror movies.

2000s
The 2000s brought a refined collection of all the aspects that made horror movies from the past century, including intense music, imminent death, lighting for effect and monsters out of the norm. Along with this, one of the most useful skills in horror history, the jump scare. This ability gave producers to take scaring people to another level. A movie called Paranormal Activity was made in 2007 and it involved a lot strange noises/sightings, darkness and most of all jump scares. Although in 2004 a movie named Saw was released and its intention was purely to show gruesome deaths which were very graphic. Both of these titles became exceedingly popular and made several squeals.

2010s
The 2010s brought back a lot of the possessed people and objects but were more focused on the audience being scared than the characters being slaughtered. this year also brought the idea of making some horror movies to be from a true story and for some people was more terrifying than the movie itself knowing that it actually happened, some viewers get a sense of them being in danger with this aspect involved, in 2013, The Conjuring was made and involved a lot of possessed family members and dolls with happy faces, which are seen as more scary as they used to seem to innocent. This movie also showed a lot of jump scares within paranormal events and was able to give more fear to the audience.

Introduction To Main Task

Preliminary Task: Evaluation

We created a short film made out of 12 shots including a short dialogue between two characters and must contain the 180 degree rule and shot reverse-shot within it. We were also asked to include match on action.

In pre-production we had create a draft storyboard from an A3 piece of paper folded in to 12 squares. The 12 squares represented each of the shots that would be recorded and briefly explain the context, after this modifications to the storyboard were made and we had decided the final planning for out short film. We then moved our plan into 12 sheets of A4 paper where we would explain each shot in more detail, including the types of shots, angle, character, locations and dialogue needed. Once this was completed we took 3 photos of the main areas that would be used in the short film and 2 photos of the people that were playing the roles in my preliminary task, after this we were ready to record it. This process helped us prepare for recording the raw footage as we were organised and knew exactly what would be required for each shot, this made production easier and more structured.

In production the establishing shot and a character walking in the room went perfectly fine, but we struggle trying to replicate the point of view angle when Dwayne pulls the chair and turns the door handle as we were using an iPad to record we had some difficulty trying to prevent anything else but the hand showing up in the shot. A big mistake that was made was I recorded one shot in portrait and another in landscape which didn't help with trying to keep verisimilitude. The last issue we had whilst recording was when recording the last line of dialogue, Lewis had trouble saying a line that was pretty long and managed to accumulate 12 failed attempts.

In post production I used premier pro to edit my preliminary task. The process of my editing stage goes as follows

1. I imported all the clips I had recorded into premier pro 
2. I trimmed all the clips to the sections that were needed (removing any blank bits of video and or audio)
3. I muted any unnecessary noises from certain shots
4. I scaled my whole work area to scale to frame size, this allowed the aspect ratio to fit most monitors
5. I added a dip in to black video transition to the establishing shot and Dwayne walking in to the interview room
6. I then used video grabby to download an audio track to my iTunes library which I then imported into premier pro and places in my work area
7. I added key frames to the audio to make the track fade out when the dialogue starts and key frames after the dialogue to bring the music back up for the outro
8. I then used the razor tool to trim the audio at the end to finalise the short film

When I had finished my preliminary task was very pleased that it met all the expectations of my set brief, including having shot reverse-shot, the 180 degree and match on action all within 12 shots. The parts that I was confident with was the editing process, as I found it particularly easy to cut clips and match them with other shots. The part I was least confident with was recording the establishing shot as seamlessly as possible, other than this I did not find any struggle with my task. I can identify that an area I need to develop is remembering to record all of the shots in one orientation to help verisimilitude.

Preliminary Task: Filming Schedule

Date	Cast Involved	Location	Props/ Mise-En Scene	Equipment Needed	Health And Safety Considerations
13/10/15	Sam Merrison	Outside the school building (Main Entrance)	Paper explaining the sixth form requirements.	iPad	None
	Lewis Molloy	Upstairs corridor (Sixth Form Block)	Smart/Casual Clothing
		Classroom

Learning To Edit With Adobe Premiere Pro

In the last two lessons of Media Studies I have learned how the following:

• I have learned how to create a new project on Premier Pro
• I have learned how to import clips and audio in the Premier Pro and not to move the files after adding them to it
• I have learned how to navigate through video by using the left and right keypad and by scrubbing
• I have learned how to move a clip into my timeline, with or without it's audio
• I have learned how to trim with the razor tool for precise cuts between shots
• I have learned how to play the video in full screen to see any errors clearly, or for video viewing purposes
• I have learned how to add video transitions and effects to my project
• I have learned how to decrease the volume (decibels) on a video
• I have learned how render a video so it is ready for exporting
• I have learned how to export my project to my desktop

Here is my test of using Premier Pro by making a short film from clips about a knock-knock joke: