Shock! A New Horror

I hope that my final work engages with my audience through the thematic and visual elements of our film. I feel that the contents of our film really aligns with what post horror is, which is described by Church as ‘far more accurately described as an aesthetically linked cycle within the longer and broader tradition of art-horror cinema…’. This highlights that post-horror is not a new genre or subgenre but rather a new stylistic approach to horror, which is what I feel we really focused on here. After attending the studio exhibition, I felt that we really engaged our audience and I feel that they understood our themes through the acting and visual elements of our film. For example I feel that the lighting made the character feel separated from reality and out of place in their own world which I felt our audience really understood. We chose to make our film very stylised to ensure that we had a clear vision and to ensure that our audience would understand our film not only through the acting, but through the lighting and sound choices. 

The singular most successful aspect of the finished film would be how well the lighting turned out for us. During the pre-production process, Amelia made it very clear about the visual styles that they wanted for the film and we all worked really hard to achieve that. A big inspiration for lighting and colour in our film was Dario Argento’s ‘Suspiria’ (1977) as the red is a great symbolic tool in horror films to represent danger, death, and uncertainty. We thought that the red colour would work really well with our film as it makes the character feel lured to places, and that they are trapped or in danger or in an unsettling place. Upon watching back the footage, I thought that the way we chose to light the shots was really successful and really elevated our footage.

The singular most problematic aspect of our finished work would be time management. During filming, I felt that our schedule was quite tight and we didn’t have much room to reshoot or have room to creatively rethink shots without it taking up a majority of our time. Sometimes this led to going a bit overtime when shooting or not getting all of the footage that we were aiming for for that shoot. In order to fix this problem, we had to schedule a few more filming days to ensure we had all of the footage that we needed and had time to reshoot scenes if we needed.

If I was to continue to work on our group’s project titled ‘Trance’, some of the core things I would want to improve on or extend would be working on the special effects and colour grading. There were some special effects such as the reflection in the mirror scene and even some of the masking that could have been a bit more polished however we were still happy with how it turned out. We did colour grade a lot of the film, however, due to time constraints we weren’t able to colour grade the whole film and mainly focused on the ending scenes because the colour grading was fundamental to them, if I was to keep working on the film, I would colour grade more scenes to ensure that everything looks as balanced as possible. After attending my studio exhibition, it became very obvious to me that some of the audio at the beginning of the film was out of sync, such as the breathing not matching up, and I would like to also continue to work on that to make it feel as professional as possible. Kattelman describes sound as something that ‘enhances the film viewing experience by not only heightening the intellectual meaning conveyed by the images but also adding a layer of invisible communicative embellishment that helps the viewer to decode the film by offering auditory cues to unseen bits of the narrative.’ I feel that this really inspires me to continue working on the sound and ensuring that it is the best it can be because it is so integral to a story.

One key thing that I have learnt from this studio experience is how to define ‘post-horror’ and understand its conventions. In the week two reading, Ryan describes post horror as ‘complex psychological story, emotional impact and meticulous production design’. I feel that I would be able to take this idea with me in order to understand genre conventions and how to tell a story that is stylised and has a lot of depth. I feel that after doing this class, I have a much greater understanding of genres and how to tell stories. Through learning the difference between horror and post-horror by exploring conventions, and experimenting with class workshops such as our scriptwriting workshop and the camera operating workshop, I feel a lot more confident in these areas and I feel that I can take these very useful skills into future media practices. 

The key takeaway that I have from working collaboratively is how important communication is. My group was really great at communication which was so important to ensure we had all of our documents completed and that filming would go as well as it could. Working collaboratively also ensured that our workload was spread evenly and we could help each other out where we needed. I really enjoyed working in a group to produce a film because it also gave us the opportunity to learn from each other and teach each other new skills that we can take with us into future media projects which was a really great experience. 

Bibliography 

Church D, (2021), ‘Post-Horror: Art, Genre and Cultural Elevation’, Edinburgh University Press, ProQuest Ebook Central, accessed 25 October 2024, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/RMIT/detail.action?docID=6425053

Goldsmith, B and Ryan M.D, (2018), ‘Australian Screen in the 2000s: Haunted Art House: The Babadook and International Art Cinema Horror’, Springer International Publishing, ProQuest Ebook Central, accessed 10 October 2024, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/reader.action?docID=5161149

Kattelman, B (2022), ‘The sound of evil: How the sound design of Hereditary manifests the unseen and triggers fear’, The Ohio State University, Horror Studies, Vol 13, accessed 25 October 2024, https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00050_1