What I’ve Learnt From My Research

What I’ve Learnt From My Research

Since starting this project I have learnt a lot about horror and its evolution over time. I’ve learnt about many different theories that have been made from watching horror films and I’ve studied how they have evolved over time. In this blog post, I will discuss what I have learnt from my research into this genre and how I will use what I have learnt in my trailer production.

The first aspect and probably the best place to start was looking at the history of the genre. This would be the best place to start as I’d have to make a trailer for the genre. Horror has always been about finding something that scares people and using that fear to create something that scares them in ways they hadn’t thought about and creates new fears. It started out in ancient history with monsters and gods which apparently controlled them and it was a metaphor for how humanity was powerless at the time due to a lack of understanding and that lack of understanding is important with horror because it’s what horror is built off. I mean people can be scared of a man coming at you with a knife but those are just instinctive fears to keep us alive. Real fears that scare people are those which they only fear are because of the consequences of losing to that fear. For example, people may say they have a fear of heights which is very common but what they are actually afraid of is a fear of falling. This concept for horror can be shown as fearing the dark. People aren’t scared of not having light but more a lack of knowing what is in the dark. That is the scary part of horror and it doesn’t change over time but horror changes over time due to cultural events and new fears of a lack of understanding emerging. For example, There are tales of monsters that are used to scare people but it’s a lack of knowing if they’re real or not that scares people into worrying and makes them consider what they would do in that situation. This was the original horror in gothic horror tales looking at monsters and they were translated into films during the silent era and the 30s but as people realised that these were fictional tales of made up monsters they become bored of these tales. However, as people become bored of these childish fears new events and scientific breakthroughs were occurring to create new fears for the people from their lack of understanding of the new world. For example moving into the 50s and the fear of nuclear developments creating monsters like Godzilla. Then as cultural shifts began to happen it created more explicit content and made people fear the image. Then horror focused on the fear of those individuals and failing to understand their psyche which creates the psychological horrors which evolved through time which can be seen with Hitchcock’s first “Psycho” then people taking that concept and applying it new scenarios like “The Shining” and “The Exorcist" which focus on people we love turning against us and all this horror focuses on a fear of not understanding the human mind. This then evolved into not understanding people and fearing their actions they can do against us e.g. Saw but also fearing global events as the world became globalised making movies like Cloverfield and 28 days later which focused on apocalyptic scenarios and made people fear losing civilisation. This understanding of fear and disgust made me focus on what horrors I could use to scare people.

Now having an understanding of horror itself, I began to look at the composition of horror movies to find out how to make them scary. The main theory which I think is a good one to use is Todorov’s theory and how there are 5 stages to the classic Hollywood narrative. Now as we’re not making a whole horror movie we can’t use the entire theory but if we were to I would use this but I would also use Bordwell & Thompson’s theory as I feel that their ideas about cause and effect and manipulation of time and space in film are an essential part of creating good and entertaining movie. Learning about these narrative structures has made me appreciate the time it takes to direct a narrative and how I would do one myself if I needed to.

Next, I focused on learning about character types. I mainly focused on Propp’s identification of characters. Studying them made me plan out how I was going to give my characters certain traits to identify them as a stereotypical character type. However, I feel this theory is in need of a modernised version as it currently stands it is very out of touch with modern stereotypes and qualities. For example, the theory being based on fairy tales is an immediate flaw as modern characters aren’t confined to such sexist stereotypes that are fairy tales e.g. the hero is almost always male and the only female character tends to be the princess which is simply someone the hero saves. Additional the narrative only applies to hero stories which horror movies aren’t really structured to be. So simply I will make my characters stereotypical but modern.

A simple theory which is one I had identified before but never put a name to be binary opposition. It is a simple theory and clearly one I will include but depending on the story I focus on will depend on what element of the theory I focus on. I will definitely focus on binary opposition theory but it’s the extension to that which I will consider closer to the time.

Furthermore, an additional theory I have explored and learnt about is the representation of women in horror from Male Gaze to Final Girl. It was interesting to see how the role of women in cinema has changed recently but the roles of males have mostly stayed the same which is a surprising but I feel that these roles will continue to evolve as gender roles change in society so I will consider that when making my trailer. I will try to acknowledge male gaze theory but I will not try to appease to it as it is an objectifying theory and one that I feel is unfair to women.

I have also further developed my understanding of graphical design work including movie posters and magazine covers. A lot of this was already developed during my first-year project but I have learnt horror genre techniques to create interesting content.

The final area I have learnt about is horror trailers. The structure of horror trailers is an essential part for me to understand as the project I need to complete is one. I have learnt a lot about how to convey enough information to the audience that they can understand the narrative but not so it is spoiled for them. I will use the knowledge I have acquired to create a well-crafted trailer.

Overall, I have learnt a lot from my research and I will incorporate it into my products.