Title Research

In general horror film DVDs and posters have either a very structured, solid font used for their title of have a scrawled, scratched looking font. These types of fonts are often reminiscent of the films themselves, for example the badly written titles are often for films in which the main character/ villain is a child or something relating to childhood, as you can see above on the posters for 'Orphan' (2009) and 'Humpty Dumpty' (2011). In more mature psychological thriller horrors it is more common to find a fairly basic block font with only slight added effects as can be seen with 'Mirrors' (2008) in which there is only a slight edit of a letter being mirrored and in both 'The Skeleton Key' (2005) and 'The Amnityville Horror' (2005) in which the fonts have small effects added to them.

Before doing font development I had already decided I wanted the poster to be black and white, meaning I did not need to do any research into colours or spend time deciding on which colours I would like on my poster. I did however have to decide on the correct font for the poster. In the horror genre there is two distinct types of fonts used. Some films use jaunty or scratchy looking fonts to give a messy and desperate and sometimes childlike feeling which reflects what the film is about. Other films use old or traditional fonts to give a creepy, aged feel to the poster which again is reflective of the sort of story the film tells. I have decided I would use a mix between the two, having a jaunty yet structured font, as it would represent my movie better.

Using this type of font also gives a more serious look to the poster and the movie and would possibly attract a more mature audience, which would be useful due to the movie being over 18 and so attracting a younger audience would be futile. I have decided I will be using the fonts "Beatnik SF" and "Felix Titling" with possibly a more handwritten looking text for a smaller sub-title style text underneath the main title. I will try to use solid fonts for the most part on the text on the page including actor and film information.

I decided to search the website "dafont.com" for fonts under the category 'distorted' as this seemed to match the look I wanted. Under this section I found the font 'Akoom' and decided this had the correct mixture of structure and jauntiness to suit my film.

Horror Music

 

The music used in horror films is important to add to the atmosphere of the film. Using happy, cheerful, upbeat music would essentialy ruin the tension of the film and would also not really m ake sense. Although this sort of music is sometimes used at the start of horror films or to lull the audience into a false sense of security, though in trailers this type of music is not often used as there is only a small amount of time to convey the right atmosphere.

The most notable music used in horror films are the classical scores used in films such as Jaws (1975), Halloween (1978), The Omen (1976) and even more recent film The Sixth Sense (1999). Some films even now use these classic scores yet most are alot more theatrical now and are used to get small scares by changing the volume quickly. This music used is also often catchy so the music stays in people's minds, resulting in them being scared long after seeing the film. Jaws is the most obvious use of this as you may often hear people humming the tune at the beach or even when sneaking up on people. I would like to use one of these scores however possibly not one which would be so easily recognised. For example Final Destination (2000) by Shirley Walker is a good example of a simple yet creepy tune.

Filming of the Setting and Lighting

 

This film shows the setting of the film/ trailer and includes many of the props I plan to use. This also shows the type of lighting I plan to use; a red light which should create an eerie, horror type atmosphere. This lighting also hints towards the supernatural aspect of the film as this type of light is so unnatural without being overbaring that it just hints that something other worldly is involved. This is useful as in in the trailer it is not until close to the end that the viewer will realise the film is based on supernatural events. This red lighting was created by an industrial heater which was readily available to me as my father owns it. If this had not been an option it would have been slightly harder to find a strong red light on my budget. The only slight issue with using only one light source is the casting of shaddows which can be seen in the above film, on the grandfather clock, however if I added another light at a different angle this may be helped slightly. Therefore I will now need to locate another one of these heaters which I could use freely as purchasing one would be far too costly.