How Effects are going to be achieved in my Horror Film

If I was to make my horror film I think the best way to create the lumps on the legs would be through using special effects. I watched a tutorial on how to create a burn on the skin and even though this is different I think the materials they used could be adapted to create lumps instead. To create the burn they used Lumps gelatine to create the lumpy skin and I thought that if you just used it in blobs to create lumps, rather than spreading it out like you would to create the burn effect. The next step is then to use an acrylic or poster paint and dab it on with a sponge and I was thinking to create the lumps I could create a pink-reddish colour and dab that on over the lumps using a paintbrush or small sponge. I've had a look at a few more video tutorials and found another one for creating boils, spots and blisters which again uses gelatine and just plain flour then all you add is water and pink and blue food colouring to create a fleshy colour. This one was the best as the finished spots she created looked just how I'd like mine to look like and you can then add make up afterwards like pink eye-shadow to make it look sore around the outside. with the gelatine you can mould it into the shape you want so I could make each one look slightly different and have them different sizes. Mine will probably need to be made a bit bigger because a slug will be breaking out of them and I will them to big big enough so after the slug has come out I could put a hole in the centre of the lumps and then use red dye or paint to dab to show it bleeding and pus coming out. For the pus you could play about with different materials and liquids to try and make a liquid that's not too runny.

Video tutorial from YouTube showing how to make fake spots, boils and blisters

I think the best way to do the slugs would be to use a 3D model compositing software programme like Maya which we had a quick lesson on and also After Effects. Maya would be used to create the actual slug and then you could use After effects to animate the slugs. I think you would make one slug on Maya to start with and then duplicate it on After Effects and use the tracking tool to make each one move. Obviously there would be a lot more to it than that but I would need to get to grips with the programme a bit better by watching tutorials and having a play about or find someone that is a professional with the programmes. Slugs normally look quite similar to each other so I think you could get away with just creating one and then multiplying it to get a large group of slugs, I think the movement would have to vary throughout them though to give them a bit more unpredictability. To show the slugs growing bigger and growing teeth Maya could be used again by using the size/scale tool and key frames. I think the slugs eating the flesh on the legs would all be done using visual effects as I think it would be quicker and easier as I'm not sure how you would do it using special effects.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIoD1wJ37eQ - Fake burn tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqhddx2tvYc - Pus infected boil

300 Word Proposal of 'The Uncanny' - REVISED

300 Word Proposal: Subject of The ‘Uncanny’

Tag Line – You can’t swot the fly in your mind

Log Line: - A man enters a room where boundaries between the real and unreal start to get blurred. Things happen that he can see and hear with his own senses but at the end he is left wondering if anything that just happened was real or was he mislead by his own mind.

Short Film Synopsis -

A man exploring an abandoned house walks into a small dark room with no windows but dimly lit by an old lamp. On first glance it appears empty; he stops in the middle of the room on hearing a noise, a buzzing noise that gets louder and louder. A small black fly starts circling around his head, he tries to swipe at it but it goes faster and the buzzing is now almost deafening. Pressure builds in the man’s head until eventually he can’t take the noise and dizzying movement any longer and shouts ‘STOP’. It stops, right in front of his eyes then drops to the ground with a loud thud that echoes around the room, as it hits the ground it bursts into green smoke then is gone. 

The man cautiously walks towards a rustic full length mirror, that’s caught his eye and stares at himself; the pupils of his eyes contract and look like two small black flies. He notices a transparent black balloon floating behind him in the mirror that wasn't there before, within it a fly is buzzing around. He turns around and tries to bat the balloon away; it stays floating on the spot. He goes at it again with aggression, hitting and punching it but with every impact to the balloon the buzzing gets louder and the balloon remains there gently swaying. The man stands looking at it, half perspiring through effort, half through anxiety; it spontaneously bursts without a sound and green smoke engulfs the room. He twists away from the smoke coughing and closing his eyes tight, the buzzing stops so he slowly opens his eyes until he catches the reflection in the mirror which causes his eyes to widen in horror. The room is swarming with flies; the air so thick he can’t see the door he came in through. He braces himself to turn around and face this nightmare but as he does so all he is met with is one solitary fly which flies out the door.

300 Word Proposal on the subject of The Uncanny - Feedback

A really unusual proposal idea. Well done for the originality. The tag line is really good. The log line is a bit weak. Your writing style is clear and you make good consideration of art direction and sound as well as image. Overall I wonder if the language you use could convey a little more of the mental anguish of the man and instil a greater sense of disturbance in the reader. Otherwise really well done.

65%

After reading this feedback I have decided to make some changes to my original proposal, I will change the log line so it makes a bit more sense and try and add a few more bits to describe how the man is feeling and what he is personally going through.

Personal Project Moodboard 2 - Tone and Colour

This is another mood board I did, I feel this one is better for getting across the tone and mood of my film and the sort of colours that I want to be including and looking to achieve if it was to get made.

'Evil Dead 2' (1987, Sam Raimi)

This film is very heavy on special effects and some of the thing were very similar to what we were trying to create within our group film.
What I actually quite liked about the film is that the effects were very over the top which meant they didn't always look very realistic but I think it added to the humour of it and was entertaining from a visual aspect.

I thought the hand that had a life of it's own and was possessed could be seen as uncanny in the way that it's a very ordinary part of the body that everyone has but the thought of it taking on a life of its own and then turning against you and trying to kill you with you not having control is a scary thought.

There was also a lot of blood spurting from things and like our film there was a bit when the blood starting to trickle down the wall which reminded me of our film as that's what we tried to create. Loads of it then starts to spray out of the walls  and it looked less like blood at this point as you could see it was diluted so was just coloured water and didn't have the slightly thicker consistency of real blood which was probably a deliberate thing to add to the comedy of it as this is not a serious horror.

Another part which I linked to our own film was the part when our deer head on the wall starts laughing because one of our main themes was dead, stuffed animals which always seem to give people the creeps as they look so realistic because obviously they were real animals but now it's just the outside of them that remains. I think what makes them weirder is because they look so life like people expecting them to start moving or doing some thing, like it does is this film.
In our film Luke dressed one of the animals up in a dolls dress which I think was a nice touch and gave a weird spin on things.

Blood spurting from walls and laughing scene

500 Word Proposal - REVISED

Tag Line: With every myth lies a scarier truth

Log Line: While holidaying at Loch Ness a father and daughter find there is something sinister lurking in the depths of the Loch Ness.

Synopsis: A father treats his teenage daughter to a holiday in Scotland, renting out a cosy cabin in the woods where he and his wife stayed for their honeymoon before she died a couple of years later. While out yachting on the Loch Ness Isabelle’s father entertains her with a story about an encounter he once had with the mythical creature the Loch Ness monster. While listening to the story, Isabelle dangles her feet into the lake and catches her toe on what they both think must have been a sharp object in the water. It turns out it wasn't just a scratch at all but she has been bitten by an undiscovered species of eerily white slug, sensitive to bright light, that then burrows itself under her skin where it can breed safely shielded by the light. It is only when day turns to night that Isabelle discovers what she has been harbouring within her own body.

Isabelle tosses and turns while trying to sleep in the small wooden bed situated in the corner of the dark log cabin, her dad sleeps soundly in the bed adjacent to hers. There is a small window next to the young girls’ bed on which thick green curtains hang crookedly creating a tiny slither of moonlight that streaks across her bed.

Something is irritating the girl and she scratches her leg while half asleep, as her short bitten nails scrape over the skin she feels something unusual that provokes her to sit upright. She pushes the covers off her legs and looks down, she can see nothing except where the moonlight slices across her legs it highlights small red lumps. She leans over to switch the lamp on which reveals the lumps cover her legs completely, her face contorts in horror and she calls out to her dad. As he awakes one of the lumps burst releasing sickly green pus that drips down her leg causing the girl to recoil in disgust and screech out for her dad once more. He rushes over to her and inspects the pus filled lump that her shaking finger is pointing at. It’s not just pus that fills it, something small and an off-whitish colour surfaces from the lump and slides out down her leg, leaving a shimmering trail behind it, then drops to the floor. Frozen in terror they have no time to react before all the other lumps start to burst one by one like an unstoppable chain reaction.

The girl’s eyes widen in horror as the pus oozes out from her body and slimy white creatures begin poking out, their heads slowly snaking side to side before the rest of their body emerges and they all trickle to the floor. The ghost-like slugs writhe around and begin absorbing the green liquid that once harboured them and as they do so they grow in size and small razor like teeth become apparent, protruding outwards but barely visible against their pale bodies. The girl shoots back onto the bed as the dad cautiously steps away looking for something to grab in defence but not sure what.

Suddenly as if something had signalled them to do so the creatures simultaneously start worming their way up the overhanging bed covers towards the girl, she screams out to her dad as they leap on to her legs and tear into her lumpy skin with their blade-like teeth. She yelps out with a chilling scream that echoes around the room and starts thrashing her legs about in vain. Finally her dad snaps into action and desperately tries to pull the creatures from her but as fast as he is pulling them out they are working their way back to her legs and continuing to gouge out small chunks of her open flesh. The girl convulses around on the bed, violently kicking her legs and as she does so she knocks the curtain allowing moonlight to flood in momentarily and as it hits the feasting creatures they stop dead then all at once they move off the girl and quickly wriggle their way across the room, under the door and out into the safety of darkness. 



Visual Realisation:

I think this film would start off quite bright so the shots would have a slight overexposure to them and have a sort of white glow. My thoughts with this are I want the film to seem quite normal at the start so you don't know it's a horror from the onset and you don't know what's coming, it will appear to be just a drama. I want there to be a brightness to it so it gives just a slight sense of a slight eeriness and something not being quite right. I also want it to have a very calm feel to it so it just follows the journey of the father and daughter to their holiday destination and where they're staying is very remote so there's not really many other people that they come into contact with.
When they visit the lake it will be during early morning which I think the slight over-exposure would suit quite also giving a coldness to the shots.

The cabin will be situated close to the lake and surrounded by trees, it will have quite a minimalist feel with not many mod cons but will also have a slight cosiness to it at the same time with solid wood furniture, a real fire, thick warm furnishings a couple of old pictures on the wall.
When the horror starts the cabin will no longer have a cosy feel to it, it will seem more isolated and bare and as it's at night it will be quite dark with just the coldness of the moon slicing through. There will be one other source of light introduced in the scene where the slugs are revealed and that will be a lamp that the girl switches on and this will produce a concentrated amount of light around the girl and her bed but doesn't really light the room up much. This is so the light if focused and highlights the action going on which is the slugs.

Locations:

I think this would be a good film to shoot on location as it would enhance the atmosphere a lot more if you're actually there rather than trying to recreate it. Also the lake is a very famous and well-known one so I think you would have to shoot it there because people would recognise if it wasn't there. If it was a relatively unknown lake then I think obviously any lake would have sufficed. I did a bit of research into the Loch Ness and they need to be on a boat that allows the girl to seat on the side and dip her feat in so i had a look at what boats you can hire on the Loch Ness and the most suitable one I felt would be a yacht as that's a nice thing for a father and daughter to do together and it's not too high up that she can't sit on the side.

Personal project Proposal - Feedback

This is the feedback I was given for my proposal which after reading my work again is a very fair assessment especially as I too thought the ending was too much with both of those things going on.
After thinking about it I decided I want my film to be serious not cheesy b-movie style so I'm going to change some of the language and how I describe things. I still want it to be quite gory but done in a more sophisticated way with a serious believable story line and believable characters and the language and words I chose is key to that. I'm also changing the colour of the slugs from black to white as I think this makes more sense if they have been living in the darkness all this time and are sensitive to light because when you see most deep sea creatures they tend to be a whitish almost transparent colour. I also think this makes them seem more creepy as well because white slugs are less common than black slugs. I'm hoping with these changes it will be a much more serious and polished proposal for a film.

Previewing uncanny footage and Premier and After Effects Workshop

Today Susannah showed us a quick edit she had put together of the uncanny shoot. Obviously it wasn't near perfect but I was impressed with it as it showed what can be achieved in just a short time and also first time around when this is quite new to most people so we were trying things out for the first time to see if they worked.

We went through a few of the problems and solutions, firstly the bed from the bedroom scene didn't look like it was laying naturally because you could see where it'd been stretch to staple against the wall. I think we knew this was going to look a bit ropey from the beginning though as we had limited resources to make a realistic bed and also didn't have much time to set it up as the cinematographers were there. I liked the effect of Paul rising up from the bed though and I thought he acted it out well, if the bed and rest of the background had been spot on then this would have been a really effective shot.

Where Paul's smaller self had been green screened onto the fireplace there were a couple of problems for example bits of his arm had gone a bit transparent which I think was to do with the lighting and shadow when he was being filmed in front of the screen. He also looked a bit placed in the shot so it didnt really look like he was actually standing on the mantle piece which again is all about how it's shot considering the lighting and also the angles.

When it came to the fake hand and arm on camera you could tell they weren't real but with a bit more detail i.e skin tones, hairs etc and time taken over them they could have been a lot more realistic. The bloody oozing scab on the arm looked quite effective with the blood coming out of it but where the stuff had dried created a bit of a contrast between that and the blood coming out as you could tell it was dry and not wet and fresh how it should've looked. This is a good thing to know for next time as the art directors may need to use a different solution to make the blood effect or paint it on right before filming so it looks fresh.
Another way to get round this would be to use an image of a real arm and composite it over the top or just use visual effects more than special effects if you have the resources.


In this lesson we looked at how you link Premier to After Effects (AE) so you can add an effect to the shot - in this case it was putting the green screen footage with the background.
To start with you find the background shot you want, my first one was the close up of the fire place, then you find the green screen clip you want to use, which was Paul scratching his arm. You put the clips on top of each other, highlight both, then right click and select Replace with AE composition. This then opens up AE with the clips.




We were told to use this button to preview the footage as it renders it all first, if you were to watch without doing this it would be slow and jittery.

To get rid of the green from around the green screen shot you go onto Effects + Presets and then Keying from this I selected Linear Colour Key and I dragged it onto the image. I then changed the RGB settings on the left to Chroma and used the pipette tool to click on the image which got rid of most of the green to black instead. After you can then use the Spill Suppressor by dragging it onto the clip and then on the left use the pipette and click on the green box under Key Colour to help get rid of any fuzzy green bits that are left over and also use the Matte choker under Matte on Effects + Presets to change the softness and blending around the image.

Moodboard for 500 word Personal Proposal

This moodboard shows some of the key major elements I would want to include in my film being the slugs, the cabin and the moonlight.

500 Word Sequence Proposal

Tag Line: With every myth lies a scarier truth

Log Line: While holidaying at Loch Ness a father and daughter find there is something frightening that has been living in the murky depths of the lake and there’s no Nessy in sight.

Isabelle tosses and turns while trying to sleep in the small wooden bed situated in the corner of the dark log cabin, her dad sleeps soundly in the bed adjacent to hers. There is a small window next to the young girls’ bed on which thick green curtains hang crookedly creating a tiny slither of moonlight that streaks across her bed.

Something is irritating the girl and she scratches her leg while half asleep, as her short bitten nails scrape over the skin she feels something unusual that provokes her to sit upright. She pushes the covers off her legs and looks down, she can see nothing except where the moonlight slices across her legs it highlights small red lumps. She leans over to switch the lamp on which reveals the lumps cover her legs completely, her face contorts in horror and she calls out to her dad. As he awakes one of the lumps burst releasing sickly green pus that drips down her leg causing the girl to recoil in disgust and screech out for her dad once more. He rushes over to her and inspects the pus filled lump that her shaking finger points at. It’s not just pus that fills it, something small and black slides out onto the floor but before they have time to react and without warning all the other lumps burst one by one like an unstoppable chain reaction.

The girl’s eyes widen in terror as the gooey green pus oozes out from her body and shiny black creatures begin poking out, their heads slowly snaking side to side before the rest of their body emerges and they drop to the floor. The black slug like creatures writhe around and begin absorbing the liquid that once harboured them and as they do so they grow in size and develop two fang like teeth. The girl shoots back onto the bed as the dad cautiously steps away looking for something to grab but not sure what.

Suddenly as if something had signalled them to do so the creatures simultaneously start worming their way up the overhanging bed covers towards the girl, she screams out to her dad and they leap on to her legs and tear into her lumpy skin with their tiny sharp fangs. She yelps out with a chilling scream that echoes around the room and starts thrashing her legs about in vain. Finally her dad snaps into action and desperately tries to pull the creatures from her but as fast as he is pulling them out they are making their way back to her legs and continuing to gouge out small chunks of her broken flesh. The girl convulses around on the bed her teardrops spilling everywhere and as they do so one lands on one of the creatures which immediately begins to bubble and fizz while letting out a high pitch shriek. They throw up their hands to cover their ears as the sound is almost deafening but as the girl moves her arms to do she knocks the curtain allowing moonlight to flood in momentarily and as it hits the feasting creatures they stop dead then all at once they move off the girl and quickly wriggle their way across the room, under the door and out into the darkness. 

Films similar to my proposal

A couple of films that came to mind when I was writing my idea were Dreamcatcher (2003, Lawrence Kasdan) which has parasitic aliens in it that look a bit like giant slug type things and they have lots of teeth.



Another film is Slither (2006, James Gunn) which has space slugs that burrow themselves into peoples brains turning them into brain dead zombies.



There were parts from each film that i would be using, for instance the teeth of the slug alien in Dreamcatcher I liked but I think Slither was closer in terms of the size I wanted my slugs to be and the fact they go into peoples bodies and the amount because in Dreamcatcher they're more few and far between whereas in Slither there are loads of them. both films are different to mine though in the way that they are both based on the slugs being aliens from somewhere else but my slugs are going to be quite normal in terms of how they look and where they're from, they will be a breed of man-eating slug that has just evolved in the lake from other species of slug and water creatures fused together.


While looking for films similar to mine I came across Slugs (1988, Juan Piquer Simon) that I'd never actually heard of before. I watched it and found it was quite similar to my idea as the slugs had evolved into carnivorous slugs after being in contact with a toxic waste site that had mutated them. They also looked like normal slugs except for the fact they had big sharp teeth that could eat human flesh.


Finding this film has shown me just how hard it is to come up with an idea that is truly original because so many films have been done and there are loads that you don't even realise exist so it proves you need to do your homework and do a lot of research when coming up with an idea for a film. This is good because if there is a film already similar to yours you can think of ways of doing it differently and making it better.

Obviously if my film was to be made it would be a lot more serious and sophisticated of a horror than Slugs as Slugs was set in the 80's so had to rely a lot on special effects which are quite crude and also the acting/script is not great.

The long shots were better as you could tell they had used real slugs for shots like these and these were creepier when you could tell it was real.

This is the only close up of a slugs face and teeth in the film you could tell from this shot that the slug wasn't real.

This is a screenshot from the film when a man is trying to chop his arm off this shot looked quite fake as the arm looked really rubbery when it went to the close up. Using close ups is a popular way of showing something that isn't real because it gets round having to show the whole thing. I think they tried to mask the falseness of the limb by adding lots of detail around it like the glove and shirt and showing as little of the bare skin as possible. Special effects and visual effects have come a long way though now since the 80's and people use life-casting and prosthetic sculpting to really realistic effect.