K_Gill_Animation- year2

[k-gill-animation-year2]

reading over previous horror scripts.

For my research report I plan on reading over some great horror scripts that I want to take inspiration from, so I’ve gathered a list of links that give me access to different screenplays and scripts ready for when I need to research them.

https://killershortscontest.com/

https://www.scriptaid.net/script-links (this one is particularly helpfull)

http://www.horrorlair.com/moviescripts_a_f.html

https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/script-download-links-9313356d361c

https://www.scriptreaderpro.com/horror-scripts/

http://www.horrorlair.com/scripts/resevil.html- resident evil

http://www.horrorlair.com/scripts/psycho.pdf - psycho

[k-gill-animation-year2]

2D digital animated horror shorts...

This was one of the first 2D digital horror shorts I’ve watched and honestly I think it’s really good. The story's great and the whole narrative- while I'm not a fan of the art style itself I feel as though that kind of takes away from how good it is. I also believe that at some points the characters stand out too much from the backgrounds as they are in different styles. 

It sets the mood and tone going from the lit ‘safe’ downstairs kitchen up into the dark little girls room and with the sounds of rain and thunder also adds to the atmosphere. It hints at what the issue/ conflict may be when we see the drawing of ‘other Lilly’ but goes back to everyday situations of Lilly going to bed and trying to sleep. Then she goes to sleep and we see time pass (I really like the way they showed that with the digital clock changing times next to her as she slept.) 

the she is awoken by a tapping and it switches to first person so we are seeing Lillys view , they also added heavy breathing to emphasis this and makes the viewer feel more engrossed. We watch this horrifying monster crawl through the windows in a different style to the rest of the characters as its more sketchy and jumpy witch the quick unnatural movements adds to the fear. seeing this reach for us and then blinking for it to disappear shows there's only more to come. then out of no where the face comes down and transforms (its really smooth and I love the animation for this--- I will DEFINATLEY be using this as inspiration) which is a great use of a jump scare.

Then having the phone not working thus cutting off contact from the outside world builds the ambience.  she goes downstairs with a bat and sees the door smashed. Behind her the monster appears and instantly she turns around and hits it, but we pan down to see her sister instead. this was a wild twist and not only does the audience feel bad that her sister is hurt but we are also very aware that what ever it is is still in the house. 

She drops the bat in horror only to watch her sister then transform adding yet another terrifying twist and the monster screams and goes to attack Lilly- that cuts off to the sister waking up in bed horrified implying it was all a dream. She runs to her sisters room and Lilly’s not there, she runs downstairs- into the kitchen looking around slowly then out of no where a hand smashes the window and grabs her by the face and pulls her outside. That was terrifying especially because of the long build up it had of her looking around. then fades to black.

It’s a great horror short and truly is terrifying, it has a brilliant mix of atmosphere build up and jump scares mixed with the overall story and the fact its quite relatable (at least the whole going to bed in your own home aspect). But I don't really like the whole overall animation/art style especially the characters and their movements (not the monsters I love that). I am going to be using this for allot of inspiration especially the great use of perspective and not showing too much- but not the art style. 

Again these are both great in terms of scare factor- overall story and techniques used but I don't like the animations styles of them. 

I’ve found that to be the case with all 2D digital horror shorts I’ve found, and there aren’t many 2D digital horror shorts to begin- there are allot of 2D animated horror stories but I don't count them as the same thing as they are always just someone narrating a story over an animatic....

So the reason as to why I want to make a 2D digital horror story is because I can’t find any that are in a more detailed style, or one that is aesthetically pleasing so if I manage to create something like that, would it then enhance the atmosphere of the overall piece too?

[k-gill-animation-year2]

Screen play writing

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-a-horror-screenplay-effective-writing-tips-to-make-your-horror-movie-terrify-audiences 

great source for further research later 

[k-gill-animation-year2]

Catharsis

Catharsis is defined as...  the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions and comes from the Greek philosopher Aristotle. It’s all about the purging of emotions (for horror films that would be fear, pity for example) through art.

This direct quote from a webpage explains perfectly the effect horror can have on people and most of the reason we all subconsciously watch and that ties in perfectly with the theory of Catharsis.

“We all have skeletons in our closet, and we all have struggles in life that are at their worst, raw, painful, and disturbing. We all have parts of our psyches we are too afraid to come to terms with or explore, that we keep neatly locked in the dark. Sometimes, the only way to venture into those parts of our psyche so that we can heal from the things we don’t know how to talk about, is to manifest them in terrifying imagery on the screen. Horror is a controlled fall into the unknown. It’s a very human way to project our worst fears, our most unspoken questions and worries, and express them in a way that everyone can, in some way, connect with.“ - (aristhought - https://medium.com/@aristhought/horror-as-an-avenue-for-catharsis-19f94b04e84e) 

I want to make a narrative that people can relate to on some level to draw them in, so doing primary research on my target audience will help me to achieve this and hopefully have the audience relate to the story. 

[k-gill-animation-year2]

Uncanny

In 1919  Sigmund Freud introduces his theory on ‘uncanny’ in an essay. He goes onto describe Uncanny as something “which should have remained secret and hidden, but has come to the light.” There are many ways this can be interpreted but essentially means its the  psychological experience of having something familiar but somehow it turns unsettling or scary. He even went on to say that Uncanny is the “mark of the return of the repressed.” for example when we were younger we would watch Dora the explorer and believe she would talk directly to us, but since growing up if a character on TV started talking to you that would be scary more than anything. 

Another good way of describing it would be when something from a fictional world (weather thats a ghost, zombies, monsters, anything) comes into our very real lives. 

The theory of Uncanny also explains why when its something the audience can relate too it becomes scarier to watch.

https://rlterryreelview.com/2018/03/13/freudhorror/#:~:text=Freud%20refers%20to%20the%20uncanny,exposure%20to%20something%20surprising%2C%20unexpected%2C

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20688550?seq=1

[k-gill-animation-year2]

Lights out (2013)

A great example of a supernatural horror short is the 2013 Sweedish ‘lights out’ short that won best short at FANT (2014) and Best Director in the whos there film challenge.

It is an incredibly successful short that even went on to be adapted into a film, which I have yet to see.

It starts in a wordily relatable scene of someone getting ready for bed in their house (a place thats supposed to be your safest location). There is no sounds other than Foley of her walking down the corridor until she turns of the hallway light once in her room. She then notices a figure in the dark and thats when the tension begins to build through the music,(its still very subtle). She keeps turning the lights on and off still seeing the figure until she does it once more time and the shadow figure has moved which is when the music really kicks in and adds to the fear. 

She then gets some tape to tape over the light switch so that nothing can turn it back off before retreating into her room, the music again has gone and its just the Foley of her movements. But in her room she hears creaking from the corridor and something turns off the light (the sound effects get louder as it creeps closer really building tension in the dark room).Then footsteps sprint towards the room and that mixed with how the actress is showing fear, is truly terrifying. 

When she has to reach her arm out from the ‘safety’ of bed and all you can see is the blackness underneath the bed with the bedroom door wide open (so we know what ever it is- is now in the room) is heart stopping to have to watch. Then that followed by the lights turning back on- relieves the viewer into a false sense of safety. Until she looks left and that monster is there waiting and turns off the light.

It understandable why this short did so well and is a huge inspiration for how I want to write my screenplay because that was the very definition of short and sweet. It showed everything it had to for you to understand what's happening without actually having to physically show it- like how we knew the tape was being pulled off the lights with by the sound. 

[k-gill-animation-year2]

common sub-categories of horror

This graph is a great example of the many sub-genres there are inside of horror shorts.

Personally as I don't have much horror writing experience I’m leaning towards the paranormal side of horror and more specifically supernatural goshts/ entities. As thats the genre I have the most experience with so hopefully it won’t be as hard to write about.

I also just love supernatural horror shorts, they always end up being my favourite ones.

[k-gill-animation-year2]

Film/writing techniques used in horror shorts.

I’ve briefly covered most of the history to horror films but my research report is about horror short films in particular. Especially the more modern 21st century ones. I’m putting some below as examples of the ones I’ll be looking at for inspiration.

Allot of horror shorts I have been looking at are from Alter the horror short collective and their YouTube channel has some great content. They’re actually the YouTube channel that got me into horror shorts and are my main inspiration behind this research report.

I’ve watched a LOT of horror shorts and the majority of the time while the premise and everything else about the film is great they tend to always fall short at the end. Like they usually have an un-satisfying ending weather that’s the plot or the monster reveal. The ones above aren’t so bad with regards to that but below I’m going to find some examples of what I mean.

The mime is a good example of what I mean. It does a good job of building atmosphere, it has some kind of supernatural sense so the mime could control her and makes the audience feel her sense of helplessness which is amplified by the sound scape and the louder heavy footsteps. It’s also a great use of close up’s when they show the lady’s fear. Then it goes and makes her rip off her hair which is also horrifying to watch, but then end’s abruptly- while I understand that its better to end it while your ahead and not have an overly-drawn out short with a more disappointing ending. I just thought the end wasn't satisfying.

SO thats why I will be researching so deeply into the film languae and screenplay writing techniques to have a fully effective animated horror short.

The atmosphere was great how they built that up and thats something that every horror film really needs to be able to create. This website has so many helpful example of how to build the mood for horror stories.... https://www.roleplayingtips.com/rptn/rpt606-how-to-build-mood-for-horror/

https://springhole.net/writing/tips-for-writing-and-maintaining-a-horror-atmosphere.htm

https://writershelpingwriters.net/2008/08/creating-atmosphere/

to put it simply its all about Lights, Sounds and the music, keep description to the minimum as that creates discomfort in the accidence,  Use visual clues to lead the reader toward what is coming,  Turn normal, familiar locations/situations into scary places/things.

I’ll also need to find a nice balance between comedy and horror because if I just keep piling on the horror in my screenplay it’ll become absurd and less effective, plus having the comedy of the characters slightly it also makes the audience bond with the characters so when something inevitably goes wrong it’s more effective.

[k-gill-animation-year2]

Super natural imagery inside of horror films

The majority of my favourite horror films and even horror shorts have some form of supernatural elements to them:

The conjuring, Insidious, Hereditary, The babadook (All mainstream and worldly popular supernatural horrors).

Lights out, Other side of the Box, The Ballerina, Peopling (are all Horror short films that can be found on YouTube with supernatural elements).

Because all of the ones I love seem to have supernatural stuff, I want to include supernatural elements to my narrative for the animation.

 Its a great way to show your creativity and imagination as supernatural entities usually have their own laws of physics and what they are capable so using this knowledge you can create a truly terrifying creature or situation thats inevitably made more scary by the fact that it doesn't play by our rules. 

With most of the early horror films it was based off a mix of religion, vulture, lore and legends. Like the first American supernatural ‘The Mummy” (1932) which was based around Ancient Egyptian Mythology.

Once horror films entered the 1950′s things started to turn towards ghost stories and witches-demon stories were not far behind.

Then in 1965  Kwaidan released some great Japanese's ghost stories based on Japanese folk tails like Ringu and  ju-on for example. and in the 1980′s there was huge prgress made in gosht storie films. “ The period from the release of Halloween in 1978 through the early years of the 1980s is known primarily for the slasher film explosion of that period, but other forms of horror were booming as well. “- https://bookerhorror.com/the-supernatural-horror-film-an-introduction/

I love the classic80′s slasher/ ghost stories and will definitely be researching more into their subcategory and the specific rules the films must follow in the future.

[k-gill-animation-year2]

brief horror film history

1For my research report I’ll be focusing on horror shorts but to get some context on the whole history of horror helps to understand how it evolved, and why its still evolving now.

The earliest horror films were influenced by German Expressionist cinema, and at the time the effect of horror was usually created by macabre (having death as the subject). Then in the 1920′s many German horror films were know across the world. Like ‘Nosferatu’ (the first filming of Dracula in 1922), and ‘Waxworks’ (1924). The US also had many popular horror films coming out at this time too, like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920) and others in the silent film era.

Then in 1932 Dracula made in the US became a hit, which led to the great success of other movies like, the Mummy (1932), King Kong (1932).  Among some of the best-known horror classics of this period are The Werewolf of London (1935), The Wolf Man (1941), and Cat People (1942).--- https://www.britannica.com/art/horror-film 

The next big jump in horror film history comes when the influence of science fiction hit the screens in the 1950′s. Where the movies of that time created crazy monsters from other planets (’Thing’ 1951 for example). and in individual lactations around the world focused on different aspects of horror. For example Japanese studios went on to create Godzilla (1954), while the British was leaning away from Atmospheric horrors and instead using gore to create the same effect. 

“ Over time the horror film genre came to be represented by several subgenres, including films about the supernatural, such as The Exorcist (1973) and The Shining (1980); the “psycho-slasher” films, perhaps best represented by John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978); and science-fiction thrillers, such as Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). The popularity of B-grade, low-budget horror films grew with the introduction in the 1970s of the videocassette and cable television. “ -https://www.britannica.com/art/horror-film

This website was great for helping find the research and history with lots of example of what they are talking about. Now I know where the main sub-genres of horror originate from I can do some more research and decide which one I want to focus on for my target audience with my horror short I plan on making along side my dissertation.

https://horrorfilmhistory.com/wp/

https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/how-horror-movies-have-changed-since-their-beginning/

[k-gill-animation-year2]

Sound effect editing

Today I was editing the sound effects and going through the recordings we did the other day in the sound studio. First I had to create a table with all the different track on so I could then write what each one is while simultaneously editing the track and deleting talking or other sounds that weren’t needed. This is the finished table with a record of all the track we recorded....

It’s all in note forms and I didn't use proper sound language because I only needed this as reference for myself so I know what each track has on it as almost every track had multiple and different sound effects as when I was recording I just felt it was easier to leave it recording which I am glad I did because that’s how I caught some of the sighing sounds and the little extra bits.

After editing the sounds we collected I created a another multitrack and placed the edit jack gave me into the video layer so I could see the footage in the bottom left coroner while adding sounds in.

It took a couple of days to add all of the sounds in and layer multiple tracks but I believe it turned out good, I would like more depth in some of the sections as it feels quite empty. But thats why I decided to go back and inside my section I added some extra music to it- I didn't do this on the group one as we agreed that the planets would have sound so I only did this for my individual section outside of the group work. I think it goes allot better now and the music tones that are playing are sound I recovered in the studio of me playing a kalimba. I have no ideas how to play one so I was just playing around trying to create a little tune that I thought would fit in with the crystals and the cave, which is also why I was playing around with a triangle and added that in there now too. I really am glad I did.

[k-gill-animation-year2]

Swamp character insp

While designing my swamp character I first began by looking through Pinterest to see what typical creatures live in swamps already and first there were allot of frogs and tadpoles and the evolution of them.

Then I went on to read about swamp lands on National Geographic:

 https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/swamp/#:~:text=Alligators%2C%20frogs%2C%20and%20many%20other,as%20fish%2C%20amphibians%20and%20reptiles.

I found out there are two main kinds of swamps, Freshwater and Salt water and in each a different section of animals live...

for freshwater swamps-

and for saltwater swamps- 

Reading about the differences between the two I wanted mine to be a freshwater swamp and it makes more sense with the location also as its not by a coastline instead I wanted to give the look of a rich forest swamp and that matches freshwater swamps allot more. 

So going off this, I wanted to create a frog kind of creature as that way it would be perfectly adapted to the climate but as he goes through the different environments he could evolve. so next I looked at more specific images for inspiration.....

(https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/339951471876611079/)

(https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/702913454344535422/)

(https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/702913454344535422/)

I really liked how they are all evolved for different aspects and reasons suited to what they need and then after seeing the last one that reminds me more of Yokai style art I decided to look and research into them a bit more to see if there are any Yokai I cant take inspiration from. 

[k-gill-animation-year2]

Updated version of my animation

For my animation clip, I quickly rendered out my own version of it with my edit and not Jacks, I just think the transitions slightly smoother and I played around with camera zooms into my character like Millie and Helen suggested because that way you see him in more detail, also I think it makes it seem as though there's more animation gone into it since you can see his little head turn animations a lot clearer.

Overall I am pleased, this will be going on my show reel, of course there are some things that still need importing like the animation weight and the pan across speed but I feel like they aren’t too noticeable right now.

[k-gill-animation-year2]

final group animation

This is the group animation with the soundscape I made.

Overall, I don’t really like it. With the edit itself there are some obvious flaws such as one of the planets jumping in size and the transitions are not perfectly timed up, but due to time constraints we are leaving it. I also believe that part of the reason the edit isn't as good as it could be is that because I ended up doing the edits for all of the animatics, that means Jack didn't do them thus not getting the practice with playing around with the layers and really taking time to line things up correctly before having to do the final edit. I  would like to do my own edit of the animation but that will have to be after submission now.

Again, I think as a group piece it had allot more potential. I like Alexandra’s portion and I believe she has a cohesive style throughout, but when it goes onto Jacks I don’t think it truly fits especially considering the lack of actual animation- the majority is just go-pro footage that he was supposed to re-record for better quality but never ended up doing so. Not only that but there was no colour grading to the footage at all either, which we did suggest to make it seem more stylized and better quality- I just feel like his goes on for too long especially since there's very little animation. He did try to correct that in the final edit as you can tell, he sped up the sections of the footage that had no animations but that in my opinion made the footage look more jumpy, this was also an issue for the sound design. 

Because there was lack of animation or things going on in Jacks longer section it made creating an interesting soundscape really hard. I ended up layering up the footsteps to create more sounds and added in extra Floey of leaves and twigs- but other than that because he didn't want any sound on his planet there wasn't really anything else to add. I do wasn’t to go back however and spend more time looking into random animal noises in the distance or just some extra sound for it but there wasn’t enough time to do that before the deadline.

With mine I think my transitions could be smoother and that’s definitely something to focus on in the future, that and the timing of things. Because I focused on the backgrounds so much my animation isn't complicated to make up for the lack of time. In the future it would be nice to focus on both and have more of a complete and entertaining piece, but for my first real background attempts I wanted to give all my time to doing them.

I do like the overall sound design for the project though I wish I had more time to really build up the layers for it because it does feel quite empty at times.

[k-gill-animation-year2]

My animation with sound

This is my finished animation for the group work, overall I’m really pleased particularly with the backgrounds. In this clip the sound design is slightly different than the one I put into the group edit and there are a couple of reasons for this such as it was a last minute decision to add music to mine that I made in the sound room and also the others didn't want music on the planets so for the continuity I didn't add any to mine too. 

[k-gill-animation-year2]

Transition in insp

For my zoom in transition I found this really simplified tutorial about zooming in on your map which is what I was roughly planning so its nice to have this as an example to keep referring to and then to transition from Birdseye view to the swamp front on view I was going to use clouds similar to how they do in the Simpsons as I’ve previously mentioned.

[k-gill-animation-year2]

Steven universe background designs.

One of the orignial inspirations for me was the backgrounds in Steven universe as they’re just so magical.....

These are just some examples of the huge range they have. I just really love the whole overall aesthetic and more specifically the colours and shading.

Mary Nash is the creator of the backgrounds but does not colour them https://artofmarynash.com/#/stevenuniverse/, while that's still amazing I’m more interested in the colour aspect of the designs.

Craig Simon colours the backgrounds for Steven universe and other shows and looking at his portfolio (http://craigsimmonsartwork.blogspot.com/) Is really cool because for each project he's worked on has a very unique and different style entirely so he's got great range in techniques. At the moment I’m more interested in the Steven universe style but during the summer I would also like to use that time to play around with colouring techniques and styles.