Analysis: Grave Encounters (Minihan & Ortiz, 2011)

Grave Encounters is a 2011 found footage film with a budget of $120,000. This was a good film for us to watch and analyze as it is very similar to what my teammates and I would like to do, specifically based off of the aspect of found footage. This film follows the cast of a ghost hunting show through an abandoned asylum in search of paranormal activity, throughout their time there they disappear one by one before the main character, Lance, is deemed sane and free to go home. While this film was good in aspects of mise-en-scene, the plot was very crowded as if the filmmakers couldn’t decide how they wanted to end the film, therefore the final minutes had many different things going on that could be considered confusing to the viewer. Though Grave Encounters was successful in its intent to be a horror film, the use of sounds and cinematography gave eerie tones throughout the film without giving away the potential conclusions.

Blumhouse Productions

While discussing where we would pitch our film my teammates and I agreed that Blumhouse was the best course to take. This company has been a part of multiple successful horror films including Get Out (2017), Truth or Dare (2018), Ma (2019), and Insidious (2010). Each of these has been successful in the box office which would be something we desire for our film. Along with this, Blumhouse is a well known name in film, therefore simply getting their name on our film would likely increase the sales and number of viewers our film receives. We want to be able to create a film that is memorable and just as exciting as it is nerve-racking like the greats before it, and the best way to do this is through Blumhouse productions.

Beginning Story Boarding

Today I began a rough storyboard, just to help create an idea of what we are wanting to accomplish in this film opening. We seem to have agreed on the general plot we want follow, by beginning with an aerial shot of a vehicle travel down and older road, it will cut to a camera angle that is made up of found footage. Here the viewer will see a group of teens listening to music as they road trip into the woods for an overnight camping trip, when they arrive we intend to give the film a comedic relief of some sort followed by the first eerie prop. We haven’t fully decided on what this might be but the possibilities include some sort of leather bound book or locked box. At this moment is when the characters decide they aren’t safe and must leave, only for them to find the same prop in the car on their way home. This is where the opening will come to a close, this develops a sense of suspense and tension as the viewer will not know what happened to the characters after they found the prop again. While this is still very subject to change we all agree this idea is a good path to start on as we further detail our plans for a course of filming.

Analysis: The Collector (Dunstan, 2009)

The Collector is 2009 film directed by Marcus Dunstan, the main plot of the film is that a man (Arkin) and his wife owe money so he decides to rob his employer of his prized jewel, though when he breaks into the house to steal it he finds that someone has already gone through the entire place and set up traps on everything, along with this the guilty party has already taken the mansions residents hostage and appears to be slowly killing them. Though, while this film is not very popular among many due to the interesting plot it does continue some of the important conventions that my group wants to include in our own film. Specifically by having an introduction that explodes with an intense level of simple and normal. Though a difference between this film and the previously analyzed Pet Semetary is this: the plot holes. This film has many different props and scenes that just don’t make sense when put together, a key example being when the Collector sets up so many traps throughout the house. A big question for this is how he does so much in a very short time span, according to dialogue in the film only about a couple hours passes between the time the workers leave and when Arkin, the main character, enters the house to find everything rigged. If the film were more realistic it would have taken days for a single man to set up something so intricate in every room of the mansion his victims reside in. What this means for my group is that we have to make sure we are consistent, timelines, props, costuming, it all needs to stay relative and maintain a flow. This is something that the film The Collector did not do, there were multiple holes in the plot and inconsistencies throughout, I believe watching this film provided a strong example of what we want to avoid for our final project.

Analysis: Pet Semetary (Lambert, 1989)

A film I chose to analyze for this project is Pet Semetary (Lambert, 1989). This film is based around a doctor and his family, they move into a small town where the main character got a new job at the local hospital, though soon after their arrival they are faced with the loss of the youngest member of the family after he wandered into the road. In order to grieve the doctor and neighbor bury the body in a specific area that is known to bring people and animals back to life. Although once they are brought back they are no longer the same and they are similar to monsters. The rest of the film follows the family as each of them is killed by one another followed by their burial and rebirth until all of them have gone through the same. While this is an older film it does show important conventions that my group mates and I desire to include in our film introduction, such as in the opening clips when the child is wandering into the road, the viewer is expecting something bad to happen in that moment but the child is swiftly rescued. This specific scene foreshadows the death of the same child in the road later in the film. I believe we would like to follow a similar course of action such as a sense of normalcy, a foreshadowing near death experience, followed by the characters returning to their normal lives as if nothing has changed or happened at all. Much of this film adopts intense dark lighting or it occurs during night time, this lighting is commonly associated with dark emotion in the viewer and furthers the use of foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is something that occurred multiple times throughout the film, especially at climax points where it was anticipated that a character was going to be killed soon or that the course of the film would be changing. https://youtu.be/b35XksE5Xko

How are we planning to film?

As a group we have been struggling to agree on what course to take with our film. Nova has an idea but Tessa and I think its too much to fit into such a short time frame. This has begun a slight disagreement between us and it is something we have yet to finish discussing. The course Nova wants to take involves many different props and scenes such as a ritual, a chase and multiple deaths etc, meanwhile Tessa and i would prefer a more simple introduction with a few “scary aspects” but overall a casual multiple long take piece. As we discuss our ideas i think we are slowly coming to a conclusion of what to do that incorporates what we all want to achieve in this such as a film depicting a mostly normal situation for the characters with maybe a few things that seem “off” or irregular in order to properly set the scene for our film. We all agree that we would like to film in the woods to give the eerie feeling we are looking to evoke in our viewers so in order to build off of this idea we are attempting to use the woods setting to our advantage as it is a very maleable course. This is obviously a very important part of our project therefore agreeing on the course we want to take with it is vital. We are continuing to evaluate potential ideas to use for filming and different scenes. 

Why did we choose horror?

Personally I am not a very big fan of the horror genre, much of it is too intense for my preference, but all together my group liked the idea that would could go in many different directions with it. Whether it be opening with murder scenes or in happy suburbia, as a whole the genre is very easily manipulated in order to create the intentions of different films. That being said I am very excited to see where we can take this film in all aspects such as plot, characters, and overall what is going to make it a horror film. Will it be a monster? If it is will it be real or imagined? If not, what is going to be so scary about it? All of these are questions that we are going to take into consideration when we develop our storyboard and film.