Scary movie

Leon Rodriguez · January 30, 2004

My next picture is a scary feature that will shoot in 16mm on a small but do-able budget. I'll Direct and DP so before I dig in, I'd like to put together a list of genre specific examples to peruse as I hunker down with the script. Amazingly, the producer has no preferences on a look. The whole thing takes place inside a Mall and in graveyards. I'm planning to shoot day for night for all the graveyard scenes but I'm still open for a look for all these interiors. I'd like to do something interesting visually although I'm gravitating towards working the toe of the curve, I don't know why. My instincts are just starting to go there. Horror movies are not what I usually walk out of the video store with. I was blown away to see how many horror pictures there actually are. I think I could only watch a few to get the rhythm of the shot flow. Any suggestions on a viewing list? Any interesting shots that come to mind? I'm wide open at this point. This is going to be fun.

Marc Levy · January 30, 2004

Check out 28 Days Later. Shot on DV, but with such interesting shots that it doesn't matter. If you're looking to have a "different" look than traditional horror, you might find it useful.

Mitch Gross · January 30, 2004

For no-budget horror, you can't beat the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Are you really sure you want to do day for night? One of the hallmarks of horror is the darkness of the creepy shadows, hiding whatever scary things may be lurking just out of frame. The image may feel far too lit up using day for night.

Leon Rodriguez · January 30, 2004

Mitch,

You're right. Just starting off I'm thinking from the accounting ledger. I was looking to avoid a lighting and generator expense and may well have missed the mark. Night for night is the right thing. And as I think about it I've got an opportunity to do a pair of moving headlights through the trees with maybe some smoke. Any lighting ideas on a shot like that? I'm starting to get into this. You're a great catalyst. Great eye opener. Thanks.

I'll also look for 28 Days Later at Vulcan Video here in Austin, the local "We've got everything" video store. Favorite scary movie looks?

Bill DiPietra · January 30, 2004

I liked the overall atmosphere that Mark Pellington created with "The Mothman Prophecies."

January 30, 2004

Your use of the term "scary movie" is somewhat vague. This is only a very fast and loose genre description. It would be immensely beneficial if you could provide a more thorough synopsis and what your particular vision as director may be.

E.g., Is this in the shadow of the recent spate of American horror or is it more akin to a European standard? Are you trying to emulate a more realistic tone or are you blurring the line toward the nightmare/surreal? Are there a lot of prosthetic or make-up effects? Is it straight horror or gore or black-comedy or action/horror or something new? Et al.

When you mentioned a Mall and Cemetery I instantly thought of zombie horror, and more correctly Romero's Dawn of the Dead. While this film may be of some structural and stylistic interest, by far the biggest flaw in Romero's earlier work was the lackluster cinematography of Michael Gornick. In spite of this, DOTD is an immensely excellent film. I highly doubt the remake can capture any of its charm or magic...

Without knowing specifics, here is my list of recommended horror films:

Naked Lunch ~ Dir. - David Cronenberg, DP - Peter Suschitzky

Suspiria ~ Dir. Dario Argento, DP - Luciano Tovoli

Dellamorte Dellamore (aka Cemetery Man) ~ Dir. - Michel Soavi, DP - Mauro Marchetti

Tombs of the Blind Dead ~ Dir. - Armando de Ossorio, DP - Paolo Ripoll

The Element of Crime ~ Dir. Lars Von Trier, DP - Tom Elling

Don't Look Now ~ Dir. ~ Nicolas Roeg, DP - Anthony Richmond

In the Mouth of Madness ~ Dir. - John Carpenter, DP - Gary Kibbe

The House by the Cemetery ~ Dir. - Lucio Fulci, DP - Sergio Salvati

Tell Me Something ~ Dir. Chang Youn-Hyun, DP - Kim Sung-Bok

A Chinese Ghost Story ~ Dir. - Ching Siu-Tung

Angel Heart ~ Dir. - Alan Parker, DP - Michael Seresin

The Church ~ Dir. Michel Soavi, DP - Renato Tafuri

The Devil's Backbone ~ Dir. - Guillermo Del Toro, DP - Guillermo Navarro

The Thing ~ Dir. - John Cartpenter, DP - Dean Cundey

Jacob's Ladder ~ Dir. - Adrian Lyne, DP - Jeffrey Kimball

I completely agree with Mitch about the use of Day-for-Night. Personally I loathe both the concept and execution. For the absolute worst DFN in any contemporary horror film watch the opening gambit in Nighmare on Elm Street 2. Included in my list is Tombs of the Blind Dead, which has several decent DFN shots and numbing amount of graveyard activity. If at all possible I always recommend night for night. For your gag of car headlights, you could of course simply use a real car. The opening of Suspiria has just such a shot of headlights ripping through a rain-drenched forest. If headlights don't have enough punch try two Mole PAR's with either NSP or VNSP bulbs. That should provide more than enough kick. Please stop back with more details.

Jason Maeda · January 30, 2004

dusk for night almost always seems like the way to go.

as far as a viewing list, didn't we have this exact discussion last year? in fact i think i may have even started it. yeah i just checked. go to the 2003 archives and do a search for "horror". the archives work a little funny, so you should keep scrolling until you see the earliest entry titled "favorite horror films" in the "on dvd" section, and open that up.

horror films are the best! have a great time,

jk :ph34r:

Phil Rhodes · January 30, 2004

Hi,

The problem with dusk is that it only exists for about half an hour, and changes radically during that time. I'd avoid.

Phil

Jason Maeda · January 31, 2004

true that...true that.

jk :ph34r:

Leon Rodriguez · January 31, 2004

I find myself envious of Chainsaw's obvious grasp of the horror genre. Very inspiring. Lots of great homework here. Thanks. I just rented SEVEN to check out a CCE process and CITY OF LOST CHILDREN to check out it's use of the skip-bleach process. Will labs even do these for 16mm? Anybody know where or what the costs for these additional processes are? The script (in it's present rev.) is more specifically about a psychopathic serial killer who escapes from the laughing acadamy and is hiding in a Mall murdering people. That's about the gist of it. I am going for a voyeuristic feel that it's all real and intend to keep the camera eye level for an implied POV of being one of the people trapped in the mall. Right now I think I'd like to keep masters to a minimum to remove the security of omnipresence. I just read the script last night and that seems to feel right at this point. I'm just becoming aware however that I will have some re writes to do to shore up the dramatic vehicle to deliver the gore so nothing's fixed until the plotline is right although I don't anticipate a change in the way I'll shoot the mall activity.

David Mullen ASC · January 31, 2004

Those processes were done for the PRINTS, not the original negative. You can certainly get them done to the 35mm prints you make after a blow-up from 16mm, although CCE is specific to Deluxe Labs. Most labs offer a straight skip-bleach process for either negative or prints. I don't see why it couldn't be done to 16mm.

It can get expensive -- $500 set-up fee plus a per foot charge. I did it for a 35mm short film to the negative and sent all the negative in one big batch to the lab to pay for the $500 set-up fee only once. That's one reason most people do it to the prints, not the negative, which has to be processed daily on a longer project.

February 2, 2004

Ah, the wonderfully depraved world of voyeuristic cinematography. Let me amend my earlier list. I don't mean to inundate you with (more) films but here are a few others that more directly fit a voyeuristic approach. BTW, Se7en is a prime reference for any dark style, as you well know.

The Vanishing (1988) ~ Dir. - George Sluizer, DP - Toni Kuhn

Shallow Grave ~ Dir. - Danny Boyle, DP - Brian Tufano

Tenebre ~ Dir. - Dario Argento, DP - Luciano Tovoli

Happy Together ~ Dir. Wong Kar-Wai, DP - Chris Doyle

Audition ~ Dir. - Takashi Miike, DP - Hideo Yamamoto

In Cold Blood ~ Dir. - Richard Brooks, DP - Conrad Hall

Habit ~ Dir. - Larry Fessenden. DP - Frank DeMarco

Halloween ~ Dir. - John Carpenter, DP - Dean Cundey

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer ~ Dir. - John McNaughton, DP - Charlie Lieberman

Personally I would wait until the final script revision and the implementation of Production Design and location scouting before deciding on any alternative chemical processes that will radically affect your image structure. If your Production Design and/or story doesn't support such an approach it would be counterproductive both financially and artistically to pursue its use. Just be honest with the script and yourself, understand why it is a horror and what needs to be done to make the audience realize this as well. A voyeuristic approach does not necessitate that the view belongs to a certain character. Don't limit yourself to camera placement(s) based upon that assumption. Visually you will need to put a good deal of effort into making something as culturally benign as a mall have a sense of foreboding or dread. The best limited advice I can give for this without seeing your location(s) is to transform what is commonplace into that which is slightly surreal through lighting, production design, augmented spatial relationships, camera angles, use of extreme foreground and background, empty space and "dead" framing, soundtrack, forced perspectives, color schemes, camera movement, altered physical motion (e.g., under and over-cranking), editing, etc. I could go on but pictures are better than words. Run to the video store and do some homework...

Don't be afraid of the Gore aspect, I've seen it used as a very effective narrative device in lieu of dialogue and even exposition and character development. Some obvious embodiments of this deviant technique can be found in, The Beyond, The New York Ripper, Sleepless, Re-Animator, I Madman, Demons, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Audition (again...), Titus, In the Realm of the Senses, The Evil Dead, Zombie, The Thing, El Topo, et al. While not all of those are quality films they do express my point and ideology. I'm interested to see what approach you do take with this, please stop back periodically with updates.

Tristan_Nieto · February 2, 2004

I've shot quite a few horror films and seen thousands. For my money, anything shot by Peter Deming is always great, in particular Lost Highway and Evil Dead 2.

Another film to catch is a recent Australian Zombie film called Undead. It went the other way than most low budget 16mm horror films in that it moved away from gritty and raw. Yet another one of the growing number of films shot on 16 that could pass as 35.

February 2, 2004

For my money, anything shot by Peter Deming is always great, in particular Lost Highway and Evil Dead 2.

Peter Deming's work is always striking, though I most decidedly prefer his collaborations with Lynch over the anachronistic approach that was brought to the Hughes' brothers butchery of From Hell.

It's funny that you mention Evil Dead 2 because Deming was brought in as a replacement DP several weeks into production to replace DP Eugene Schlugleit. The production had rented Schlugleit's camera and lighting packages but unfortunately extreme dissent erupted between Raimi, Schlugleit and the electric crew. Schlugleit was subsequently fired and he took his entire camera and lighting crew with him but continued to rent his equipment out to the production. Deming and a replacement camera and lighting crew were subsequently brought in to finish the shoot. Deming was officially credited as DP and Schlugleit was given the somewhat misleading title of Director of Night Exterior Photography, even though he contributed much to principal photography. This obviously helps explain some of the slight stylistic and photographic differences found throughout Evil Dead 2.

Required viewing.

Groovy.