Introducing the Dirty Work horror film trailer, movie probably not coming to a theatre near you.
Have you ever worked so hard on a project to just to find out that it was a F.A.I.L. (first attempt in learning). This is what happened during our class project within our horror unit when we tried (emphasize on tried) to create a horror film. Although the movie didn’t work out as expected what I learned during the creation process was far beneficial than those that I would have learned if the movie was a success.
The project started way back in October with a field study to Seattle where we visited the LeMay American Car Museum, the horror exhibit at the MoPOP, and the Georgetown Morgue Haunted House.
Our first stop was the LeMay Car Museum. You might be wondering as I was, what does a car museum have to do with horror? Well, it doesn’t have to do with horror but instead how different cars represent society during different times throughout history. When looking at horror we did the same thing, looking at how horror movies, books and the genre, in general, reflected on society. At first, I wasn’t super eager to spend an entire afternoon at a car museum however when we got there it was super interesting to look at both how society affected what cars were made and how the cars affected how society was viewed.
The second place we visited was the MoPOP (Museum of Pop Culture) to visit the horror exhibit as well as do a workshop. The horror exhibit was a very interesting place to visit as we were able to see props used in horror movies and watch videos about famous horror movies throughout history. While going through the horror movie exhibit a small group of us talked to a horror movie fanatic. This was really cool to hear from his perspective as I’m not a huge fan of horror movies myself so I don’t understand the whole appeal of watching such scary movies. The horror movie fanatic talked about the some of elements of aversion that we had previously talked about in class like the unknown and unbelievable. He also mentioned how he likes the adrenaline rush and scare factor. Getting the opposite side of the spectrum in comparison to myself was very fascinating as I was able to look at horror from a different perspective.
outside the MoPOP
Horror Exhibit
The final important place we visited was the Georgetown Morgue. One of the scariest haunted houses in Seattle and definitely the scariest haunted house I’ve ever been to. During the haunted house, I felt a combination of fear and adrenaline. The entire time I was in the haunted house it felt like it was never going to end, we were being chased by the actors with seemed like chainsaws and knives through creepy dark rooms. While the entire time I was in there I just wanted it to be over the minute I got out I wanted to do it again. After learning about the effects of horror and why people like it, it was interesting to identify my own reactions to horror and analyze why I reacted in such away.
Although we had talked about the horror movie in class we hadn’t assigned any roles. The first evening of this Seattle field school was about advocating for what role we think would suit us best. Prior to learning about the basics of film making, I didn’t know much about all the roles that worked together to make a movie run smoothly. I decided I wanted to go for the producer as it played a massive role in the production and I wanted to take that leadership. To gain more knowledge about this role I decided to get in contact with Simon Barry, a Canadian screenwriter, director, and film and television producer. Despite the fact that I wasn’t chosen for the role through my research and interview I learned a lot about the necessary skills and character needed for a producer. These skills were applicable to the role I did end up receiving as a production designer.
The first thing we started off by doing in pre-production was come up with a story idea. We started off brainstorming ideas and narrowed it down to be about high school teens surrounding the issue of stereotypes. One we had the basis of our story we then the art department which I was apart of created the characters. Following knowing the basis of the story’s outline then came the hard part, the script. Even though I wasn’t apart of the script team I could see the amount of work that was being put into the script, with constant revisions the script team had a lot of work on their hands.
When we finished the script and began finalizing pre-production this is where we should’ve spent more time. However, everyone was super eager to get right into filming and production that many crucial parts of pre-production for partially skimmed over including the storyboard. I was one of the people that helped out with the storyboard but I could have done away the better job of outlining what was happening in the scene I was assigned. Although I spent a number of hours drawing the storyboard the outline of scenes I created wasn’t thorough enough. On top of that part of the scene, I created wasn’t exactly how the director envisioned it. The critical piece of information we all missed during the pre-production was communication. Just through simply the key creatives and storyboard team talking we could’ve created a storyboard that would have been strictly followed during filming. Even during filming the storyboard wasn’t used to the slightest which shows our lack of communication between the different roles. After reflecting back on the movie I learned the importance of preproduction and planning. The more work you do before production the earlier filming becomes.
During production is where our half knit planning showed the most. Each scene took longer than expected and there were various aspects that we didn’t take into account. For example, because we were filming in December our school had a bunch of Christmas decorations. Each time we filmed we took down these decorations and had to put them back up which took a lot more time than expected. I think if we were to film a movie like this in the future we should give ourselves extra time to do the setup and takedown.
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- During Production
As a Production Designer, my job was to work one creating the vision that the key creative team had for each scene. I definitely didn’t pursue my role to its full potential as I should have communicated more with the director as to what the scene should look like. Even though I did research about my part and what it entails I feel as though I should have been more thorough with what I did. Because I didn’t know my role to its full extent at the time I felt that my perspective wasn’t heard on certain aspects of the scenes. This was unquestionably a learning experience for me as I had to find a middle ground for my role. Doing what I knew I was supposed to do while also helping out in different areas needed.
I think some of the main issues that we had were a lack of leadership and lack of communication. With 17 people in our class communication was crucial however, we lacked doing it. We were a disjointed unit as each team within the production split off instead of working alongside one another. Although we had a number of problems during the creation of this movie and we dint end up finishing the actual movie I learned so much from the creation process. From gaining knowledge about movie production to learning to work alongside 16 other people this project really was a FAIL (First Attempt in Learning).
IF you would like to check out the other blog posts that I wrote during this horror unit check them out down below: