Introduction 

Imagine that in a week you have to write a long, detailed reflection and you have forgotten what heck happened in this project. This is me currently. Writing a blog post right after Winter Break really wasn’t the best idea for me. However, I think, the refresher of going back to school and doing this project for a week after winter break has helped me a lot.

To be honest… before this project I had not really been that interested in horror movies. I had watched a few in the past with my brother and cousin but, didn’t find them to be very scary. However, the final product of this project was a self-made class horror movie, which in order to be actual scary, requires a knowledge of horror. This project helped me to understand the appeal of horror and how importance of them in our society. 

Reading Frankenstein 

Version 1.0.0

We started this project with the famous gothic horror novel, Frankenstein. Before this project, I had already read Frankenstein however, at that point, it had been around 2 years since I read it. If I were to do this project again I would make sure to make NOT as many notes as I did. Most of them were just fleeting notes and didn’t add to my final analysis of the book. Looking back at my notes, I have to say that I’m quite proud of some of my analysis of the themes of Frankenstein, such as comparing him to the titan Empimetheus and making the connection to the film Ex-Machina. 

Furthermore, we were also tasked to share our ideas in a group and just discuss what we thought about certain aspects of the novel. At the start of these seminars, I struggled a lot to bring my ideas to the table, just because I’m not very good at speaking up in group discussions. However, I believed that throughout each discussion I got a bit more confident and in last one, was able to articulate my ideas to the group.

Watching Horror Film & View Guide 

To understand horror, we watched a couple horrors movies and analyzed how they used fear in theirs films. I quite enjoyed this part of the project since it exposed me to very well made films. Additionally, it helped for inspiration when filming our horror film. 

Halloween 

The first horror move we watched was Halloween, a classic thriller move about a killer stalking high school students. I found this movie to be a bit boring due to a lot of the film focusing on the stalking rather than the actual killing. It still an impressive film though due to despite of it’s low budget, it still did very well in the box office. 

28 Days Later

The next film we watched was about an disease that caused people to be extremely angry or become zombies in Britain. I must say that I really enjoyed the visuals, it gave a sense of isolation to the film and characters. Additionally, I had the hardest time analyzing this film because I have a big fear of contracting a disease the messes with my brain like the zombies have in the movie. 

Get Out

Out of all the films, this one was my favourite. The storyline and the twist at the end I found to be very well-written and I loved the use of symbolism throughout the film. Totally would recommend even if you can’t handle horror, this movie is more of a thriller than a super gruesome horror film. 

Film Responsibilities

Finally, filming, the whole point of everything. How did go? Alright. There are many points it could of gone better and many more where it could gone much worse. For this project I was an actor, script writer and storyboard artist, sometimes at the same time. 

Writing Script

 Originally, I was only a production designer or storyboard artist, however, the job of the storyboard was too much for just one person, thus me and Ava helped Max finish it by splitting It into three acts. Too be honest, I had a lot of difficulty with this section, I’m not really great at fictional writing however, Ava really helped me out on this piece and I would not be able to finish my section without her. We had to go through a lot of revision and changes of storyline to finally get to the final draft. This experience I would say was overall beneficial for my writing skills and my ability to write fiction. 

The Storyboard 

The storyboards I was tasked to finish around 2 weeks before filming. I was very panicked when creating the storyboard since I really didn’t have that much time to complete it. As you go through the storyboard, you can see me slowly caring less about the details and rushing. I would say it was kind of useless in the end because it wasn’t usually followed when filming. Overall, I would say I’m happy with how it turned out and if I were going to do it again, I would start earlier, just so I would have the time to add more detail. 

Shooting the Film at Loon Lake & Declan’s House 

Loon Lake 

Loon lake is the most busiest PLP trip I have ever been on. For the entire thing the only thing we did was eat, sleep and film. However, due to our effort in filming, we were able to get quite a variety of cool and beautiful shots. We had a lot of pivoting, comprises, arguing and bonding during these 3 days. However, we managed to get through all of them through hard work even, when we were exhausted. 

Declan’s House

After loon lake, we just had to film one last small act of the main character’s family dying. This took us an entire day to do. For this act, I got to play the role of the teenage main character’s mother, thus I got a makeover to look older…

I got the pleasure to be tied up and gagged for 2 hours. However, we were able to film everything and do all the cool shots we wanted. 

Post-production editing 

The editing was a bit tricky to do since we were not given a lot of time. Most of our editing we did a week before the due date. However, everything came together in the end. I did not really contribute to editing, however, I gave feedback and advice for when to put scenes. 

Big thanks to Sylas, Ines, Sepaus, Declan and Fraser for helping with editing and music, our film would not look as good without their help!

Conclusion 

This project taught me how underrated horror is and how is does not get the proper respect it deserves. Horror is extremely difficult to pull off well and can give a really good critique on certain aspects of our society. It also taught me that I’m NEVER ever going to become a director or an actor. 

I hope you enjoyed my blog!