Aesthetics and Visual Style JB

Most horror films have particulars styles and aesthetics. They are all very similar styles and I'm going to take a look at some of the conventional aesthetics for horror and then look at how ours would look.

The colour pallet for horror films is usually dark colours, with a lot of red, either blood or other. The darkness of the pallet helps the audience becomes more scared as it creates a sense of unknown and gives more mystery to the look. The colour red is either a use of blood or a sign of fire or anger and because of this, this colour is prominent in most horror films. Examples of this is below.



A Nightmare on Elm Street is a classic horror and even the poster shows mostly red and black, showing both the conventions I stated above.








Most of the locations for horror films are pretty similar as well. Most of them take place in a singular house, or perhaps abandoned mansion/hospital. However lots of them also take place in forests. This is the main location for our horror film and so in this way it is similar to other horror aesthetics. An example of a horror film taking place only in woods is The Cabin in the Woods or The Woods Have Eyes. Pictured below.

     

The lightning in horror films is one of the most important aspects of the genre. The lighting can create a really scary atmosphere. The lighting in most horror films are very similar. They're all have a grey dull colour pallet as they are meant to have a moody feel, and make you tense or uneasy, which is why the grey colour is good as you can't always tell what's happening. The lighting i'll use in my film will mainly be natural, like you can see above, as the woods bring an ominous glow to the light when it's natural, and you get it split up by the trees giving a detached broken feel to the light. During the night scenes I may use some lights on people's faces to bring out their emotions, but never full on, to the side of their face so you can only just see what they're thinking/feeling giving a tense mystery. Some interesting lighting in horror films are pictured below.

 All of these lighting techniques work really well. The first one represents an ideal lighting set up for my film, giving an ominous look with the mist and woods. However this would be very hard to achieve as I would have to film it all on a misty day. The colour pallet is also very similar to one I would be using, it mostly being grey and black. The second picture I think works really well for horror films, the classic sunlight shining in through a window, onto a figure. This works because you can't see any of the rest of the room and you can barely see what the figure is so it gives an intense mystery feel. This again might be difficult to do unless I found the perfect location. The third picture, from friday the 13th has used light coming in from the side, again from a window to show up certain bits of the frame. You can see vividly the window curtains, her face seems as if it's lit from below, and you can see the enemy right behind her, only his face lit up though. This creates a sense of mystery but would probably be the most you'd see of the enemy at once in this film or mine, perhaps used for a jump scare. I would definitely like to use the light coming in from the side idea, maybe coming around the corner from car headlights or something. The last picture has lighting from above and to the side. This works well by lighting up most of the surroundings giving a sense of location, but at the same time keeping the figure in the middle fairly unlit and giving it a spooky feel. This would be a good technique to use, I would have a figure standing in the middle of the frame with light coming from most angles, so you can see most of the wood, but not much of the figure. The figure could also have his back turned and then turn around for a jump scare.

The framing in horror films is also used to much effect. Usually the characters are in the centre of the frame, as you can see from the two pictures above from The Cabin in the Woods and The Woods Have Eyes. They also seem to have not much around them, and in the last picture when I was talking about lighting the positioning is again centre frame with empty space around them. This gives a creepy feel as you have a sense of absence around them.