Horror Filmmaking
It’s Halloween! A fun time for many people and definitely filmmakers as we can showcase the horror movies we made and scare our audience. In today’s Copy Cat we got inspired by 3 different horror movies: The Conjuring, Annabelle and The Haunting of Hill House.
What makes a good horror is how the story is brought through camera, editing and light. VFX and special effects like blood is definitely not important. This is good news for those who aren’t so handy with Adobe After Effects.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to make horror. The visual storytelling behind the scary genre can make or break your film.
Visual Storytelling in Horror
Visual storytelling can be seen broad. It’s about the camera movement, the framing, but also the lighting and editing techniques.
A common editing technique is the slow pacing and long holding shots. This technique can really drag your audience in the scene, creating tension. However if you over use it or maybe use it on the wrong moments, you can break the tension and make the movie feel like it’s to long.
Now another major aspect of the horror genre is sound and music. Without sound or music your movie will lose all of it’s power. If you want, you can do an experiment. Watch a horror scene without sound and again with sound. This way you can really feel that sound is a major aspect of Horror storytelling.
Storyblocks
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