Makeup

There are many techniques that makeup artists can use to help make characters more realistic and animated. From simply adding blush to make the lighting reflect better off of the actors face to completely remodelling the actors face using clay moulds and prosthetics to create fantastic creatures and hideous monsters, here are a few of the simpler tricks that can be used to change a persons appearance.

Firstly makeup pencils are used for drawing on eyebrows to help accentuate emotions

  

Secondly stickers can be applied to the eyelids to add or remove wrinkles

Then eyeliner can be applied to darken the area around the eyes and add mystery

Obviously lipstick can be added to bring more attention to that area

Foundation can also be applied to change skin tone and cover blemishes

Different blushes can also be applied to give a natural range of skin colours

Lighting

Lighting

Romance Lighting

Comedy Lighting

Horror Lighting

The lighting that is used in any production is vitally important to creating an emotional response with the audience. Lighting can be used to highlight features on the faces of the actors or to hide props or pieces of set. But the most common and perhaps most important is the use of lighting to create mood and establish tone. For instance in horror movies such as my own the lighting is normally very dark to reveal less to the audience and thus make them afraid. However in comedies and romance the lighting is often very bright to create a feeling of warmth and openness. These techniques can be used to great affect in trailers because it immediately gives the audience a feeling of what the overall tone of the movie will be.

This is a standard lighting setup and one which I would like to replicate within my own film. Whilst I may lack the funding for the exact same lighting setup I will very much try to place my own lighting equipment in a similar layout to this.

Props

Props

Theatrical Property or props are normally considered to be anything on stage that can be moved that are distinct from the characters costumes and the set. Props are a powerful tool that can be used to provoke emotional response, further the narrative or add depth to a character. I intended to use several props in my film however I am unsure as to how many I will include them within my trailer. For instance one prop I am sure I will use is the laptop/typewriter. This prop is designed to establish the belief that the character is a writer without having to denote it. This happens because the laptop symbiotically linked to the audiences’ perception of what writers do. The method for determining the audiences’ reaction to different objects or symbols is called structuralism which is also the name of the belief that humans only understand what is around them because of the connections that they build with other objects. The props that I was unsure weather to include the empty whisky bottles because I was unsure weather or not to introduce the alcoholic aspect of the character in the trailer before the audience has fully grasped the intimacies and motivations behind this addiction. Overall I believe prop selection will have to be limited to only the most important of props to avoid overloading the audience with too much detail without any information to contextualize it.

Reflective analysis

Overall I think the trailer was a great success despite many changes and problems along the way. The addition of the alter ego was a large change to the narrative and I had to add it in to a lot of my other posts but ultimately it ended up enhancing the overall narrative and adding a more pronounced sense of psychological depth to the trailer. The original shooting was something of a failure due to a malfunction in the camera that seriously distorted the images. However I learned many things and the second shoot added a great amount of cinematographic variety such as the shot where Michael is walking down the central corridor and the camera rotates giving the perception of the entire world shifting and leaving an inception style perception of the fragile nature of this dream world.
 Originally I decided to use incompetech a site for music which is both free in terms of royalties and finance however the selection is fairly limited and it was extremely difficult to find a track that fit the tone of the trailer. Later however I discovered that Itunes offer a selection of royalty free music that is also free of charge. All they ask is that they are accredited in any piece of work you use the track in which is why at the end of my film it says that the music was made by Itunes. This gave my film a more professional appearance and allowed me to build suspense throughout the trailer. The titles within my film use a midnight starlight background as a blue mist descends over a serif font. This title looks extremely surreal and continues the horror theme because the theme of night is something that has become synonymous with horror and mystery. The blue mist and the serif font add more to the already established surrealist theme. The curvature of the letters add to the sense of fantasy and the mist continue the theme of mystery and the obscure.
 The shot selection of my trailer also underwent serious changes and redos as the creative process moved forward for instance in the beginning there was a shot of a dyeing tree standing on its own and despite this image looking powerful and spooky it didn't fit in contextually with the other shots  and ended up detracting from the overall message of the film. As a result I replaced that shot with a shot of Kayles arm with a several eyes drawn all over it. This shot whilst it fit in contextually still didn't seem powerful or scary enough so I added a night vision filter over it to give the feeling that it was being recorded by another character making the experience more immersive, so I believe that this piece of editing helped to enhance the overall effectiveness of the mise en scene. Many of my shots were also far to bright than I originally thought they were this made the film seem less scary so I had to add a filter over it with after effects to darken it and help create the feeling that this was going on at night.
The use of the camera within the fridge as Kayle opened it and looked for food had the effect of making his character seem more relatable, whilst it wasn't scary as such it did establish Micheal (the character) as a genuine human being who struggles through normal everyday problems. Also the fact that it is still dark and the music playing is still dramatic music helps to avoid a break in the build up of tension.
The addition of the after credits scare was also something that provoked a lot of thought during the editing process because whilst this film is primarily a psychological horror there were very few things in the trailer that actually left a fearful emotional response from the audience. So I had to think of a way in which to frighten the audience without compromising the overall eerie tone of the trailer so I decided to break convention and wait until after the credits had rolled to introduce the monster, the audience feedback I received from this was that this particular decision was effective because the majority of the audience were expecting the trailer to be over and therefore relaxed just before the final scare. Also it didn't compromise the integrity of the rest of the trailer because as it happened after the credits had rolled it felt detached from the rest of the trailer.

Final Magazine Cover

The evolution of psychological horror

Psychological horror is a genre that plays off of the audiences own preconceived fears and anxieties by using a combination of micro and macro aspects that the brain is trained to respond to with fear. Films within this genre however do not often engage in shock or gore but rather rely on the build up to make even the smallest actions inspire fear and terror. The focal characters within these films often have mental or sociological issues which the directors use to allow the audience an insight into the problems experienced by these characters.
The Black Cat is a 1934 horror film that became Universal Pictures' biggest box office hit of the year. The picture was the first of eight movies and was one of the first films to be truly characterized as a psychological horror movie.
Cat People is a 1942 horror film produced by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur. DeWitt Bodeen wrote the original screenplay which was based on Val Lewton's short story The Bagheeta published in 1930.[3] The film stars Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph and Tom Conway. Cat People tells the story of a young Serbian woman, Irena, who believes herself to be a descendant of a race of people who turn into cats when sexually aroused. Cat People was very controversial at the time of it's release because it was perceived as a disguised attempt to comment on the issue of nymphomania. The film does use several jump scares which is uncharictarstic of the genre however ultimately the narrative structure and controvasy caused after the release earns Cat People its status as psychological horror.
Roman Polanski directed two films which are considered quintessential psychological horror: Repulsion (1965) and Rosemary's Baby. The plot of Repulsion focuses on a young woman left alone by her vacationing sister at their apartment, who begins reliving traumas of her past in horrific ways. Whereas in Rosemary's baby a pregnant woman who fears that her husband may have made a pact with their eccentric neighbors, believing he may have promised them the child to be used as a human sacrifice in their occult rituals in exchange for success in his acting career. These plot devices and many others are what qualifies Roman Polanski as a real influence on the genre of psychological horror.
Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film The Shining is another particularly well-known example of the genre. With an I.Q well over 180 this film has been subject to so much analysis over the years that almost every moment of The Shining has been thought to be of hidden significance to someone. However whilst thoughts and opinions of The Shining may differ greatley it can easily be argued that Kubrick is at least partially responsible for how psychological horror is made and viewed today.