Research Post 10 - Outlining a Script

 Welcome back, Everyone!  Now that we've got all the research out of the way, We have to start outlining the script! Before, I know we wanted to go for a Sci-Fi and Supernatural mix, But lets try to refine that further, so we can make a script to submit for planning!

Now, every single Horror-Thriller needs a villain; So what should the villain for my opening be? Well, the most important part of any Horror Movie Villain is mystique, dramatic flair, and aura. The villain NEEDS to be threatening; and these three aspects are the biggest pieces of that puzzle. Unfortunately, due to our position, we're not exactly able to create a big, threatening villain with a lot of makeup; nor is the advanced setplay or costumes of a major studio readily available to us, so instead, we'll have to make use of camerawork

In order to hide our villain and make him menacing we'll have it be that he's small - possibly a doll, or some sort of other miniature monster, allowing us to shoot from angles from the monster's point of view - under the table, inside of a cabinet, or even from directly above a victim. In that way, we can create plenty of suspense without actually even having to show the villain of the charade we're putting on for the Audience.

Additionally, since openings as we are doing are not usually accompanied by dialogue, sound will take a backseat - instead, lighting will be the pivotal to enhance the menace. As the main focus of the scene, the actor, advances deeper into the set, we'll need to increase the amount of shadows - Light needs to come from a very specific angle in order to obscure much of the room. The concentration of the color purple, as well, would be important to establish. As many other movies I've researched beforehand have done, I'd like to make the color purple a signifier for paranormal events and crossing over to the other world, or death. To do so, as the scene progresses, I'd like to make the tint more purple-ish, as well as have certain objects, like the areas under tables or behind boxes that the villain would hide in.

Research Post 9 - Studying Openings

 Hello everyone! Welcome back to the blog! In my last post, We had finished up research for distribution and marketing for the opening. Now that we've finished up on that, and researched the movies in general, Lets look into more targeted examples of openings so that we can get ready to move into our planning stage!

First off, lets establish what makes a film opening good in the first place. The most simple things that every opening needs to do is to hook the audience and to establish the plot and world. These two things are incredibly important, and the success or failure of a film could very well depend on the proper execution of these two aspects of an opening. To hook an audience, a Film opening, particularly a horror film, needs to interest them with the central plot. To this end, there are a great number of stories that begin at a pivotal moment, maybe with the protagonists in a life-or-death situation that occurs near the end of the story, before winding back to the beginning, or maybe with a side character meeting with the main antagonist and, shortly after, a terrible fate. Both of these entice the audience to continue watching, and also fulfill the second purpose of a film opening - to establish the plot and set it in motion. Setting the plot in motion is a very basic aspect of any story, and they are always at the beginning. 

A horror film opening, in addition to doing both of these things, also has to establish the Main villain. Ideally, the villain should remain menacing; In order to keep their mystique or terror, the villain will often have much of their identifiable features obscured, and the method by which they execute the first sacrifice is usually also kept unclear. By doing this, Horror Openings can perform all three of their requirements - Gripping the audience, establishing the plot, and revealing the villain.

It Opening Scene (2017) | Movieclips Trailers

The "IT" opening scene takes a very different approach to the traditional horror movie. Rather than conceal the villain's face, "IT" makes it a point to show, specifically, the whites of Pennywise's eyes, which would usually be an odd decision, because the eyes being concealed are usually the most important part of keeping a villain's mystique, as the eyes are described as a "window to the soul." In simpler terms, unoscured eyes make thing appear more human, and the Whites of one's eyes are also very important to making them appear more human. But, in this case, Pennywise's big, focused eyes, as well as his unsettling bright red makeup that contrasts with his obscured, darkened face and dirty yellow teeth.|

The extreme color contrast in Pennywise's face, between bright reds and whites, as opposed to the dark yellows of his teeth and all-encompassing blacks, makes Pennywise appear unsettling and, suprisingly, inhuman, without having to obscure his eyes. His dialogue, despite being mildly friendly, mismatched with his face. You can tell, even if he doesn't pull the child down in the opening scene, or doesn't kill him on-screen, that he is not well-intentioned, and that he is not human, even if you can see into his dead, white, eyes.

Blog Post 8 - Distribution Practices

Hello, Everyone! Now that I've looked into the marketing practices of movies, The next important step is, obviously, distribution! Distribution is a very important part of movie-making. After all, it doesn't matter how well you make or market it; if you don't distribute it, then nobody can watch it.

The first step of distribution, for most movies, is a Theatrical Release. A theatrical release is when a movie premieres in a Theatre for about two weeks, where the bulk of the revenue comes in. Any movie's Theatrical Release is usually their "make or break" moment, and while revenue can be earned later through DVD or Digital releases, the big bucks are the Theatrical Release.

Sometimes, a Movie will get a Platform release. A Platform release is usually just a release taken by Indie films due to a lack of budget, and therefore only is featured in certain locations in few cities. A platform release does not usually get a digital release, and they are much more contained than a Theatrical Release. Platform Releases are also usually reserved for award contender. Platform Releases can expand into a full-blown theatrical release if reviews and box office numbers are higher than anticipated.

But, once the average Movie's theatrical is done, they move onto Digital releases, like on streaming platforms. Digital releases allow the movie to be watched and downloaded by subscribers and usually contributes the least to the movie's actual revenue. The Digital Releases are still important to draw subscribers to the platform, however, so they are usually staggered out by a few weeks after it's theatrical release to entice subscribers into seeing the movie anyways, so they don't have to wait until it's available digitally.

After a Digital Release is done, the Movie then can be transferred into Physical Media, although the popularity and widespread transition of movies onto Blu-Ray has become less prevalent in the movie industry nowadays. Physical mediums are usually either for International releases without the means to access digital copies, or for collectors and bonus content to be distributed and entice diehard fans to buy the movie.

Finally, through physical media or digital media, an International Release is performed with an accompanying dub. These international distributions are usually more measured and have seperate deals with regional distributors, and may also be edited in order to fit the culture of the area or to comply with regulations regarding film within the country.

Blog Post 7 - Promotion and Selling the Movie

 Welcome back to my blog! Now that I've done a deep-dive into the Market Viability of the genre, I think it'd be best to understand how I'd want to market my movie. As such, we'll be looking into past examples again, to take inspiration for what the movie should look like!

Starting off, I established that I wanted it to be a Sci-Fi, Supernatural Thriller. Movies leaning more towards Supernatural elements, however, as discussed in Blog Post 6, tend to sell better, so leaning into those aspects more should be more beneficial for the movie if it were to hit markets.

In order to look into an example of a successful campaign and what should be done for it, I have once again looked into the movie IT - which had an incredible marketing and PR team that helped get it off the ground. The first example of this very clearly refined campaign can be seen in the first advertisements they ever dropped.

In this particular advertisement, two striking colors - Yellow and Red - become the first things the audience will lay their eyes on. The characters Pennywise and the child he inevitably kidnaps are ominously, barely lighted. While this helps create suspense for the film and how the characters will be brought to life, the striking colors and imagery of the raincoat and the balloon make them instantly iconic. In following campaigns, real-life viral stunts centering around the balloon as the "Symbol" for the film made marketing for the movie recognizable by a glance, constantly bombarding the public with a stream of marketing for the film to encourage them to go see it.

These viral stunts didn't stop at the red balloon, however. The studio organized other things, like a parade of clowns who cried that the movie ruined their livelihoods by making Pennywise, a clown, scary to children. A stunt that was only revealed to be fake after the Journalists looked into the 'Victim businesses' of the movie and found that none of them actually existed. What was also incredibly important for the movie's advertising, however, outside of simply being viral, was the people who helped encourage fans to watch the movie by giving it their seal of approval. Namely, Stephen King, who wrote the original source material for IT and was a well-known and highly respected individual when it comes to Horror.

So, it might be beneficial to base the movie off of a property - or at least have someone working with the production closely vouch for it's quality.

All in all - there is a lot that can be learned to make a movie a marketing sensation, and IT does them all very well. Hopefully, I can mimic tactics like these in my own movie!

Research Post 6 - Market Viability

Welcome back, everyone! I've come back! Now that we've got a basic plan and what we want to do, I want to look in to the Market Viability of the Horror genre. After all, we need to understand how to market or make the movie.

Now, looking into the projections, we can see that the Horror market has been growing in recent years, signaling a resurgence of Horror, especially with themes of Paranormal activity and other supernatural events. Additionally, market projections for the Horror genre, as seen in this graph, set the genre up for substantial growth in the following years. Additionally, the safety of the genre is assured. In 2025, many movie categories struggled at the box office in order to break even, while the Horror genre was more than capable of holding its own in a hard year at the box office.

Poised to become a billion-dollar baby for the industry, It'll be highly likely that studios will not only pick up a horror-related project in the future in the hopes of franchising it, but also that horror movies will succeed and perform well at the box office. The general audience of a horror film tends to be for younger people; as they can have provocative themes, actions and imagery, it's only natural that the genre favors the young. As such, the opening that my group seeks to crate should not contain exceptionally gory elements (especially also because it IS a school project..)

Now, the one issue with our genre could be that it's potentially oversaturated and risks going over-budget. According to data collected by the 2025 Market Research Report, approximately 30% of Horror movies, despite usually being high-grossing, never break even on their budget, and 25% struggle with market acceptance due to several factors. As such, to produce a movie such as the one that I will be making an opening for, Project efficiency is required. A clearer plan should be laid out for what we want to do to reduce the need for retakes that will cost precious money.

All in all, I think horror films in the current market, while definitely suffering their share of risks, do indeed have plenty of upsides as well, and have a proven track record when it comes to bringing in profit. And, with projections of the market for Horror movies set to make it a Billion-Dollar industry from just the domestic market alone, I believe that the film has true market viability. What do you think?

Sources:

Horror Film Market Forecast 2026–2035 | Growth Trends & CAGR Insights

2025 Horror Movies Box Office Trends: Record Growth & Top Films

Research Post 5 - Determining the Shape of the Film and Making an Outline

 Welcome Back! In my previous post, I did research on some of the highest-grossing Horror films, and now that we have our examples, I want to define what my goals should be for the upcoming film, and how I want to accomplish them. To help with this, I'll also be going over how some directors, namely M. Night Shyamalan, created their beloved works, and how they were inspired to do so.

First off, we do need a basic outline for a plot; Nothing too fleshed out, just something to go for in our opening. For that, I believe that a mixture of both the Supernatural and Science would be something interesting, and could bode some promising mysteries for the Audience, which is the backbone of the suspense that Thriller Horror needs to thrive. Additionally, these two elements were present in all three of these high-grossing movies, so I believe that they'll have a high retention rate and attract a good amount of people to watch.

Now that I have a basis to go on, we should look into the Cinematography of movies like the Sixth Sense and IT. Both of these movies had a heavy emphasis on lighting. Many horror movies do, in fact. Lighting is very important when discerning emotions of a character, but even more important than that is making the character being protrayed seem either human or inhuman. When a character's eyes are obscured, that Character becomes much harder to discern the emotion of, and also appears to be less human.

In the images provided, both women have a rather blank expression, and nothing about their facial features are particularly grotesque or wrong. Instead, you'll notice that the first images' lighting obscures the eyes and has much less color, therefore giving that "Inhuman" effect that we discussed. And, as I just noted, Color is also important to the cinematography of a movie. A prominent example of this can be found in one of the three movies we researched; 'The Sixth Sense' uses the color red to potray a relation to the Afterlife, ghosts, the supernatural or the grotesque. While color can be used to convey a message, it can also be removed from a shot to add suspense or improve the "dehumanizing" effect of lighting.

Now, since we're only doing an opening, our loose plot idea will do just fine. Instead, we should focus on how we want our shots. Conveying a character's emotion is vital to a horror film, but we also need to build the audience's tension, so our opening should employ the usage of the previously-discussed visual techniques, as well as a POV from the characters' vision, an absence of music in favor of ambient noise, and several shots from odd angles that will be taken, from the audiences' point of view, from the eyes of our "Aggressor." While I do want our antagonist to be threatening, the constraints that come with only being a student of film and not an actual director make me believe that, instead, our final shot should focus on the Character's visage, contorting in horror. A sudden scream will play to break up the noise after an uncomfortable resting period on the Character's face.

And, with that, we have an outline for what we want, and what we should do, for our opening! It's a little more than an outline, but any ideas are always welcome in the world of film! Maybe you can even use some of these ideas for yourself! Anyways, see you now!

Research Post 4 - Researching Examples

Welcome back, everyone! Today, I thought we would research some of the highest-grossing horror films out there, now that we've determined what Genre we want to go for! Hopefully, these films offer some sort of idea on what I should do for my film - and maybe they'll inspire you, too!

The Sixth Sense

The Sixth Sense, released in 1999 by M. Night Shyamalan, is the second-highest grossing Horror film to date, and it isn't hard to see why. The plot revolves around Malcom, a Child psychologist, who works with a boy named Cole, as he helps him with his strange condition of being able to see Ghosts. The major twist, however, comes when it's revealed that Malcom himself is a ghost - Earlier, he had been shot by a former patient, Vincent Grey, who had accused him of 'failing him,' which had in actuality caused his death. This excellent twist, once revealed, is then also evident in the cinematography as well. The movie uses the color red conservatively, only being shown when it has to do with the 'Afterlife' or 'ghosts.' Even specific choices, like what Malcom wears, hint at this twist and further the movies' story.

I Am Legend

'I Am Legend' is an interesting case from the other two movies. Set in 2012 after a post-apocalyptic event, Dr. Neville, portrayed by Will Smith, works to find a cure, alone and barricaded in his house. While the creatures hound him outside, however, his isolation is what truly gets to him. According to reviews, the Cinematography isn't anything to write home about; Additionally, the plot, while good, does have its weak points, especially in the third act, which is where most criticisms arise. The lure of 'I Am Legend' is instead found in the acting. Will Smith's performance in the movie captivates the audience, and even without any other characters for the majority of the movie, he still overcame the challenge to make Dr. Neville believable and enjoyable.

IT

IT is the highest grossing Horror movie currently. Released in 2017, IT is about a group of kids as they combat a supernatural entity they know as "Pennywise the Dancing Clown," who takes the form of their worst fears in order to scare them and then kill them. IT has been praised for it's pacing and Cinematography, both of which took considerable time and effort to produce. The movie's Cinematography focuses on character reactions, so that the audience can truly connect with them and their fear.