I felt this movie needed to be mentioned, as unlike the other inspirations for my trailer, it isn't a horror; it's a thriller. I mention it as I wanted to show that although it's rare, "Camera footage" movies, and by extension "Found footage" trailers, can work in other genres that aren't horror. As mentioned, it is just a rare occurrence in popular media as the idea of "Found footage" has been attached to the horror genre because "Blair Witch" was the first of the genre and "Paranormal Activity" has kept the genre popular, both being horror franchises.
Grave Encounters is another horror movie. Very like outlast, it takes place in an old asylum, with the main characters wandering around with a camera. This is one of my favourite "Found Footage" movies, so I felt it was worth a mention. It's colours always feel creepy, it has a mix of both steady and held cameras, it's a really good movie for this genre. I thought Paranormal Activity would be good to add, because unlike Outlast, Grave encounters and The Blair Witch Project, the camera is steady, like a security camera. I thought Paranormal Activity 3 would be the best to mention as it has some impressive camera angles throughout. I especially enjoy the camera on a pivot, slowly turning back and forth away from the scene, revealing more every time the camera pans back to view the room. The blair witch project was really the first of it's kind. It was the original "Found camera footage" movie of the genre, so I only found it fitting to add it to my list of inspirations. When it was released, it received mixed results from critics and the public alike, but it was high-grossing, which I am quite sure its sucess all down to the trailer alone. The grudge has a scene I always think of when thinking about security camera movie scenes. The blue, black and white imagery feels cold, making the scene feel immediately eerie. I always found the scene to be intimidating as you could feel impending doom for the characters as they knew where the ghost was and in relation, they knew roughly how long they had until she reached them. I want to imitate and recreate this feeling in my trailer. Another inspiration is another video game named "Outlast" in which a journalist uses a night-vision camera to see his way down the corridors of an old asylum with no power or lights. The biggest inspiration for my idea came from the game franchise "Five nights at Freddy's" in which you use security cameras to figure out where monsters are. Because of my admiration for this franchise, there will probably be many homages or similarities throughout my work. The trailers are linked below. In the trailer, you will see snippets of gameplay in which you can see the security camera perspectives. Their placement and the panning shots they often use are what I expect to use in my trailer. At first, I was unsure what to do and where to start. I could choose from multiple tasks, but all that was going through my head was a conversation I had a few days prior.
At a steampunk convention, I spoke with a talkative stranger. The conversation came onto the subject of "Fun with security cameras." He told us about how he managed to re-enact famous movie scenes with his friends in public places, then claimed the security camera footage back. I wondered if I could use that in my project. After a lot of thinking, I came up with the idea for a horror movie. The idea was that 2 security guards were working the night-shift in an office skyscraper building. Most workers have gone home by this point, except for a few people working late. The two workers are just glancing at the security cameras when suddenly, they see someone tampering with the electricity. The lights go out so they try to call someone or contact someone with wi-fi, but the lack of electricity makes it difficult, and the tallness of the building takes away their signal on their mobiles, leaving them isolated from the outside world. They can depend upon are the security cameras which have emergency back-up power systems in case of instances such as this or even just power-outages. They can also count on their battery powered walkie-talkies. One of them must venture into the building and bring the people to safety and attempt to apprehend the criminal who cut the electricity and appears to be searching for a certain person in the building for an unknown reason. I could use the CCTV footage or views from the perspective of those corner and spinning cameras. |
AuthorI'm Laura Turner, A-level student attempting to use this site to present my media coursework. Archives
May 2016
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