Sunday, February 2, 2025

WRITING THE STORY AND PICKING THE GENRE

Genre:

For my film opening I've decided to take drama and slasher horror genres into consideration when preparing my story. When picking and choosing what genres I would like to research I felt as if these 2 have many different characteristics that can be achieved by simple techniques. I would need to illustrate a film that would reflect the different characteristics needed the achieve these genres.

Characteristics of Drama:

Drama films typically tend to be set in everyday environments that reflect real life situations. Being set in everyday environments while developing realistic characters being deeply developed and facing personal or societal struggles makes the film more realistic to the audience. With a more realistic storyline the audience is able to relate to everything going on throughout the story developing a drama genre. Slow paced narrative is another characteristic allows time for emotional buildup and character development.

                                                                (Purple Hearts- 2022)

What Makes a Drama Good?:

When creating a drama, the authenticity and emotional impact are essential to developing a good film. Realistic emption and reactions should make the film relatable and should believable, even if fiction. A good drama creates strong feelings such as empathy and sadness. However, these emotions shouldn't feel natural and not forced.

                                                                 (The Notebook-2004)

Characteristics of Slasher Horror:

When developing horror films, a dark creepy environment is needed to create suspense. This is done with low lightning, eerie music, and loud silence to enhance fear. A dark setting can represent isolation and victims being cut off from help, as well as settings such as cabins and abandoned houses. Many sudden jump cuts and quick editing is used to increase shock and chaos during violent scenes. Handheld camera shots are also used throughout horror films to increase realism due to the shakiness of the shot.  Lastly, extreme close-ups emphasizes fear and pain done by the tight framing.

                                                                     (Scream-1996)

What Makes a Slasher Horror Good?

Good slasher horror films have a high quality suspense done by shots such as POV shots of the killers perspective and silence before the jump scare. Balancing horror and entertainment is another key factor that separates a good slasher horror movie to a mediocre one. Saying to not over due the horror factors such as the silence and and murdering scenes, but if not to include scenes for entertainment to add to the build of the story.

                                                                      (Terrifier-2016)