In honor of Halloween, I wanted to treat you to some tricks of the trade and share with you some ways you as a business owner can benefit from a closer look at the genre of horror films as it pertains to producing an effective web video for your company.
1. Cast: Sex may sell but as the likely star of your own corporate video, you may not want to bare it all lest you end up exposing yourself like some of the idiots on a few reality shows that will remain unidentified because I want to be nice. Instead, make it your goal to have your web video help you get your foot in the door, but as with any sales effort, try to make sure that you put your best foot forward. Production element #2, editing, can help you achieve that.
2. Editing: Editing can do much more than just help you trim the fat so that you don’t bore your prospects. For example, think about the infamous shower scene in “Psycho” (1960), one of my favorite horror films/ thrillers: Alfred Hitchcock employed editing to make the audience feel the blade of the knife Norman Bates stabs into Marion. (Naked often equals death in horror films as is the case for Janet Leigh’s character and most teens in slasher/ horror films perhaps in an effort to scare teens straight- there will be no messing around or you’ll get it.) The shower scene in “Psycho” is so powerful and famous because you as an audience member feel the knife even though you never actually see the blade pierce her flesh. However editing is not the only way to control what your target audience sees and does not see, the third production element, camera, plays a key and perhaps more obvious role.
3. Camera: The use of camera in most horror films goes beyond just recording an image; how an image is framed can help obscure or emphasize an image and create a feeling of suspense and instill fear. “Let Me In” and “Let the Right One In” present great examples of how the camera can be placed at an angle not only to heighten feelings of suspense but also to hide what the filmmakers cannot afford to show.
I would encourage you to watch the two modern day vampire films and consider how the filmmakers in the foreign version (Norway- “Let the Right One In” 2008) obscure the image with camera I would suggest as a creative way to work with a limited budget. The American Version (“Let Me In” 2010) probably had a bigger budget and as a result, the ability to feature more gore with make-up, mannequins, and special effects. Despite the contrasts, these two films have something in common with each other and just about every other horror film: feature a blend of (A) third-person omniscient shots to create suspense (the audience knows that the villain is waiting to get their next victim) and (B) subjective or point-of-view shots (perspective of the character) to make the audience identify with the soon to be victim.
4. Lighting: Also contributing to what the audience can or cannot see is lighting, the camera’s partner-in-crime. Although the camera may be Batman and lighting Robin, lighting is far from an idiot sidekick. Lighting in a good horror film is a character in and of itself. I think this may stem from an early film style called German Expressionism.
In German Expressionism films like “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”(1920), the main character’s inner world or psyche/emotional state comes to life in their outer world or environment, for example, shadows can represent an inner turmoil or clouded thoughts. Think about how you can employ lighting in your own web videos to bring a set to life or other creative ways that you can visually communicate and move your target audience.
5. Sound: And last but not least you have sound at your disposal. I would argue that sound is the stand out production element for the horror genre and the element that can make or break a horror film. I will admit that I’m a scaredy-cat and just hearing the soundtrack from classic films like “The Exorcist” (1973) scares the bejesus out of me. Think about that for a minute… How powerful is that? The sound alone accomplishes the filmmaker’s (Friedkin) goal to scare the audience.
Is the sound in your web videos that potent? Or do you have a generic campy intro and outro music to indicate that a talking head is about to start rambling? Now that can be a sure fire way to scare away your target audience. If that is not your goal, I suggest that you check out my free course to find out more ways to go beyond the talking head: Win ‘Em Over with Web Video on Udemy.com
Happy Halloween! Go Giants! And don’t drink and drive!
Kamala Appel, aka “the key” in KEA Productions
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