Scare Tactics

With WWFF Scare Factor fast approaching, here are some tips to help you make that scary movie.

DO:
1. Think of a scary premise for the movie.
2. Add eerie, atmospheric music for suspense.
3. Add scary, screechy music for the pee-your-pants moments.
4. Have a scary killer/monster/old girlfriend/whatever. Killers/monsters/old girlfriends who don’t talk are generally scarier than ones who do. Make sure their motive is simple (revenge or insanity is good).
5. Make something completely ordinary the center of the drama (paper bag, telephone, toilet, doorbell, TV, videotape). If you do it well, it will be scary!
6. Have a plot twist at the end or middle end.
7. If you choose to go with gore effects, make them good. Also, it has been shown that a sudden moment of suspense without graphic bloody violence is more scary because the viewer’s imagination finds the scariest possible outcome that they personally can imagine… much scarier than even a realistic gore fest.
8. Set up your scary moments. Watch Patrick Rea’s Out To Pasture in the WWFF Virtual Theatre and notice the nice set up (the atmospheric music, the drive, the kiss) before the first scare. Also, note the quick edit and the sound effect that emphasizes the moment.

DON’T:
1. Complicate the story. It’s only 5 minutes! Think scary.
2. Kill someone off, then send someone else to find the dead person, and then kill them off, and then send someone….
3. Draw on fake blood with a crayon.
4. Show a character being stabbed. Unless you’re a master editor, this inevitably looks stupid.
5. Mistake gore for fright.

Use the comments section to expand these lists.

Watch this video to see how to take an ordinary movie and turn it into a scary movie. Note the music, sound effects, and quick cuts.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Scare Factor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.