Blog Post #7- 10/24/22

Mood Board Project

The genre I chose for my mood board is horror. Given the time of year, it felt only fitting. The recipe for most modern and old horror movies consists of a dark, gritty setting with less than dependable characters and of course a formidable threat, in the form of an angry spirit or an axe wielding maniac. Locations can vary significantly, with some settings including a city or entire state, and some confined to a few rooms in a house. A very good example of this is a movie I saw recently, "The Black Phone". The location for the movie is Wilmington, North Carolina. Despite this, the setting of the movie is mostly a small room holding the main protagonist as he deals with the insanity of the villain. I feel that horror movies can have limitless creative freedom with props, as horror just has to give the audience a feeling of unease and danger. Prop designers can create Eldritch beings beyond human understanding as seen in "The Mist", or disfigured humanoid creatures as seen in "Hellraiser". As far as actors go, many typical horror movies have a group of characters, maybe varying in ages but mostly teenage/millennial actors. This doesn't matter as most characters in a group will die off, giving little time for emotional attachment, good or bad. Tying back into the prop element, costumes play a big part in horror movies. They’re the biggest part in creating a memorable villain or protagonist. A key factor in most horror movies that most don’t even realize on a first watch is lighting. A big component in creating tension, such as flickering lights in a hallway as a creature looms ever closer, lighting can create memorable moments in a lot of movies. Finally, color plays a massive part in movies. Comprised of mostly dark and dirty colors such as brown and dark red, they mostly tie into the set and the area that you see for most of the run time.