Artwork Production Log

I tried to photograph the items in my artwork against clear, simple backgrounds which were easier to edit on photoshop. Some of the images were placed on white paper such as the apple and key. Others such as the mouth and hand were a bit trickier, and done against my white dining room wallpaper. The string was hung by a pin from the ceiling, the box was photographed in the attic , and the wellie outside. Later on, my design changed from a box to a sack, which I think works much more effectively. Mrs Kearns advised me to take these pictures again with her camera, as the photos weren't sharp enough.

Originally, my clock photographs took a long time to get just right. On some, my reflection was obvious, and on others, light shone off the clock face. The photos weren't all that clear, and so Mrs Kearns advised me to do them again. I experimented with various, but in the end decided on the one at the top left of the screen.

The final photographs for my art piece, which include a sack instead of a cardboard box, a green apple instead of a red apple, and the Science classroom door.

Step 1: You have just imported the image into photoshop. The image will appear on the screen.

Step 2: Go to the tool bar on the right hand side and click on the magic wand icon. Click on the main area of the photo.

Step 3: Press the delete button. The area you have chosen will now be deleted.

Step 4: Using the magic wand tool, click on a different section of the photograph.

Step 5: Delete this section.

Step 6: Using the rectangular marquee tool on the right hand side toolbar, highlight an unwanted area of the photograph.

Step 7: Delete this section.

Step 8: Repeat step 6 on a different area of the photo.

Step 9: Delete this section.

Step 10: Use the eraser tool on the right hand tool bar to erase all the unwanted remains around your photo. When you have done that, your photo should look something like the one above.

By Paddy Johnson

14 Days Of Isolation Art Work, Film Poster and DVD Cover

You may have to zoom in to read all the writing, especially on the DVD cover.

14 Days Of Isolation Film Script

14 Days Of Isolation Script

Introductory Scene:

Dimly lit science classroom. Camera is in the centre of a rather large double table. Lights flicker on and a solitary figure walks slowly into the scene. He seems solemn and quite depressed. He pulls up a nearby chair and sits down. After a brief moment, he turns to face the camera…

Guy (main character): Two weeks ago, the school was filled with people. Students and teachers roamed around constantly and Turton bristled with activity. Everyone went home for a long, relaxing break. Everybody, except me. I now find myself trapped from outer society. Alone, with limited water supplies and no food whatsoever. Looks like I’m stuck inside this classroom for the rest of the six week holidays.

Scene ends.

Scene 1: Hard Times

Montage (mix of footage and music: no dialogue). Camera is at the right side of a window next to the double table. The window blind is closed, and the room is quite dark…

Guy enters into the shot and walks towards the window. He slowly begins to open the blinds, until fully open. Light enters the scene, and Guy peers sadly out of the window, looking from left to right. He pauses here for a few seconds, before eventually walking out of the shot…

Camera is now positioned at the left side of the window, focused on the classroom. Guy walks from the window to the other side of the classroom.

Camera is positioned at the right hand door of the classroom, as Guy begins to take down chairs on the right hand bench, as if a class was about to start. The camera does not move, and he trails further and further away, until stopping at the window and walking back towards the camera…

Guy finally sits down at the same seat he sat on before. He stares at nothing for a second, before cradling his head in his hands and slamming his fist down on the desk. He then slumps down with his arm- outstretched forwards across the desk…

Scene 2: A Brief Conversation:

Camera is located on a nearby desk, focused on another adjacent desk. On the adjacent desk, there is a large tap central to the camera. After a few moments, Guy enters the shot, a water bottle in his hand.

Guy: Well Jacob, you’ve got to understand that I don’t want to be in this situation any more than you do.

Guy takes a seat central to the camera, and unscrews the top of his water bottle.

Guy: We’re just going to have to live this way. We’re not dead, that’s the most important thing.

Guy turns on the tap and fills up his water bottle. He gestures with the bottle to his left, where Jacob supposedly is.

Guy: Do you want a drink?

In Guy’s mind, Jacob doesn’t answer him, and Guy turns away looking frustrated and upset. He stands up and pushes his chair underneath the desk. He grabs the bottle lid and walks out of the shot.

Scene 3: Bed Of Solid Wood

Camera is focused on the central classroom bench. Guy enters to the right of the shot, takes his shoes off, and puts his coat on the bench.

Camera shot changes. Guy is now more central to the shot, and the tables are seen from the left side. Guy climbs onto the desk and lies down, pulling his coat over him.

Camera shot changes to the opposite side. Guy is lying down.

Shot changes to big close up on Guy’s face. His eyes are closed as he tries to fall asleep.

Scene 4: A Peaceful Dream

Music plays softly in the background. After a few seconds of darkness, Crosby beach is visible, a lone statue in the distance. Guy enters close to the camera, from the left and surveys his surroundings. He turns away from the camera and walks in the opposite direction. Camera does not move, and, after about ten seconds, Guy stops, looks back while shielding his eyes from the sun, and walks back towards the camera.

Transition begins from Guy walking back towards the camera, to Guy walking away from the camera. This time, the camera follows Guy in a sort of hand-held fashion. It isn’t too still, but at the same time, not too shaky. Guy walks towards the statue for about half a minute, and then the music fades out.

Transition swaps to a shot of Guy standing quite close to the statue, and he begins to speak, looking away from the camera and occasionally towards the statue.

Guy: These statues resemble me. Alone and solitary, split up from each other over great distances. But for these few statues, there is no reunion. They will never meet each other, speak to each other, and are forever condemned to be separated from their own kind.

Scene fades out into roughly five seconds of darkness.

Scene 5: A Terrible Nightmare

Camera focuses on a field in Fornby, with a lone figure visible in the distance. Rather dramatic music begins in the background, which suggests that either something is wrong, or something is going to happen. After a couple of seconds, Guy enters the scene from the left and looks around. He sees the figure and begins to behave strangely, looking rather distressed. He looks back towards the camera.

Guy is fixated to the spot in fear. The figure looms closer and the music changes dramatically. The figure begins to slow down and stands directly in front of Guy, to the right of the camera. Guy holds out his arm in fear, shaking slightly. The scene fades to black.

Scene 6: The Absence Of A Friend

Camera is focused on Guy’s face in a big close up. He wakes up with a start, eyes wide and gasping for breath. The shot lingers for a second before changing to…

The two desks which Guy is sleeping on are now visible. Guy picks up his coat and casts it aside, moving towards the edge of the desks.

Guy: Jacob, I just had the weirdest dream ever.

Guy gets off the bench.

Guy: This man, this strange man walked towards me.

Guy holds his arm out, gesturing.

Guy: He just stood there right in front of me. Then, I woke up.

Guy looks around as if puzzled, or looking for something.

Guy: Jacob? Jacob.

Guy exits the shot, looking for Jacob.

Camera shot switches to head of the classroom. A long desk is visible, and one of the desks Guy was sleeping on in the background. Guy enters the shot and looks underneath the desk.

Guy: Jacob? Jacob, this isn’t funny. Jacob?

Guy hurries towards the camera and out of the shot.

Camera switches to another longer desk, and Guy rushes to the end of it.

Guy: Jacob? Jacob?!

Guy walks towards a side door, tries it, then walks away slowly. He exits the shot.

Side shot of the main classroom door. Guy enters the shot and tries the classroom door. He knows there is no chance of it opening, but to his immediate surprise the door opens slightly. A smile covers Guy’s face, his eyes wide in disbelief. He tugs at the door again and again until it finally swings open. He slowly walks round it.

Guy: I don’t believe it.

He goes to the other side of the door, and finally regains himself.

Guy: I’m free!

He hurriedly closes the door behind him and the scene finishes.

Scene 7: The Return

Camera is near the end of a long corridor. Guy has closed the door behind him and is visible on the right of the shot. In the distance, the same man from his nightmare is now in reality. The problem is, Guy hasn’t yet noticed this.

Camera changes to an over the shoulder shot of the man. He starts moving and the camera follows him. Music starts softly in the background, screeching violins.

The shot changes to in front of the man, and walks backwards as the man carries on.

A medium close up of Guy follows. He sees the man, and the happiness on his face has been replaced by horror at seeing him. After a few moments, he retreats out of sight.

Shot changes in front of the man once again.

The camera is just behind the man, as he pushes a set of double doors open to the area Guy has just been. He turns to where Guy has gone, and walks down a set of stairs. We can clearly see a knife behind his back, which suggests he has murderous intentions.

He reaches the bottom of the stairs and walks slowly forward, the camera following him in an over the shoulder fashion. Visible in the background is Guy, struggling uselessly to open a blue door, which is clearly locked. The camera moves closer to him in a medium close up of his hand wrestling with the door handle.

Guy finally gives in and lets go of the handle, sinking helplessly lower and lower to the ground, an expression of terror engraved on his face.

The camera switches, as if to show the scene from Guy’s point of view. The man walks forward slowly and bends down to face Guy level to level. He smiles in manic glee, and the film suddenly ends there, proposing a cliff-hanger ending and making way for the credits.

By Paddy Johnson 10S1

Horror Genre

Films I have heard of in the horror genre include:

* ones which I have seen

Psycho*

Alien

The Shining*

Aliens

Zombieland

The Thing

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein*

Frankenstein

Rosemary’s Baby

Let The Right One In

The Exorcist (and sequels)

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers

Night Of The Living Dead

Dawn Of The Dead

Shaun Of The Dead*

The Birds

Grindhouse

Evil Dead

Halloween (Both versions)

Halloween 2

Peeping Tom

Freaks

The Hound Of The Baskervilles

Misery

The Haunting

The Wicker Man (Both Versions)

The Phantom Of The Opera (Both Versions)

Dr Jekyla And Mr. Hyde

Predator

The Others*

Metropolis

I Walked With A Zombie

House Of Wax

Village Of The Damned (Both Versions)

Children Of The Damned

Quatermass And The Pit

Witchfinder General

Count Dracula

Black Christmas

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Both Versions)

Jaws

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Carrie

The Omen (Both Versions)

The Hills Have Eyes (Both Versions)

Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes!

The Amityville Horror

Silent Night, Deadly Night

Salem’s Lot

The Fog

Friday The 13^th

An American Werewolf In London

Creepshow*(Not Seen Sequels)

Poltergeist (and sequels)

Children Of The Corn (and sequels)

Gremlins (and sequels)

A Nightmare On Elm Street (and sequels)

Re-Animator

The Fly

The Hitcher

Little Shop Of Horrors

Hellraiser

The Lost Boys

The Blob

Child’s Play

Fright Night

Pumpkinhead

It*

Tremors

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle*

The Lawnmower Man

Leprechaun

The Tommyknockers

Graveyard Shift

The Craft

From Dusk Till Dawn

The Frighteners

Scream

Anaconda

Event Horizon

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Mimic

The Relic

Urban Legend

The Blair Witch Project

Deep Blue Sea

End Of Day

Lake Placid

The Mummy*

The Ninth Gate

Sleepy Hollow*

Stir Of Echoes

Dracula 2000

Final Destination*(and sequels)

Hollow Man

Ghosts Of Mars

Jeepers Creepers

Thirteen Ghosts

28 Days Later

Cabin Fever

Deathwatch

Dog Soldiers

Eight Legged Freaks

The Eye

FeardotCom

Ghost Ship

Jason X

Queen Of The Damned

Resident Evil* (not seen sequels)

The Ring

Darkness Falls*

Freddy vs. Jason

House Of 1000 Corpses

Ju-on: The Grudge

Underworld

Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?

Creep

Godsend

Saw (and sequels)

Boogeyman

The Cave

The Descent

The Devil’s Rejects

Doom

Hostel

Land Of The Dead

White Noise

Wolf Creek

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane

An American Haunting

Black Sheep*

The Host

Severance

Silent Hill

Snakes On A Plane

1408

28 Weeks Later

30 Days Of Night

Alien vs. Predator* (not seen sequel)

Grim Reaper

Hannibal (and sequels)

Hatchet

I Am Legend*

The Invasion

The Reaping

Shrooms

The Mist

Teeth

Cloverfield*

The Cottage

Diary Of The Dead

House*

Let The Right One In

The Number 23

Drag Me To Hell

Jennifer’s Body

My Bloody Valentine

Orphan

Pandorum

Sorority Row

Triangle

Beetlejuice*

Common similarities between horror films include:

Ø A haunted house (e.g. The Others, House) or graveyard setting (e.g. The Omen, Graveyard Shift)

Ø A main central villain (e.g. Frank Cotton, portrayed by Sean Chapman/Oliver Smith in Hellraiser, and Freddy Krueger played by Robert Englund in A Nightmare On Elm Street.)

Ø A terrifying, lengthy finale (e.g, like the one in The Blair Witch Project).

Ø Horror films are sometimes combined with science fiction (e.g, in Alien, and Quartermass And The Pit).

Ø Thriller films can also be combined with horror films (e.g. 28 Days Later, and Cabin Fever).

Ø Some horror films rely primarily on special/visual effects (e.g. Final Destination, and Cloverfield).

Ø Other horror films have loud, over-emphasised soundtracks for additional effect (e.g, Alien, and Psycho).

Ø Most horror films provide scary situations and taboos, which are out of the ordinary for an audience (e.g, the graphic, violent scenes of Saw and Hostel).

Ø Over time, people have grown used to horror movies and some have become hard to impress. Films such as Black Sheep, a horror comedy, and The Blair Witch Project, a horror film shown from a hand held camera, demonstrate novelty value or plenty of comedy to satisfy the viewer.

How The Genre Has Changed Over Time

The genre has changed over time from its beginnings in 1890, to present day. The most notable first horror film was Le Manoir du diable (or The House Of The Devil), in 1896. This was brief at only 2 minutes long. The early 20^th century introduced monsters into horror films for the first time. The first monster ever to be introduced to the genre was Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, in films such as Esmeralda (1906), and The Hunchback (1909).

Some of the earliest lengthy horror films were created by German filmmakers in the 1910s and 1920s. 1922 even brought around Nosferatu, the first vampire themed film ever and an unauthorised version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Dramas also borrowed aspects from the horror genre, including The Hunchback Of Notre Dame in 1923, and The Phantom Of The Opera in 1925.

The 1930’s brought American Producers, who subsequently popularised the genre and introduced gothic horrors such as Dracula and The Mummy. Freaks, a 1934 horror film offered a different kind of horror, and portrayed circus sideshow performers as monsters instead. The film M, was also slightly different as it involved a serial killer instead of a normal monster. Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde was also a classic important film of the genre.

The 1940s brought The Wolf Man, which wasn’t the first werewolf film, but the first major, influential one. Several B Movies including I Walked With A Zombie, and The Body Snatcher were also created in this time period. The first horror movie produced by an Indian film industry was Mahal, in 1949, which was also one of the first films to deal with reincarnation.

In the 1950s, the genre was divided into three subgenres:

The Horror Of Personality (films which do not contain monsters or supernatural beings, but ordinary villains who possess horrific personalities). Examples of these films include Psycho (1960), and Whatever Happened To Baby Jane (1962).

The Horror Of Armageddon (The horror concerning the end of the world). Examples of these films include 28 Days Later (2002) and I Am Legend (2007).

The Horror Of The Demonic World. Examples of these films include The Exorcist (1973), and The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow (1999).

Also around this time, the themes of alien invasion and mutation were brought in by the Japanese in the form of low budget films. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956) also incorporated the paranoia of the cold war into horror films. Science fiction elements were also weaved into horror films round about this time. During the 50’s and 60’s production companies also focused on horror films including the famous Hammer Film Productions. These films included The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959).

Around this time, American National Pictures made a series of Edgar Allen Poe themed films starring famous actor Vincent Price. Teaming up with Tigon British Film Productions, the company would produce the film Witchfinder General. More horror of personality films followed with Peeping Tom (1960), and Whatever Happened To Baby Jane (1962) being the main ones, plus The Birds, a horror of Armageddon film about nature gone mad came about in 1963.

In 1968, Night Of The Living Dead pushed the boundaries of the genre further than ever before. Blending gore with psychological insights, it succeeded in bringing horror into everyday life and rebelling against the earlier gothic horror trends. Most gory films at the time were low budget and include Blood Feast (1963), and Two Thousand Maniacs (1964).

The Production Code Of America (censorship guideline company) ended in 1964, and the 1970s subsequently gave way to A movies, gory horror movies with sexual undertones, mixed with the occult (latin- knowledge of the hidden). The success of Rosemary’s Baby in 1968 encouraged the success of many 70s A movies including The Exorcist (1973), and other films which portrayed the devil as the main source of evil.

Evil children and reincarnation also became popular themes in films including The Omen (1976) and Alice, Sweet Alice (1977). Satan also became the villain in some horror films round about this time. Horror movies which were influenced by the 1960s such as The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), related to the Vietnam war of that period.

Famous horror writer Steven King also allowed films to be made of his books at this time, starting with Carrie in 1976. Slasher films also became quite popular with Black Christmas (1974), Halloween (1978) and Friday The 13^th (1980). The success of Jaws in 1975 spurred off other marine based horror films in the 70s including Orca and Up From The Depths. Jaws used a considerable amount of B-movie elements and mixed them with a big budget to successful results.

1979s Alien combined horror with science fiction effectively to become one of the greatest horror films ever made. Foreign horror films dubbed into English also came about round this time.

The 80s were well known for producing a number of horror sequels, some starting in that time with films such as Poltergeist (1982), and A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984). Comedy elements were also added to horror films at this time including American Werewolf In London (1981) and Fright Night (1985).

Horror films also became popular on video, especially the gory ones. It was also a growing fact that it had become easier and easier over the years for children to get hold of and watch unsuitable horror material. More sequels followed in the 90s, including films, which linked between fictional and real life horror. Scream, a film which mixed horror and tongue in cheek humour to new grounds in the slasher genre.

In 1994, Interview With The Vampire combined theatre like styles with horror. By this time, the genre was exhausted due to a large number of slasher and gory films in the 80s, and fans of these movies grew up to like fantasy or science fiction movies instead, which incorporated computer graphic imagery.

To revive itself, the genre turned to self mocking ironic films, often using parody, especially in the late 1990s. Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend helped to re-ignite the slasher genre. The Blair Witch Project was also successful in 1999, as it was original and new at the time.

The early 2000s did not produce many horror films. Among the most successful were Final Destination (2000) and The Others (2001). The Others was also different, as it relied on psychology rather than gore to scare it’s audience. The zombie genre also increased in popularity after the 2000s and several films (Dawn Of The Dead, 28 Days Later etc.) were created. Extreme graphic violence as depicted in films such as Saw (2004) and Hostel (2005) was also popular around this period.

Film remakes such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2004), The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and Halloween (2007) also dominated the 2000s.

How Changes In Technology Have Influenced The Genre

There have been obvious changes in technology since horror movies first began and a fair majority of modern horror films rely on computer graphic imagery. Some of these films may focus too much on the computer graphics and the plot becomes weak or nearly non-existent and everything else is second best to the imagery.

Although older horror movies did not incorporate effects of the same quality, most of them did possess a certain quality unmatched by effects of any kind. Some modern horror films are quality, but an equal amount follow the technology mentioned above.