1) Film On Location

One of the easiest ways to make your film feel instantly more romantic is to choose a romantic setting and film on-location. Paris, London, New York- choose a setting for your movie that you find particularly romantic (provided that you have the budget for it). If it’s Paris, use wide shots of your characters walking along the Senne at night, how the water reflects the lights off of the surrounding buildings so it looks like there is a sky of stars above and below you. Utilizing wide aerial shots to display the setting in all of its glory really helps to set the mood for an iconic romance. And, let’s face it, there’s nothing less romantic than a green screen.

2) Romanticize Setting

If you’re unable to film in one of the world’s most iconically romantic locations, there are still ways to make your setting work in your favor. If you’re filming in a small rural setting, take some wide shots of the open fields or find a very lush green woods to film. If there’s a particularly scenic river or lake, have a scene where the characters are boating. If there’s a barn, have the town hold an annual party and decorate the rustic barn with string lights. Have the protagonist take their love interest to a pond that meant a lot to them growing up.

The best way to figure out how to bring the romance here is to really get to know the setting you’re filming in so that you can find those specific romantic elements that only locals would know. If you’re choosing an area you’ve lived in then make a list of spots that are particularly meaningful or special in your eyes. This way, you can allow the viewer to see those spots through your lens. If you’re filming in an area you’ve never been to, it may be helpful to interview some local people to see if they have any insight on these types of more symbolic or meaningful settings.

3) Use Close-ups

Just as you should use wide aerial shots to set the moods, you’ll need to utilize a lot of close-ups in a romance movie. This is because one major part of building a romance is showing moments where the characters learn something new about each other or start to think of one another in a new way. As with many romances, they’ll likely meet and make all kinds of initial judgments about one another. But then, little by little, they’ll start to realize the person is completely different than they thought.

So, for example, perhaps the story is girl meets boy and girl thinks boy is an arrogant player. Then one day she notices him running toward a family to give a little girl back her stuffed animal. Another day maybe he takes the blame for defacing a sign, but she notices another boy put a can of spray paint in his bag. We need closeups of these little moments so that not only the audience notices these instances, but also that they are alerted that our ‘girl’ noticed these things.

4) The Declaration

Every iconic indie romance has the iconic ‘declaration’ moment. This could either be a good or bad thing, it could be the moment where they realize their love for one another or they realize the relationship can’t be sustained for long (that’s just summer love). Either way, you’ll need to set the mood and do it in a unique way. No one wants to see the rain scene from The Notebook over and over again in every romance they see. When you’re making a declaration scene of your own, try to make it both unique and emblematic of the relationship you’ve build. For example, if you’ve crafted a quirky dorky couple, give them an equally quirky and dorky declaration of their love. Perhaps they both show up to the same Halloween party dressed as Spock, get mad at each other, but the anger quickly dissolves into kissing.

5) How do they change?

Thematically, although the romance is crucial to a romance film, you must keep in mind that the two characters are individuals as well. Regardless of whether or not they end up together at the end of your film, you must keep in mind the question- how do they change one another? The romance aside, these two people are important in one another’s lives and are crucial in shaping each other into the people they will become. For example, in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind going through the experience of losing his relationship makes Joel change his mind about wanting it to be over. And, watching the relationship back, makes him view himself differently and changes the things that he holds as important.

The post How to Make a Summer Romance Movie appeared first on George Davison Studios.

As you can see, horror films are an extremely visceral experience. And, as a horror film creator, it’s up to you to create this moment by moment sensory journey for your viewers.

1) Maintain the tone

Throughout the film, the tone should remain ominous and unsettling if not outright terrifying. You should have peaks and dips to these feelings throughout, moments where the audience feels slightly safer than others. For example, a scene taking place at night in the woods should make the audience feel tenser than a scene where your character is walking to meet a friend at a cafe. But even the cafe scene shouldn’t feel completely safe, the suspense in your shooting and tone should remain.

In addition, you’re able to mix genres a little as long as horror remains the primary. For example, it’s actually incredibly easy to get laughs during a horror movie if you insert a small comedic line. This is because, if you’ve done your job right, the audience is so tense that they’re desperate for anything to break that tension. Get Out is an excellent example of this where the comedy comes in the form of Chris’s best friend, Rod. His scenes where he’s trying to tell the police about his friend’s kidnapping and where he’s speaking on the phone to Chris’s girlfriend were hilarious, partly because of the acting but also because they were a much-needed relief in an otherwise very tense movie. Ultimately, though, filmmakers should make sure to never divert so much that you’re losing the overarching tone of horror.

2) Shoot through things

As a filmmaker, you may be tempted to always go for the closeup to show off your actor’s emotions and immerse them in the scene. But to create that sense of suspense, wide shots have a much more ominous effect. For example, let’s take the example stated earlier of the character walking to the cafe. If you shoot from a street view right in front of them, that doesn’t feel very ominous right? But instead what if we see that shot through some bushes across the street? Suddenly, this creates a much more ominous feeling as though our character is being watched. Adopting a wide-angle shot whenever you can, especially in the less climactic moments, will keep that foreboding sense alive even if the tension is lowered momentarily.

3) Proper use of CGI & Makeup

Modern viewers are so desensitized to modern horror effects now. You couldn’t get by on 80’s practical or special effects and expect your audience to feel the same sense of fear that we get from more current ones. When deciding how best to split between practical effects and CGI, one must look at your budget. You likely don’t have the budget to CGI everything nor should you. When it comes to gore, nothing beats practical effects like makeup and the classic fake blood. However, CGI can be helpful when it comes to the more supernatural scares of the movie. For example, if you’re going to include a jump scare where the ‘villain’ crawls toward the protagonist at an inhumane rate of speed. This step into the supernatural will likely shock the audience and provide a good jump scare for theatergoers.

4) Draw from the real world

Thematically speaking, horror movies are much scarier when they draw from a real human fear rather than simply relying on tropes like vampires and werewolves. For example, take the movie Us. Is it a movie about doppelgangers? Yes, but it’s also about parallels between low class and high-class families and resentment built up from our current class system. Another more recent horror film, It Follows, is about a creature walking behind you wherever you go. But, more largely, it’s about the contagious nature of STDs. Even if you already have a supernatural idea, think of a real-life phenomenon it could parallel. This way you’re not only providing jump scares, but real psychological terror as well.

5) Underexpose

It may feel completely against your instincts to do so, but underexposing certain shots in your film can help to create an air of mystery by leaving some portions of the frame in shadows. Some filmmakers may opt to simply expose normally and then color grade in post, but it doesn’t quite create that same natural ominous effect. It’s more effective to light your scene so that it’s naturally underexposed (about a stop of underexposure) and then to bring it out more later. CAUTION: Don’t go too far with this because you won’t be able to bring it back up in post.

6) Unique Angles

Ultimately the goal of the camera work in your horror film is to unsettle the audience. One way of doing this is to create a unique angle such as the Dutch Tilt. This is where the camera angle is deliberately slanted to one side, creating a disorienting and uneasy effect for the audience. You could also utilize an extreme bird’s eye view or a very low angle or your own variation of an unsettling shot. Creating shots that are rarely utilized in film will make the audience feel on edge and unsettled, which is just another manner of keeping them on their toes (metaphorically speaking, hopefully they’re not that scared).

7) A Good Score

Some of the most iconic horror and suspense films have utilized an iconic score that ramps up the tension. Take Halloween or even Jaws, two movies with incredibly effective scores. All you need to do is hear the beginning notes of one of those scores playing and suddenly the tension and sense of suspense in the room can go from a five to a ten. Even a more modern example like Us utilized this with the horror remix of the classic I Got 5 On It. We recommend either working with a score artist or finding your own I Got 5 On It to make it easy and powerful to shift the tension in your film.

The post The Keys of Horror Movie Making appeared first on George Davison Studios.