Why doesn't anyone make horror movies now?

What type is the hottest and most profitable in the last two years? If you have a little observation on the film industry, you will know that it must be a horror film. In the last two years, the dark horse at the box office has also been a horror film. The cost is not high, so I realize that the main creation is fun, so there have really been many experience horror movies in the past two years.

moviemaker magazine invited nine photographers who specialize in shooting horror movies, and asked them to give their own opinions on how to shoot horror movies. I recommend everyone to have a look.

Maxime Alexandre (Thriller, Eyes Across the Mountain, Annabel 2: Birth)

Even though shooting horror movies is the final stage for every photographer, there is no chance for other types of movies to let you play with darkness and color at the same time, so that someone can be immersed in a deserted desert or an empty closet visually, or turn the room into a nightmare while rendering it beautiful.

dealing with remakes or sequels

The language of film photographers has changed and will continue to change, and you are not remaking it to make it better, but to tell the story to new audiences in a new way. For those who remember the original, the significance of your existence is to give the new work a new color and feeling.

My first remake was alexandre aja's Eyes Across the Mountain. When we started, I had not seen the original, and the director asked me not to read it. I also think it's right not to look; Our version is completely different from the previous visual picture. As for Annabel 2: Birth, because it is a sequel, I could have made it at will, but from the perspective of the whole series, it was wrong to do so. I think it should be like "Evocation". Although there are differences in photography, the overall handling method should make the audience feel that they are a series.

Harlem blaschke (Bloody Night, The Witch)

I make one movie at a time, and I don't think about the subject matter and expectations. If you look at Kubrick's scariest scenes, they are also very bright, but the classic picture of Woody Allen is as dark as it is. Kubrick's brightness becomes "harsh" and Allen's black becomes "romantic". The most important thing is that the creator is fully engaged in his work. I will go over the pictures in my mind over and over again, and then capture the pictures that convey the most effective emotions, timing and energy through the lens.

making historical films

I like historical films and I like this sense of crossing. As a cinematographer, I like to take pictures with few motives, and I like to create through elimination. Nowadays, the world is colorful, and it takes a lot of work to refine them into something for people to watch-not only to present a harmonious picture, but also to effectively reflect the real life of human beings. In the past, there were few colors, materials and light sources, which allowed you to focus on more essential problems more quickly. You may be able to convey all human emotions and create a very rich and delicate film by using the window light source. In fact, you still have many choices, such as the size and location of windows, weather, time and geographical location.

Manuel Dacosse (Anna's Labyrinth, The Nightmare, The Crisis of Evolution)

When making horror movies, directors have more specific requirements for lighting, and they often make them try more new shooting methods.

About the Italian giallo form used in Anna's Labyrinth and Enchanted Night

We try to deal with the colors in the same way as the giallo movies. Directors Helianne Kate and Bruno Fozzani showed me many of those movies, and we learned some ideas from them to adapt them.

Michael Fei Mu Gnarry (Before I Wake Up, Ghost Eye: The Origin of Evil Spirit, Jerrod Game)

In any kind of film, we all want to establish a connection with the characters, so that the audience will feel substituted. In horror films, the development time of characters is often less than other types of films, but it is still very important; Otherwise, it's just a series of fake jump-scares and empty horror movies.

compared with most other types of movies, horror movies are usually more closely related to black movies. Before making every movie, everyone will discuss the color for a long time, and there is no unified existence of all the main creators for the color, so everyone needs to calibrate the color tone all the time. When shooting a horror film, how dark it is also needs a lot of discussion, because we want to create anxiety in the shadow, but darkness feels different to everyone, so we go through a similar process of checking the color tone. This is probably the most important place to test the quality of a project, so when we say that we want to make something in the dark, we test the paint, cloth, color of light and skin, and put these details where we want to scare the audience.

Working with director Mike Flanagan

When I work with someone many times, we will improve ourselves together, thus making things move faster. Working with Mike has strengthened my shooting experience, and we have advanced the preparation work to the stage of shooting; We will do it together with the script, so we will try our best to give Mike and the actors the most time to do a good rehearsal.

Karim Hussein (Gunman, Virus Antibody, We Are Still Here, Mohawk)

This genre provides the freedom of imagination. You can go to all extremes and do things that other types of films can't do. You can also take the opposite approach: a very natural picture to contrast sharply with strong content. For me, when shooting a movie with political or social content, I will prefer to use a more natural picture composition, and I will not use it when shooting a horror movie. Because the definition of terror is very broad, it can be integrated into many styles, and if it is done well, it can play many interesting places.

How to choose a style-an enhanced or naturalistic style

All choices should be made from the perspective of the story and the director, as well as the first images and skills that come to mind when reading the script. Because my brain turns fast, when I finish reading the script, I will first suggest the camera, lens, lighting method and photography skills to the director. Then, we will meet again to discuss and find some movie clips, but instead of copying and imitating, we will pull the tab and discuss in detail how to add pictures and new things, instead of imitating. After several meetings and discussions, we decided what style to take, but still on the basis of serving the story, not to make a beautiful picture.

James Kniest (Annabel, Silent Night, Mourner)

It's quite challenging to make a horror movie, because the audience's expectations are really scared. In the past few years, this type of film has multiplied. There are many traditional ways to scare people, but it's better not to repeat these old methods. People often discuss how to pay tribute to the classics and bring fresh ideas to the screen. Some of the horror film directors I have worked with like jump-scare technique very much, while others seldom use it. Personally, I tend to be psychological and pure but possibly real evil elements.

Many practices allowed in horror movies

I think everything is possible in horror movies now, and there is no boundary at all. From the perspective of stories, there are so many themes that can be used today, from nuclear disaster to AI, to politics to genetic modification, and there are many real stories that can be used, and the ultimate goal for photographers is to bring interesting and scary experiences to the audience visually and in stories. The demand and market of horror films have greatly increased, and the film budget has also increased, so that filmmakers have more assets to do things according to their preferences. Visually, this will help filmmakers continue to increase their output value to meet the expectations of the audience. They are much more complicated today, and they hope that the film can be presented intuitively, even if the performance, script or concept are not achieved.

Jan-Michael Loada (The Legend of Halloween, Don't Kill It, Axe 2: The Murderer)

Horror movies are difficult to make for several reasons. It is full of many cold scenery, and it is difficult to balance the light and shadow You must show these to the audience, let them understand what happened, but at the same time, you must hide something and make the scene scary. You must grasp this degree well.

Horror movies like killing. I mean, that's why people like to watch them. However, it is too complicated to shoot these scenes in an independent horror film. From blood vessels to artificial limbs to time, there are many action parts to consider, but there is usually only one shot. This may lead to a rather depressing environment; The half-second scene of someone being beheaded is even more prepared than the 1-minute scene of talking in a restaurant.

About dealing with sequels

The first thing I saw with director adam green was watching the first three hatchets. Will Barratt, a former photography director, has carefully carved unique pictures for this series of films. I hope to shoot this same temperament and add my own things at the same time. My goal is to recreate the interesting spirit of the previous work and add as many colors as possible. My background is shooting MV, and the cool packaging of MV is very popular. Although "Axe 2: The Murderer" is a bit dramatic, Paul Salmons and I tried our best to use lighting to make the film look a little detached from reality.

Michael Marshall (Return of Mutant Girl, Curse of Chucky, Cult of Chucky)

In many ways, you can say that it is easier to shoot horror movies than drama movies, because there is more room for experiments. You can try all kinds of distracting angles, shots and shadows in a feature film, which will also lead to the greatest difficulty, because you still have to restrain yourself, cultivate a language, stick to it and show some restraint. This may be more difficult than it sounds, because strangely, horror film studios are usually interesting. People usually have a good time, have fun on the set and often have a good time. Of course, there will be times of nervousness, but according to my experience, horror movies are usually very interesting, which may lead a person to fall into utter stupidity and try things that have nothing to do with the language you use. Consistency is important.

making a horror movie usually means making a sequel. I'm not sure what makes these films so easy to become series; I guess the audience gets pleasure from these familiar horror pictures. When making a sequel, I will watch the previous films, but only to get a general feeling. I won't let them affect my works excessively. Usually I rely on my intuition to express my interest. The series "Ghost Baby" is a little different, because there is a very dedicated person at the helm. The writer and director Don Mancini knows his main characters and what will make him react, and he has a very firm idea of how he wants to tell his story, which makes working with him full of fun. He is open to everything, but he knows what is useful and what is not.

Toby Oliver (Wolf Creek 2, Escape from Breaking Town, Happy Death Day)

Generally speaking, horror movies are interesting and worthwhile for film photographers. You have the opportunity to deal with elements beyond the mundane, supernatural, bizarre, violent, bloody and fighting, but most importantly, it must be horrible and dark most of the time. Darkness is a friend of horror movies, and I am often challenged to light and shoot in almost complete darkness, but we still need to see something. Usually, the scariest thing is what you don't see, so it's very different from making a romantic comedy.

About horror movies with humorous elements

When horror movies have comic elements, it depends on the tone set by the director. Both Escape from Death Town and Happy Death Day contain humorous elements, but their expressions are different: Escape from Death Town contains some very funny scenes, which breaks the rather dramatic way of thriller, while Happy Death Day is more of a whole mocking tone with some real horror, which is a more relaxed film, so the photographer of Escape from Death Town adopts a naturalistic approach at first and gradually transitions to the horror picture.