06-16-2010, 03:11 PM
Unfortunately, doing a slow paced horror these days is made more difficult by:
#1- A culture that has a short attention span and requires fast pacing, and "jolts" every so often to be entertained.
#2- A culture that has cellphones. Help is always a few button presses away from any character, unless parted from their cellphone. If you DO part a character from their cellphone, you have to do it in an original manner, or again you lose the audience immersion.
#3- A culture that thinks they know what they want. In "selling" a film, you first appease to what the audience thinks they want, (in order to fill up the theater seats) and then have to deliver what they really DO want instead, so that the film is worth watching. Audiences ask for things like "more blood", "more carnage", "more gore", "a Hard R rating", "famous actors", "bigger/better explosions".. Michael Bay stuff.. None of which make for a better film (aside from famous actors, assuming they're also good actors).
#4- This culture also beleives that knowing everything that's in a film will tell them if they'll like the movie or not. That's a completely ridiculous statement on SOO many levels. Taken at face value, this is like someone trying to tickle themselves; it simply doesn't work like that. You could tell someone where your ticklish spot is, (or what genre you prefer, or storylines you definately hate, or whatever), but that's about as close as you're going to get. Think about your musical tastes, and then go ahead and make songs that you'll like and listen to all the time, it's the same mentality. The deeper meaning though is also that you simply CAN't know what everyone is going to contribute to a film. You can GUESS at some of them, based on what you might know of them, but it'd be a bit like betting on horses. Certain actors can save certain films, or doom others.. the same goes for special effects, lighting directors, cinematography choices.. etc, etc. Mixing and matching these elements together often create unpredictable outcomes. You can often see when a movie has no chance of crossing your finish line, but you'll never know how poorly, or how strongly, it'll make an impression on you, and because your life experience differs from everyone else, just cuyz you hate or love it, doesn't guarantee anyone else will agree. Personally, I have yet to find a film that wasn't worth watching for SOME reason (even if I were making fun of it), but plenty I'd never pay for.
#5- Moneylenders who play into the myth that the culture knows what it wants. Moneylenders try to make all of their money back in the first weekend at the theaters. They listen to trends, meaning that if a movie did well, and the fans of that film cited "ultra-violence" as being one of the elements that made it so good, or made that movie stick out above the rest, then they assume that the next horror film should have that in it, or it simply won't do well as it could. More importantly, the "ultra-violence" needs to appear in the trailer, so that potential fans will say "hey, that thing has got everything it needs in-order to be a smash hit! Let's go see it!" Their driving force isn't to creat a great movie, but to make money by getting people convince that a new film has all the elements that the filmgoers will pay to go see. "pay to go see", not "enjoy"
TL DR;
#1- A culture that has a short attention span and requires fast pacing, and "jolts" every so often to be entertained.
#2- A culture that has cellphones. Help is always a few button presses away from any character, unless parted from their cellphone. If you DO part a character from their cellphone, you have to do it in an original manner, or again you lose the audience immersion.
#3- A culture that thinks they know what they want. In "selling" a film, you first appease to what the audience thinks they want, (in order to fill up the theater seats) and then have to deliver what they really DO want instead, so that the film is worth watching. Audiences ask for things like "more blood", "more carnage", "more gore", "a Hard R rating", "famous actors", "bigger/better explosions".. Michael Bay stuff.. None of which make for a better film (aside from famous actors, assuming they're also good actors).
#4- This culture also beleives that knowing everything that's in a film will tell them if they'll like the movie or not. That's a completely ridiculous statement on SOO many levels. Taken at face value, this is like someone trying to tickle themselves; it simply doesn't work like that. You could tell someone where your ticklish spot is, (or what genre you prefer, or storylines you definately hate, or whatever), but that's about as close as you're going to get. Think about your musical tastes, and then go ahead and make songs that you'll like and listen to all the time, it's the same mentality. The deeper meaning though is also that you simply CAN't know what everyone is going to contribute to a film. You can GUESS at some of them, based on what you might know of them, but it'd be a bit like betting on horses. Certain actors can save certain films, or doom others.. the same goes for special effects, lighting directors, cinematography choices.. etc, etc. Mixing and matching these elements together often create unpredictable outcomes. You can often see when a movie has no chance of crossing your finish line, but you'll never know how poorly, or how strongly, it'll make an impression on you, and because your life experience differs from everyone else, just cuyz you hate or love it, doesn't guarantee anyone else will agree. Personally, I have yet to find a film that wasn't worth watching for SOME reason (even if I were making fun of it), but plenty I'd never pay for.
#5- Moneylenders who play into the myth that the culture knows what it wants. Moneylenders try to make all of their money back in the first weekend at the theaters. They listen to trends, meaning that if a movie did well, and the fans of that film cited "ultra-violence" as being one of the elements that made it so good, or made that movie stick out above the rest, then they assume that the next horror film should have that in it, or it simply won't do well as it could. More importantly, the "ultra-violence" needs to appear in the trailer, so that potential fans will say "hey, that thing has got everything it needs in-order to be a smash hit! Let's go see it!" Their driving force isn't to creat a great movie, but to make money by getting people convince that a new film has all the elements that the filmgoers will pay to go see. "pay to go see", not "enjoy"
TL DR;