Its seems killer babies is not a foreign concept to cinema, with the franchise 'It's Alive' spawning several sequels and a modern remake.

It's Alive (1974) trailer.


'Its Alive!' - Will be all you hear for the next 30 seconds! The tone of the trailer has become completely amusing with the passing of time. Also note the number of times we are shown random clips of people shooting, supposedly at the killer baby.


Its Alive (2008) trailer.



A baby born to a human couple turns out to be a mutant monster with an appetite to kill. This trailer seems much more sinister in terms of tone and with the use of conventional film trailer techniques. Its also interesting to note the baby itself is hardly shown in both trailers in an attempt to keep the suspense and tension high.

As such, our trailer itself could parody and pastiche films such as these with our own Chainsaw wielding baby being the perfect setup for a killer infant on the loose.

References for elevator concept.

References for the laboratory scene. The style and aesthetic that came to mind was a sort of retro style of technology with a 1950s era, mixed with Frankenstein/Dr Strangelove overtones.







Notice the use of lighting in Dr Strangelove (1964), with the overarching map and led blips creating a very dramatic effect.

Hey guys, check out the Pixar Short 'Jack-Jack Attack!' made for The Incredibles. It features an extraordinary baby with some rather killer powers in a comedic and charming way.

I stumbled upon this video by a graduate of the Rochester UCA, David Keefe.

Love is Real - By David Keefe, maybe the doll type animations are what we are after?

http://playloveisreal.blogspot.com/

Was doing some research and found some films with Chainsaws. Check out Evil Dead where the character Ash attaches a chainsaw to his arm in the video below.


Note the tone and pace of the trailer with the theatrical narrative, as well as the hand rising up from the ground at 0:18 seconds that we discussed at our previous meeting.


Interestingly, the third film of the Evil Dead series takes a completely different tone. Where the previous trailer kept a creepy atmosphere, this is completely comical and light-hearted.


And finally, there is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films to be aware of. There are a number of films and sequels from the original 1974 film to the 2006 remake. It quite interesting to compare how trailer techniques have developed with the two films, which are essentially based on the same subject matter.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)


The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

With children possessing a natural uncanny ability when it comes to horror, perhaps we can push this further by making the humanoid baby a doll/puppet. Dolls and puppets are perhaps even more uncanny in their strange likeness to humans, and whether they are 'alive' or not.

Chucky from Child's Play springs to mind as an initial point of inspiration, capturing the creepiness of dolls with a true sense of horror.



The puppet from Saw also features uncanny characteristics in its stillness and ever so subtle movements.



The arms of the baby doll could be tweaked to be a chainsaw blade itself, perhaps the result of some mad experimentation to bring the puppet alive similar to that of Shelley's Frankenstein. Check out the 1910 version of Frankenstein below.



The doll/puppet idea could be worked to be a parody to the cliche of murderous dolls as a full scale horror, or perhaps even comedic depending its style and presentation. Whether its plausible to go down this route is up to discussion.

Now would be the best time to say, that I'm pretty much taking the bull by the horns in terms of research, so that's why there's a lot coming your way at the moment.

Our baby has to be all these things to be a successful character. I would go into more detail, but until we know what this baby is doing, and for what reasons it's going to be hard to draw inspiration from elsewhere (or necessary inspiration for that matter)

Just for the hell of it, here again, are The Simpson's parodying The Village Of The Damned. Perhaps this is the kind of thing we could go for? comedy/parody/horror?

This project for my group, without writing an entire script, is clearly going to be centred around horror and/or sci-fi.

'The Day Of The...' already brings to mind the works of George. A. Romero and Lucio Fulci, which is horror. 'Chainsaw' immediately evokes a reaction in my mind personally, of horror or gore. Because of this, I would be more likely to lean towards Horror than Sci-fi, however using traits from both could be beneficial.

The 1950's gave birth to some of the most recognised Horror/Sci-Fi titles of our time including:

Godzilla
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
The Werewolf
The Blob
Dracula
The Mummy
Plus many more

As you can see, these are some well known movies, even by today's standards. By looking at some of these 50's trailers of successful movies, this will surely give us an insight into what we should be aiming for.



The sound is so much different compared to what I see in a cinematic trailer today. It is dramatic from the offset and there is no dip or let, in it's pulse. there are no moments where the music cuts out for a particular reason, and it is well suited to its genre, it is genuinely spooky.

As well as this, i can notice the transition of scenes are few and far between compared to today's standards, and the actual sweeping transitions are non existent, it literally just moves into the next clip.

It is also very text heavy, again compared to today's standards, and the text itself is in a particular font.




Although the musical score isn't brought in immediately like The Mummy trailer, when it does come in, it is necessary and dramatic. Even though it isn't brought in straight away, the dialogue gets straight to the point. This is the opposite to today's kind of trailers, which leave you guessing right until the last minute.

Once again, a strong yet sterile voice over is telling the story, almost an entire synopsis of the movie is given in the trailer, all the mystery is gone. Also in this trailer (and many of the others I've viewed but not posted) the text is arranged and fonted in a particular way, and is used often.

The actors are again introduced as a big part of the movie, to draw in the crowd (how the hell Steve McQueen is playing a teenager when he looks about 37 I'll never know) and are given their own portion of the trailer.

These things mentioned, are the same in pretty much most of the trailers i viewed, there is a 'formula' so to speak, in what makes a successful 50's trailer.

The score, the font, the voice over, the transitions of clips, and introduction of characters/cast, and the pacing of the drama and suspense are all different to what you would see in a trailer today, yet were considered successful in the 50's.

The Simpson's is easily the most successful cartoon of all time, and arguably the most successful TV show in general. the longevity of the show, its net worth and ever increasing mainstream exposure, would tell even the least informed TV watcher, this show is extremely big.

As mentioned in yesterdays lecture, The Simpson's is a poster child for Post Modern animation. It is renowned for it's clever parodying of old and new TV/movies as well being topically humorous.
The reason I have brought this up, is because if you look at some of the subtle, and some not so subtle parodies that The Simpson's features, you will actually realize (depending on the amount TV/Film history you know) that 80% of the show is parody of other media.

How can one show be so successful by borrowing from so many others and having so few ideas of its own? simple: The script is solid, the parodies are useful, meaningful to the plot, timed and executed perfectly and the characters in The Simpson's are likable and easily empathized with.

Look at these parodies (10 points if you get them without looking at the title), although out of context of the show, they are still extremely funny, and can be stood alone and still work!








Now, as mentioned, these are less effective as comedy parody when taken out of context with the rest of an episode, however, you can still see the attempt to make each piece humorous.

Feature length movies that are entire parodies (such as Meet The Spartans, Scary Movie etc.) are often known as spoofs. Although there was a niche for this type of film around 8 to 10 years ago, the overuse and over-saturation on the market of these types of film have led to those themselves becoming low quality cliché's. You know without second thought that when you're going to see one of these films, you're going to see utter shit 90% of the time.

despite this, The Simpson's, a show that for 20 years has relied on parody profusely is still extremely successful not only among viewers but critics alike. There is a correct way to use parody, and the Simpson's do just that.

To create a successful story (or in this case trailer) that runs by the brief, we need to understand the thin lines between humorous & stupid, love & hate and credibility & the unbelievable.

Cliche' and parody, used to be two separate entities in film, but along the years have become extremely similar in the sense that parody is almost done to death (we actually have entire motion pictures that are one 90 minute parody of another film) has made it a poor cliche'.

We are all familiar with real life instances of Cliche', for example; A man has a falling out with his other half, and in an attempt to reconcile, he buys her chocolates and flowers. it's a cliche'!
in film however, you have all these real life cliche's that can be scripted, as well as other dialogues, actions, problems and resolutions.




In this short countdown (which i HIGHLY recommend anyone who is struggling with movie cliche's to watch) celebrity movie/game critic James Rolfe, talks about, in his opinion, the top 10 cliche's used in movies. although this isn't a definitive guide, as there are literally thousands, this will definitely make you start realising the used and overused conventions in movie.

In retrospect, it is because of parody that a lot of movie cliche' is in fact a cliche'. Think of it like this, a good example of a movie cliche' would be, in slasher movies, the innocent girl survives and the drug abusing ''sexahoilc'' teens are the first to get wasted.

now think of the first (or arguably the first) slasher: Halloween. There was no formula or idea of this now convention to borrow from. However, it worked and Halloween was extremely successful.

Perhaps due to this success, perhaps for some other reason, other slasher movies not only used the idea of the impervious killer, but that same cliche' i mentioned before. it wasn't a cliche' when used in Halloween, but now it is? surely that can only mean that cliche's are made from overuse of a good/bad thing?