Foundations of Fear - The World of Horror Filmmaking



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Carroll: Ideology in Film

       Many among the Humanities often preoccupy themselves with the study of the ideology of mass art. Is art, particularly commercial, or mass art, merely a means of propagating a dominant culture’s ideology?  Or, barring that, is it a matter of subverting that culture’s ideology? Must the study of rhetoric fall into one of those two categories -- either wholesale proselytization, or condemnation?       The duality of such a standpoint is often a pitfall for many academics, as the reliance upon cultural ideology can be used as a crutch to avoid a true critical analysis. Such a shortcut, however, is capable of backfiring on the scholar -- for if their critique of a subject centers purely upon the ideological, then by default, their criticism is too far steeped within their own ideology as to be considered a truly neutral analysis.  Whether epistemic (a viewpoint based upon the logic of said ideology), or dominant (an ideology shared b...
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Pre-Visualization

While I have filmed many amateur movies since I was a child, this project marks the first time where I took time to create pre-visualization materials prior to the shoot. While I can definitely see the benefit behind creating storyboards and shooting plans, unfortunately, for me, this was decidedly difficult. I am a passable visual artist, at best, and being a bit of a perfectionist, I can believe that I spent way more time than perhaps I should have trying to make sure that I was illustrating a storyboard that appeared cohesive and also comprehensive. Thankfully, my wife, being a professional comic book writer, was able to assist me with the Ins-and-Outs of sequential art, and making the "action" and "movement" trackable. Additionally, the shooting plan was surprisingly rather helpful to me, as it allowed me to get a real sense of the space, where we can place the cameras, and how to generate an efficient workflow without having to figure it out on the day of the s...
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Cucalorus Films: "Meeting MacGuffin" and "World of Tomorrow"

This year, I was fortunate enough to sample two impressive, yet wholly distinct forms of animation. The two shorts I had seen were the films Meeting MacGuffin  and The World of Tomorrow 1&2. Meeting MacGuffin: An Ecological Thriller  was a bizarre yet charming take upon a dystopian future where humanity is all but extinct -- and the ascendant surviving species (typical woodland creatures) have taken to creating humanlike proxies known as "homies," constructed from the discarded bodyparts that are all that remain from humanity, itself. Utilizing stop motion animation with figures constructed from dolls and other such crafting materials, the film gives a charming feeling of a dark and macabre fairy tale -- paired with the gentle voiceover performances, yet all together unsettling aesthetic, I don't know if I would necessarily classify this film as a "thriller," as there were really no moments of suspense found within.  It would be my own assumption that the ...
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