"Scary", "Creepy" graphics?

[Guest scottgordon]

Anyone have any thoughts on creating a "scary" look? It seems every scary movie has the same jittery grunged out text. Can motion graphics be used to create a truly creepy feeling?

[Guest Hubzy]

Truly frightening motion graphics could be a challenge. I would imagine that audio plays a huge role as well as storytelling.

 

The Mothman Prophecies opening title seq. effectively conveyed an eery feeling while maintaining a very stylish look. I think Kyle Cooper was the design culprit.

[Guest parallax]

Of course you can. You 'just' have to figure out what eerie really means. In horror flicks they often use unnatural lighting techniques to convey a certain mood. If something is strange or unusual, it often feels eerie, weird, or scary.

Things that are out of place or context also work strange. Sometimes 'nothingness' is weird enough. Maybe you should go out and rent Eraserhead by David Lynch. Its the most weird and horrible movie i have ever seen. It (miss)uses audio to the fullest.

 

I wish to never see that film again.

[Guest juicysauce]

yeah, audio is key. check out these pieces from Nakd:

 

http://www.nakd.tv/projects/monsterfest/

http://www.nakd.tv/projects/short_screamers/

 

while those pieces are excellent, i think the audio is too obtrusive, too coherent, too beat-centric. it robs a little horror from the visuals. i think a more sparse, vacant approach to sound design would have been much more effective.

[Guest timmy]

our step into the creepy scary thing resulted into this...

 

http://media.mk12.com/quicktime45_html/embryo.html

 

this piece was in part used for a terrible thing that i won't talk about..

 

taken out of it's original context, i think it works on it's own...

 

timmy

[Guest juicysauce]

hell yeah it works on its own. and the sound design is spot on. i've always loved that piece. it sticks with me.

 

 

i also really dig the sound design in kdlab's iSpec piece:

 

http://66.216.122.95/_content/_reel/_movies/ispec.htm

 

(i'm talking about the parts that feature The Shining, not all the introductory UI stuff.)