Horror movie. one actor.

D

dylanpipe

Active member
So Im entered in this Horror movie film festival which is due October 22. I filmed a few scenes, but two of my three actors bailed on me. So I have to re work a horror movie with only one actor, does anyone have an idea of how to work a horror movie with only one actor? I've been thinking, but nothing that seems scary... And It sucks that they bailed so late, because I have like no time.

Ideas?
 
have the 2 actors morph into new characters... almost used that idea on a feature after not hiring an actor again... we ended up faking it by showing him from only behind for the reshoots played by all people are stunt driver...
 
Maybe just have the actor try to escape a house, that's blocking him/her in at every corner doors windows slam close lights flicker object fly of the wall. At the end you can make it were he realizes he is dead and hes the one trapping him self in there.
 
The obvious answer is to have an antagonist who isn't human, e.g. a ghost, an evil house, evil cell phone, evil teddy bear, whatever.

Or have an off-screen antagonist who is never seen (played by you, or your actor doing a different voice).

Or if your actor is really good and you don't mind planning your shots, have your actor playing both protagonist and antagonist, either as a pair of twins, or an insane person in conflict with themself.
 
dylanpipe said:
i'd like that.
Click to expand...

Haha, sorry for the early-morning snark. But honestly if that's at all possible, it's your best bet. I've been in your shoes for most of my life - can't even get my brother to help me out anymore. <grin> So my point is that the one-man horror show is nearly impossible to sell to an audience, even for free, because it's always so damn obvious. The fact that you're on a time crunch only exacerbates your problem.

I'm not, by any means, suggesting you should give up. I don't know what caused your actors to bail on you, but if you have to bribe or blackmail them for the sake of the film, maybe ask yourself if it's worth it - because if you can't get them back, you're basically cutting off your own feet creatively.

But then, like old Orson said, "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations," so maybe the impending deadline and the lack of help will spur your creativity to come up with something wonderful. There've been a few good suggestions above, and you'll find people on here who have scripts for one-man productions (we all find ourselves in that predicament at some point or another, I think).

For the sake of not being a complete unhelpful jackass, here's some ideas/thoughts re: one-man horror filmmaking...

- Audio, audio, audio. Not only is sound the most influential part of a truly creepy horror film, it's also cheap-as-f--k if you're creative with Foley work and have a decent recorder + mic setup. Also, you don't need anyone but yourself if you plan ahead. Creaking floorboards, the sound of footsteps from off-screen, or my personal favorite: the body slam from the first Paranormal Activity (there's a scene where the couple are sleeping upstairs and, IIRC, they're woken up by a loud scream and then what sounds like someone's body being slammed into a wall somewhere else in the house - most memorable part of the movie for me).

- Your camera as a character. Not in a first-person POV kind of sense (though, that's certainly doable), but in the sense that you can get creative with your shots to add either creep or camp to your short film. Raimi's original The Evil Dead used this to iconic effect in those "camera flying through the woods" shots to suggest something evil was approaching. But the thing a lot of people don't realize about good horror and suspense is that if you hold a shot on something for just the right amount of time, it gets f--king intense. Windows are perfect, as are open doors. Why? Because people expect something to happen, they know they're going to see something, or that something is going to jump out at them any second. If the shot is cluttered -- for instance, camera is peeping through a window into a dark house full of furniture -- viewers will keep their eyes locked onto the screen, constantly scanning the frame so they don't miss whatever's going to happen. One of the best ways to use this trick, though, is to subvert it. Hold a shot of a partially opened bedroom window looking out into the woods after dark, so we expect something to move outside, and then suddenly, something happens elsewhere in the frame (for instance, we might be looking so intensely at the window that we only briefly notice the dresser with little toys on top... and now one falls off on its own). Another great way to keep people guessing is to have more than one potential haunt in your shot: maybe next to that bedroom window is a mirror, and through the mirror, we can see through an open door into a dark hallway. Maybe the door creaks and moves, or maybe something moves in the hallway beyond it, or maybe something happens outside the window, or maybe the toys fall off the dresser, so on and so on.

- Location as a character. Like joey46 hinted at earlier, location is one of the most important aspects of a horror production - whether it's a one-man short film or a big-budget remake of The Evil Dead. One of the best resources available to you, aside from just listing locations you have direct access to, is your state's film commission or office. Since you're in VT, you have a whole web page devoted to cool locations you can request permission to film at.

- Creepy farm.
- Another creepy farm.
- Creepy funeral homes.

You even have a subcategory called "Haunted-Looking."

Granted, access to these might be out of the question with 9 days left before the deadline, but look at some of the most successful horror films of the last few years. Mama, the Paranormal Activity movies, and the Insidious movies all take place in "ordinary" suburban homes. The Conjuring takes place in a run-of-the-mill country house on the lake. I've never seen Blair Witch, but from what I've seen it pretty much takes place just running through the woods. I strongly recommend against imitating that, though, as it screams low-budget. Even if you can't get the location you want, make sure you get what you want out of the location you have.

Some other quick tips:

- If you lock your shots off and you keep the lighting the same, it's easy to combine shots for FX trickery that can give you a lot of different ways to work action in a shot without dedicated crew members there to do things for you (i.e., if your camera's holding still, you can have your actor in the right half of the frame, get his reaction to something happening in the left side of the frame, then have him go over to the left side of the frame and create whatever action/effect/thing scared him, then cut the two shots together so they happen at the same time on opposite sides of the frame).

- Whip-pans are a great place to cut. If you need your actor to do something in one place but suddenly be in another place, you can whip the camera around to the new place, then stop recording. Have your actor move to the new place where your camera will land on him, then go back to the first place, recreate the whip-pan and land on your actor in this new place. Cut the two shots together at about the middle of the pan movement (when it's blurriest), and it will look like one seamless shot. You can use this effect for all kinds of things. One example would be if you were using your camera as a POV for a character, and you open a closet door, and inside is your one actor with some scary makeup effect, or maybe just hanging from a noose or something, you (the first-person POV character) scream, and then whip-pan over to see that the actor is actually perfectly fine, he's standing in the door way wondering what you (the POV character) were screaming about. Camera looks back at the closet, nothing's there. It's been done before, but it's just an example, and frankly, just about every damn thing you can think of has been done before in the horror genre. :thumbsup:

- Act yourself. I'm assuming, from the wording of your original post, that you're not the one actor remaining. So if you DO act, now you have two actors. You can do a lot more. Just a thought.

I know none of those are really ideas for any kind of story you can work with. But hopefully you're like me, and ideas for what you can shoot, and how you can shoot it, will inspire a story that puts those effects into play.
 
You said you've filmed a few scenes. It might help if you describe what happens in those scenes.

Is this a short or a feature? (PLEASE say it's a short!)
 
I have a story idea that you might be able to pull off and get done in time. Your actor needs to be believable as an outdoorsman, as well as a professional photographer and writer. The whole story takes place in the woods -- along the Appalachian Trail. Props needed would be backpack-type camping gear, a DSLR camera and some sort of portable recorder for dictating notes.

The action all takes place in the course of a single day. No wardrobe changes. Minimal special effects.

If this sounds like something you could pull together in the time you have, then PM me and I will give you the basic outline of the story. Script would be up to you, but a lot of it could be improv.

BTW, the story is called 'Focal Point.'
 
Heres a little chiller I did with just one actress, with the right audio and pacing i found it quite effective

I was certainly horrified.
 
*********************FREE IDEA*********************

I had this idea but Ill never do it likely-- call it "Doppleganger" and have it be about him trying to kill him. check out Maya Derens Meshes of the Afternoon on youtube for inspiration

You owe me

*********************FREE IDEA*********************
 
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