Chin 1

Melissa Chin

Mr. McClure

Writing 39B

17, March 2017

RIP Essay: Red

Our film Red is short horror film shot at UCI that features psychological and paranormal

aspects, introducing a lonely female protagonist experiencing anxiety from her failing grades.

The film is set in 2017, a time where students are pressured to do well in college because society

upholds the concept that grades define a persons self-worth. Because horror is a representation

of human vulnerability, as mentioned in A Dark Nights Dreaming by English professors Tony

Magistrale and Michael A. Morrison, Red aims to showcase college students, or any scholarly

audience, through the perspective of Alyssa, the main protagonist, how the accumulation of

anxiety and stress from failing grades and work overload can lead to a mental breakdown and

hallucinations (2). Because of the pressure and anxiety, students tend to feel alone and

inadequate, and in Red, we want to emphasize this concept in the film by utilizing different

filming techniques and angles. In addition, we have included many tropes of the horror genre and

other artistic factors to further enhance both the horror aspect of the film and how detrimental

anxiety and stress is to the human mind. However, not only do we want Red to show the negative

emotional consequences of academic struggles but also to offer insight to students who feel like

solitary failures, because in reality, there are many other students that are on the same plate as

them.
 Chin 2

Red is shot in a fashion to help the audience get a sense of Alyssas vulnerable and lonely

character, someone that many struggling students can relate to. In the first scene, we start off

with the camera first staring at the sky then slowly panning down to Alyssa, who just got back

her midterm that she failed. As Alyssa walks away from her lecture hall, Jayda, Alyssas friend,

stops her and initiates a conversation with her about the midterm. For Jaydas and Alyssas scene,

we filmed at a wall where there is a crack in between Jayda and Alyssa, symbolizing how Jayda

seems to be in a different world from Alyssa, where she seems to be doing well in her classes

compared to Alyssa. Jaydas character is created to magnify how much of a failure Alyssa is,

especially during their conversation here and at Peets Coffee, which happens earlier in the day.

At Peets Coffee, Jayda, Alyssa, and their friend Mike are having a study session for the

upcoming math midterm. For the starting scene, we shot it so that the focus is on Jayda and Mike

with Alyssa blurred out in the background, with half of her face blocked by a pole. We want to

isolate Alyssa as much as possible to draw attention to her loneliness and give the audience a

sense of tension and suspense, because V. Renee, a writer and director with a B.A. in Cinema,

mentions in his article 8 Spooky Lighting Techniques You Can Use in Your Horror Film, that

when you look at a blurred or concealed image, your eye is trying to fill in the gaps of what it's

missing and usually what you fill them in with is much scarier than what's actually there.

Because its an obscured image of Alyssa in the background, its hard to decipher what shes

doing or see her expressions. The scene shifts to Alyssas face, showing her zoning and blanking

out. By solely focusing on her face, the audience can get an impression of how lonely and empty

Alyssa is, because no one around her, even her friends Mike and Jayda, is giving her the

attention and help she needs to overcome her anxiety.

 Chin 3

In Red, there are many scenes that fulfill the horror genres expectations by incorporating

tropes and other creative elements, but the scene that exemplifies the horror aspect the most

would be during Act 2, the scenes that take place in the parking lot. It starts off with Alyssa

walking to her car, a familiar situation to any college student that drives. Because we filmed it at

night, the lighting in the parking lot and the echoing effect of the footsteps help formulate a dark

and distorted-looking atmosphere, the perfect environment for a horror film. As mentioned

before, to further stress the horror aspect, we have added in multiple horror tropes in this act:

dropping keys, hearing metal scraping sounds, and widening of the eyes. As Alyssa is trying to

open her car door, she drops her keys, a common clich used in horror films, but even though

this trope is usually implemented during life-death situations, we integrated it to show Alyssas

agitation and how shes not in a stable condition to perform simple tasks such as opening her car

door. After Alyssa drops her keys, she hears a metal scraping sound, triggering her senses. As

Alyssa is looking around for the source of the sound, Alyssa slowly widens her eyes, shifting

from a confused expression to a scared expression. Behind Alyssa, the audience can see a green

unidentifiable figure and a creepy female child with black-covered eyes and shaggy hair holding

a red balloon. After hearing a long metal scraping sound behind her, Alyssa turns around to see

the unknown figure and the child, and with the addition of suspenseful music to create more

tension, we pan the scenes back and forth between Alyssas frightened expression, the childs

face, and the red balloon, which now has a F on it to represent Alyssas failing grades. We

want the music for this scene to go along the lines of both eerie and suspenseful, and since music

plays a big part in the horror aspect of the film, we listen to multiple different horror soundtracks

to see which one fit the scene the most. The buildup of this scene quickly shifts to a balloon

slowly circling around a light, and moments later, the sound of a balloon popping wakes up
 Chin 4

Alyssa, signifying what everything happened was a hallucination. Horror is a medium to convey

the complexities of the human nature, especially our weaknesses and fears; it helps detail the

tragic consequences of social and personal disintegration (Magistrale, Morrison, 3). As seen in

Alyssas situation, her failing grades and the pressure to do well in school is slowly deteriorating

her mental stability, causing her to hallucinate and eventually break down and cry, and in the

ending scene, the audience can easily infer that she commits suicide, the ultimate consequence of

excessive amount of anxiety and stress.

One of the creative ways that I contributed to the film project is the addition of the idea

of balloons to the script. This idea came to me while I was performing during Homecoming,

because I saw a lot of little kids holding balloons during the festival. Usually, balloons are

representations of happiness and serves as a reminder of something fun, like the memories of

being at a festival or a party, so I thought including them into a horror film will give it the

opposite effect. Since our horror film follows a student experiencing anxiety and stress, which

leads to having hallucinations, a balloon is a good metaphor for someone bottling up those

negative emotions. If you blow up the balloon too much, itll pop; once the stress builds up, there

will be a breaking point where the student cant handle it anymore. I chose the color red for the

balloon, because its a color that can easily pop out in the midst of darkness. However, there is an

irony behind it, because the color red evokes confidence and warmth, which are emotions and

feelings that the main character in our film is lacking. I want to express our main character as

someone whos disappointed and dejected about herself and her failures, so the juxtaposition of

her and the reds symbolism helps emphasize that.

Acting as the main protagonist in the film, I had to think of different creative ways to act

out my fear and anxiety in the film. As mentioned in Noel Carrolls Nature of Horror, the
 Chin 5

emotional responses of the audience run parallel to the emotions of characters, so its up to me,

whos acting as the main character in the film, to meticulously express my anxiety and stress

(52). How I portrayed my emotions and feelings would be a big factor in the success of the

reception of the film, so I had to make sure my acting was believable for the audience. To get a

more genuine reaction of me being scared, I made my group members show me horror videos

from YouTube or play horror films soundtracks to get me in the mood while recording. While

filming, I realized that even though I get scared really easily, it didnt really show on my face, so

I had to exaggerate a lot of my expressions by excessively breathing, twitching and shaking my

body and hands, and making my mouth bigger as if Im shocked and scared. There was also a

scene where I had to cry and mentally break down, so to film that scene, I had to force myself to

cry by thinking of some of my lowest points in life. Because I had no prior experience, acting

was a challenge for me, but with the help of my group members and my ideas, I somehow

managed to accomplish it.

Without the help from my group members, our film wouldnt have been as successful.

Im satisfied with my group members, because each of them had been contributing to the film in

their own ways: one with coming up with the original idea and inviting film major friends to help

us film and the other adding in the dialogue to our script, providing the materials (such as

balloons, etc.), and acting in our film. Because were a group of three, which is small, its

necessary for each of us to work together and provide ideas for this project in order for it to be a

success. At first, it was a bit hard to communicate to each other through group text messages and

during class, but we later organized face-to-face meetings throughout the week to finalize and

film our script. I felt like my group was one of the best groups Ive worked with in a while, and

Im proud of the film that we managed to create together.

 Chin 6

Work Cited

Carroll, Noel. The Nature of Horror. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 46, No.

1. (Autumn, 1987), pp. 51-59.

Magistrale, Tony, and Michael A. Morrison. A Dark Nights Dreaming. pp. 1-7.

Rene, V. "8 Spooky Lighting Techniques You Can Use in Your Horror Film." No Film School.

N.p., 26 Oct. 2016. Web. 17 Mar. 2017.