For my final project, I decided to film a 360 horror short film. I have always been a huge fan of the horror genre, and although I have never made films before, I decided to take a whack at it and use my knowledge of sound design to make the film. The equipment/software I used I used was my own Samsung Gear 360, my own tripod, Adobe Premier, Ableton Live, and Audacity, along with the Samsung 360 video stitcher.

I chose to base my horror experience around the emergency blue light system on campus. I had my own stressful experience with the blue light system where I was left feeling helpless, and I wanted to convey that feeling of helplessness in my video. When thinking about camera placement, I wanted to get slightly awkward shots when I was outside "running" from the monster, to give the viewer a slight sense of unbalance. With this in mind, I also tried to frame my shots to avoid any major "garbage can moments".

I spent a lot of time finding the perfect music and sound effects for my film. While attending a panel of 360 horror movie producers/directors at SXSW, one point that they made which really stuck out to me was the importance of sound design in horror movies. With this in mind, I chose "String Quarter No. 3" by George Rochberg for my opening song. This famous post-modernist piece has grating, atonal violins in its opening movement that I thought fit perfectly within the horror genre. I also spent a lot of time picking out environmental/ambient sound effects, such as the drone effect in the scene where my main character is talking with DPS through the blue light system. The static noise I used in this scene was recorded off of a VHS tape, and I found the creepy voice that talks through the blue light system in a YouTube clip. I also made use of FX risers and industrial sounding booms to help build tension.

With this project, I was able to utilize the skills I learned in class such as using Nadir patches, Adobe Premier (which I have not used before this semester), immersive video effects (VR plane to sphere), as well as framing 360 shots. I also used this project to test the capabilities of my Gear 360 in multiple lighting situations, and I was very happy with the video quality for such a small and inexpensive camera.