Clowns

                    Coulrophobia -  

an abnormal or exaggerated fear of clowns

Coulrophobia is a very common fear and many film makers play on this film to make the film more scary. I think that using a clown would be very effective because it is a very different idea that moves away from the typical 'man in a mask' situation. 
Generally the makeup could be quite easy to re-create because it would just be face paint that would be previously practised. 
One example of a clown used in a horror film is this scene from Zombieland 

The clown in this scene is quite scary and I think that this is due to the makeup.

• Starting with the hair; the clown's hair is green and this shows corruption. It is easy to see how this clown is corrupted, but by making the hair green it shows how the corruption is in the head.
• The way that the stars on the clown's overalls clash with the spots on his, rather large, bow tie show that how much is wrong with this clown. It draws our attention to many different things at once and we do not know what to concentrate on.
• Adding to this, the stripes on the braces add another dimension to this shot which makes it seem as is something is seriously wrong.
• Focusing on the bow tie, the way that it is wonky also adds to the idea that we are being told that something is off about this clown. That there is something more than just the obvious. 
• The makeup on this clown is quite basic. There is just a base coat of white all over the face, some dark shadowing around the eyes and then some triangles on the cheek.
• I think that this would be a good shot to use as a base makeup idea because it is very simple, yet the clown is still incredibly scary and it has the same effect. 
• Also, I think that, sometimes, simple is better as it would make it easier for us to recreate the look ourselves.

The next clip that I found was from the film 'It'. I chose this clip because I think that the way the clown is presented is done amazingly well. The clown does not have any particularly scary makeup and is not wearing anything that a normal clown wouldn't. I think that this is what makes it much scarier - that it could be any clown.

• I really like this shot because I think that it is really effective. Although the clown is quite small in this shot, it still manages to stand out from the background.
• The hand gestures that the clown is doing in this shot make him seem much more intimidating because it looks like he is inviting us in to try and fight.
• The way that this character has been given balloons adds, for me, to the scariness of this clown because it makes it much more relatable. We all see people standing selling balloons and clowns are known to shape balloons at the circus. This immediately makes the relationship between us and the clown much more personal.

• This shot of the clown is particularly good because it is, quite simply, terrifying.
• The close up of the face means that we can see every little detail, even the shape of his teeth.
• I think that the two scary things about this clown are the teeth ad the eyes. The teeth are pointy and look quite sharp. This would inflict fear because it makes us wonder if he uses his teeth to kill.
• With the eyes of this clown, we can see that they are slightly red - connoting danger. The red also makes the clown seem more of the fantasy type because red eyes are not something that we see on a daily basis.

After looking at these two clips, I thought that it would be a good idea to find some videos on how to do the clown makeup so that we could get some inspiration from them.

The first video that I found was the one above.

I chose this because the makeup is different and looks quite realistic.

Good things about this video;

• It uses makeup that we would all have or could get hold of easily
• Looks professional 
• Fairly easy to do with practise 
• It's very scary when finished
• Different kind of clown - not the usual that we would see
• This could be done on either a boy or a girl and still look good

Good things about this video;

• Incredibly scary makeup
• Could be done with things that are easy to get hold of
• Professional looking

Although the makeup here looks amazing, I think that it would be quite difficult to do compared  to the previous one.