Evaluation Question One

How My Film Challenges/Develops Conventions Of Horror

Final Girl TheoryFirstly I will start by describing how the film challenges conventions of horror. The final

girl theory that has become attached to the horror genre , like in films such as nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. Our film does not use this convention because we thought it would make the film too predictable as the audience is becoming wise to the idea that the girl will survive and the others will not. Ignoring this keeps the audience guessing making the film more interesting .

However just because we do not show the final girl theory in the title sequence it doesn’t mean that in the larger overall narrative there won’t be females, because there are females within the group of friends the story revolves around as this adds variety and caters to a female audience, we just aren’t following the final girl theory seen in many horror films.

ResearchMy research consisted of analysing the title sequence of Childs Play 3, creating a power

point on the conventions of horror, watching horror films including Alien, Scream and the shining, as well as being in charge of setting research for the group. From analysing and watching horror films I feel I was able to bring vital information to the group about how to make our film feel and look like a professionally made horror film. I was inspired by the costume of Scream and thought that a character based around the look of ghost face would chill the audience. The shining is a perfect example of using ambient diegetic sound and non diegetic sound to build tension and a thick atmosphere for example in the famous tricycle dolly shot, whereas the low key lighting in alien creates a feeling of helplessness as if all hope has been sucked out of the film. I hope what I have learnt shows in the final production of our film and I do believe that my research was beneficial.

SettingThe setting was my responsibility in terms of research and deciding where we would film

our title sequence. I learnt that many horror films are in isolated locations such as in a desert in The Hills Have Eyes, a forest in The Wrong Turn and a pace hip in Alien. Isolated locations create a feeling of helplessness as you are far away from any civilised contact. The helplessness also stems from the fear of the unknown as the majority of audiences who will be watching horror films, which are predominately aimed at teenagers, will be in urban settings. On the other hand, some films such as Scream and The Purge are in urban environments and I believed it best to go against mainstream conventions and shoot in an urban location. I went against conventions because an urban setting is familiar to my target audience therefore they will have some sort of recognition with the location. This means they will feel safe and lulled into a false sense of security. Having a murderous antagonist in an urban setting and in a characters home creates an uneasy feeling that nowhere is safe even those places that you call home. I believe making it more relatable and imaginable is a lot scarier than an isolated location because most people will never experience it. In addition an urban setting is a lot more convinient for us to film as none of us or our actors could drive so a n urban location was a better option.

LightingWhilst watching horror films to do my research I also noticed that a lot of a horror film is

set in low key lighting, with some back lighting coming from artificial sources such as a candle. I believe that we have stuck to the conventions of horror in terms of lighting as we filmed at night to ensure that there was low key lighting and that the artificial lighting was coming from the street lights which helped with backlighting and spot lighting. However because we couldn't afford reflective equipment to light up character faces, in certain shots, for example the house scene, we had to use a phone light for some extra illumination and edit the colour contrast, but we still managed to maintain the convention of low key lighting.

Camera ShotsWe did use a variety of camera shots whilst filming. In order to make the film more like a

horror film we included shots that I had noted from my research as well as the others research. I found that consistently used shots in horror films included: Close ups, Extreme close ups, Tracking shots and handheld shots. A hand held shot is often combined with a tracking shot ( which we did as Max crosses the bridge) to create a sense that the subject is being followed. In addition to this, close ups are used in order to show the audience how a character has reacted emotionally to what they have seen, and commonly evokes terror in the audience as they automatically feel how the character feels as they too witness what is occurring and are influenced by the subject. Close ups of the antagonist or weapons are used to show how evil that character is and create an aura of menace, such as in Silence of the Lambs.

NarrativeOur film is a mix between that of a slasher and a psychological horror.Firstly it follows the conventions of a slasher through the similar weaponry and

characters of the film. There is one main antagonist wielding a blade who is systematically hunting down a group of teenagers for some unknown reason. Teenagers are typical cannon fodder in slasher films and are there to die in the most gruesome way possible and often conform to stereotypes. However we hope to avoid the stereotyping characters as it feels as if it has all been done before. Instead we have tried to add a deeper and more thoughtful narrative which is where the psychological aspect plays in.

Psychological horrors play on the mind of the audience and have them wondering throughout the film if what they are seeing is supernatural or has some physical explanation. We have done this by attaching the antagonist to an old pendulum clock bought for Max’s mother on her birthday. This leads to a series of events in which the group of teenage friends question whether or not the Cloaked Figure is human after a rare and valuable antique or whether he is a spectre and the clock is bound to him in a curse.

CostumeMaking Max and James appear as normal as possible was imperative to making them

appear more relatable which was vital as we wanted the audience to have a connection with them, as if they were a normal average teenager. This is similar to other horror films with teenage protagonists as they wear clothing respective of their age such as in Scream and Friday the 13th .

Our antagonist also follows horror conventions by obscuring his face. Instead of a mask we choose to make him faceless by using a morph suit mask which gives the illusion in the low key lighting that the figure has no face. We also used a cloak to make him more identifiable with the slasher genre as it gave an appearance similar to that of Ghost Face. We also made sure the weaponry was identifiable to the slasher sub genre by equipping him with a machete, made iconic to the horror genre through Friday the 13th.

SoundAmbient sound is very important in a horror film. It helps build tension in the quieter

sections of the film and makes the audience more aware of any out of place sound such as the sharp snap of a twig or when a clumsy character knocks something over. We used diegetic sound with background city noises and the footsteps in the tracking and running shots which help build tension or emphasise the action, respectively.

In addition the non diegetic music is also important in a horror film as it adds intensity to chase sequences, shock to jump cares and again helps to build tension. We used two musical pieces that I found on a royalty free website called purple planet. The first is slow and methodical used to create and build tension along with the ticking up to the encounter under the bridge. The second is similar to that of psycho with sharp screeches used to emphasise action.