I used 10 males and 10 females to avoid gender bias and to make the results more applicable to both genders.
I randomly handed out my questionnaire to people on the street instead of school because students in the same school might have similar thinking. By asking people outside of school it enabled me to get a variety of opinions.
The top two preferred horror genres were revenge and paranormal.
Majority of the participants said that the graveyard was their preferred setting for a horror movie. I think this is the case because a graveyard is more relate able to real life events than a mansion or a haunted house .
As the majority preferred to watch horror movies based on real life events, we are going to base our film on a real life story.
In our film we are going to use props such as blood but only to an extents because there are still people that don' t like such things. If however all of the participants said yes and to an extent only then we would have considered putting more props of that type in our film
The aim of our film is to scare the audience more than anything else.
Idea 1:
As a group we had decided that our film is going to be a paranormal/psychological film because we thought that this genre would be more effective in scaring the audience as more people can relate to paranormal incidence than someone walking around with a mask on or some outer space invasion. We based our film around a revenge story. Our story was going to start at a graveyard where the funeral of a boy (Vishal)were taking place. The mother(me), the Father(Hamza) and the daughter (Annika) were present with a few other family members. The plot is that the father had murdered the son and when the father starts to abuse the mother the sons soul returns to take revenge on the father. The father however dies at the end and the film ends at the grave of the father.
Idea 2:
As a group we had decided to change the plot. Out new plot is to do with a family that moves into a new house. The house itself is not haunted but a doll, found in the house by the youngest daughter, is haunted. The daughter gets possessed by the spirit inside the doll. The doll is found in an empty room which was hard to open in comparison to the rest of the rooms. All the rooms except that room were clean. That room was full of dust to the extent that it was difficult to open the door. We kept the cast in this plot the same as the first plot. The reason why the youngest daughter gets possessed is because she was the first one to touch the doll. The haunting however does not start straight away, it gradually builds up to a dangerous level where everyone dies and the family is destroyed.
The film ends at a graveyard where all the family is buried.
Clickbait is a short horror film which lasts 4:10 minutes. The moral of this film is to be careful what you click on. The girl in this film was searching for horror stories and ended up clicking on the wrong site. considering that the film was set on Halloween suggests to us that something sinister is going to happen, as Halloween symbolizes death and evil.
Overall in my opinion this film was able to scare the audience with its good editing and camera work. The sounds used in this film also play a great role in scarring the audience as it adds to the nerves.
If you compare this short movie to longer movies, it uses the common conventions like low key lighting and the fact that its set on Halloween. Halloween connotes to evil, sinister, ominous.
Doll face is a short horror film which lasted 7:13 minutes. This film is set on Halloween night, where a normal couple are playing chess until someone knocks on the door. This however was normal as it was Halloween. When the guy opens the door he sees a "Dollface". The couple did freak out a bit but then just thought that the person just dressed up really good for Halloween. The "Dollface" had left her purse outside their house and the guy sees it and goes to return it however 4 hours pass and he still doesn't return. The wife goes to look for him in that shop and is found to have got herself stuck in a terrible situation. She finds her husband dead and so tries to escape the shop however any obstacles come in the way to stop her from getting out. The end of a film is left as a cliff hanger so the audience is left thinking whether the wife had died or stays alive.
Effectiveness and why?
Doll face is a very effective film considering it's a short 7 min film. This film has used a lot of different types of camera angles and shots to create different effect. Editing in this film also plays a really important role as it makes the film scarier.
Key conventions?
The key conventions in this film used would be the use of low key lighting and the fact that it's set on Halloween.
Which key aspects of the film I would use and why?
This films time lapse was really good. They moved the movie 4 hours in future without making it obvious. I would use this idea as the film I'm making can only be 5 mins unlike normal horror movies which last at least 90mins.
Improvements?
This films story line did not make sense. There was a lot of confusion with the relationship between the characters.
The opening scene of the conjuring 2 is a background story. It's all set in the dark house that is presented in this movie. The women presented has a vision of the future. She is blessed to see things other people can't. In her vision she sees four people and a mirror.
This part of the film is mostly to do with her life and how a nun is haunting them. When she comes out of her vision she is in shock as she saw her husbands death. She then starts crying and decides that they are not going to carry on with ghost hunting.
Analysis of the poster:
Analysis of the trailer:
Plot:
Lorraine and Ed Warren, in one of their most terrifying paranormal investigations, have to travel to north London in order to help a single mother who is raising four children alone in a house plagued by malicious spirits.
Features within the trailer:
Sound Diegetic:
The trailer starts off with a blank black screen and all you can hear is a conversation going on between Lorraine and the little girl. There is then a sound of the leaves rustling creating a cold scene. There is a lot of diegetic sound used at the start of the trailer to set a naturally scary scene. The clock ticking and the wind blowing also create a deeper sense of fear in the audiences mind.
Non-diegetic: When the trailer is a quarter way through that's when the non-diegetic sounds start, like the building up of music in the background when there is a fast paced scene so that tension is built.
Miseenscene:
Throughout the whole trailer there is only one scene that is in daytime which is at the start, suggesting that from that scene onwards everything went downhill, because darkness is connoted with evil and unlucky.
Conventions used:
The films title appeared at the end of the trailer
A montage was used to put all the different scenes together
A lot of non-diegetic sounds to make the film more dramatic and to set the scene
There is an almost cliff hanger at the end which makes the audience want to watch the moie to find out more.
Alternative poster:
Analysis of the film:
Review: Good/Bad
Good:
The
Conjuring 2 starts with a bit of a background story, however within the first
few minutes of the movie the audience is in the swing of the movie. The
director doesn’t waste any time whatsoever in bringing in the horror of the
movie.
The
Warrens, ghost hunters, are sent on the behalf of the church in order to
investigate some paranormal activity going on in a family in London. According to the first movie, a family is being haunted and they are
scared for their lives.
However this time round there are a few new twists, so all of it is not the same
as before - but it's not a completely different from the format, which might
have made it a bit more tense in places.
What's really enjoyable about this movie, is its old recreation of 70s
England. James Wan has done a really great job of this, which is in fact surprising as he's not originally from there. Also, the support role of Janet Hodgson, played by Madison Wolfe, gives a
solid performance.
It's arguable that this film is as strong as the first one. I mean I really enjoyed this film and would
recommend it to anyone who enjoyed part one, or even likes movies of a haunting
or possession theme/genre.
Bad:
This movie was officially 2016s worst movie! The fact that this movie was directed by non other than The James Wan is an insult to the film. Wan had made many blockbusters but this one just didn't make it. The audience had many high expectations from this film, this film had come to me as a shock as the fear factor just was not there. The trailer had made this film look way more dramatic than it actually is.
We are all wishing that Wan takes into account everyones' opinion of this movie and hope it helps him create a better movie next time.
