The Haunting in Connecticut - Film review, trailer analysis and structure time line.

Title: The Haunting in Connecticut

Directed by: Peter Cornwell
Year: 2009
Paradigmatic conventions:
Setting: House
Character: Family
Villain: The supernatural
Props: Haunting/ possession.
Evokes fear: What happens when a new addition to your future, has its own past?
Plot synopsis: Set in 1987, Matt Campbell is being treated for cancer in a hospital in Connecticut, the effects the journey to and from the hospital has on Matt soon becomes apparent and results in the family renting a house in Connecticut. This house was once a funeral home as they soon find out. The family soon begin experiencing some weird events but blame it on the stress of Matt’s condition. Matt begins experiencing visions from a young teenager in the 1920’s called Jonah. When conversing with a minister Matt met at hospital they find out that the teenager is a ghost and was a psychic medium in his former life, involved in his owners activity with the paranormal and control over the spirits. How long will this haunting occur before someone gets hurt?


Structure time line:

The haunting in connecticut - Poster Analysis

• The fact that they are all holding hands at the table gives the impression that they are some type of mediums and trying to contact the dead.
• The room is dark therefore symbolises the dark things that has happened in that room.
• The room is lit by candle light showing an ounce of hope, a sense of a 'light at the end of the tunnel'
• Along with this a boy is also hanging on the ceiling in a similar stance as Jesus was on a crucifix suggesting the idea of sacrifice.
• The writing 'based on true events' is meant to amplify horror as it leads people to believe that similar events that occur in this movie could also occur in their lives.
• The fact that the border of the poster is red symbolises the bloodshed that the film contains.
• The title is white so that it can therefore stand out and catch people’s attention.
• The caption to the poster says 'What if the only explanation for what you saw was unbelievable?' again trying to scare the audience into thinking that some things that occur in this film may seem like the supernatural, but is in fact true.

30 Days of Night - Poster Analysis

• The red colour symbolises blood and therefore gives the audience the impression that this film is going to contain a lot of blood and gore.
• The black is usually a symbolism for death, again confirming the usual horror paradigms.
• The image of a face placed on the poster looks like it could be one of a vampire.
• This is confirmed also with the title '30 days of night', the fact that it highlights the word 'night' works with the structural views of vampires not being able to be in the sun and therefore doing their killing at night time.
• This could again link with the idea of death and the idea of the end of life being black and therefore linked with night instead of day.
• The font used to write the title looks although it has been written in blood again assuring the audience that this film is a horror.

Låt den rätte komma in (Let the right one in) - Film Review and Poster analysis

Title: Låt den rätte komma in (Let the right one in)

Directed by: Tomas Alfredson,
Year: 2008
Paradigmatic conventions:
Setting: Blackeberg, a suburb of Stockholm, in the early 1980s
Character: Oskar, a 12 year old boy who is getting bullied.
Villain: Eli, shares the physical appearance of a pale girl Oskar’s age, but is in fact a vampire.
Props: Fangs
Evokes fear: Will love overcome the temptation to kill?
Plot synopsis: Oskar a 12 year old boy who is frequently being bullied, dreams of revenge. When playing outside his apartment one night he meets Eli a peculiar girl his age that soon becomes one of Oskar’s only friends. Eli is odd, she cannot stand the sun or food and needs to be invited into a place before she can enter, Oskar over looks this as Eli helps him get his revenge. A Friendship has been built and love has been felt before Oskar realises that Eli needs to drink human blood to survive, and is faced with a choice. How much can love forgive?



Poster Analysis:

The black figure of the girl creates fear as it amplifies the mystery of this character building the tension and making the audience want to know her identity and why it is being hidden. The fact that the black figure is in the foreground and a white light behind it shows the darkness taking over the light adding to the horror and stimulating fear. The title does not stand out on this poster as the font is transparent however it seen against her black figure. The fact that her hand if pressed against the glass is almost as if her hand is pressed again your TV screen giving the idea that the two worlds the fiction world of this film and the real world of the audience can be merged together, again creating fear and horror. The credits are white so that they stand out at the bottom of the poster and are therefore readable. This poster is more focused on the image then the writing as it lets its image speak for itself.

Film review - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Title: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Directed by: Kenneth Branagh

Year: 1994

Studio: American Zoetrope and Shepperton Studios

Paradigmatic conventions:

Setting: A Victorian village, Victor’s lab.

Character: Victor and Elizabeth. (Adopted siblings/ lovers)

Villain: A Monster made by Victor from the body parts of dead people.

Evokes fear: Something you have created turning on you.

Plot synopsis: Victor Frankenstein sets out to create a human that never needs to die after being mortified about his mother’s death at a young age. He sets out to create his version of the perfect man using the carnage of the dead, when life is finally brought to his creation he is disgusted by its ugliness and results to running away. Due to the feeling of loneliness the creature goes in search of a friend, he observes a family he comes across and becomes educated about man, with this he realises that he himself is different. Whilst many harsh encounters with man, he grows bitter in loneliness and decides to get back at his creator for making him ugly and unloved, creating havoc and spreading death among Frankenstein’s family and loved ones.

Improved Trailer idea.

BlWhen recalling our original treatment with our teacher we came across some difficulties that we may have encountered, therefore we decided to change the structure slightly, still keeping a similar theme but focusing on a different aspect of our initial treatment.

We therefore re-thought through our trailer and came up with a more cinematic construction of our ideas.
Paradigm key:


Character paradigm

Setting paradigm

plot paradigm

Villan paradigm



New Treatment:

On a spontaneous night out three friends (all girls) drive up to the woods to drink and mess around without worrying about getting in trouble. They are laughing around and having fun, however when they want to go home they soon find that the car won’t start.

They start panicking and go in search for a gas station, they soon come across a house and begin to knock at the door, after a while they push the door and discover that no one is in it, it seems abandoned as the house is dusty and all the furniture is covered by white sheets.

As they begin to explore around the house they realise that no phones or light switches work, they search every room and see that everything is either covered or empty where things have been taken and not replaced. As one girl goes to open on of the last doors she see’s that it is locked, whilst trying to open the door she see’s that someone or something is in the room. When the door finally opens she finds out that it is a little girls room which looks like it has not been touched, almost as if it has been preserved.

As the girl walks around the room she calls to here friends, she peers at the bed and see’s a teddy sat at the head of the bed, she picks it up and with that a flash of white light fills the screen as the girl has a vision of a little girl playing with her toys and then someone putting their hand on her shoulder and dragging her away. This then cuts to a picture of a grave stone and her parents standing over it. The vision ends and with this she drops the teddy. Following this is a series of strange paranormal activity and spooky events.

Strange Events:

Here are some of the strange events that we have agreed on to feature in our trailer.

1) Establishing shot of the woods.
    Car drives up through the woods.
    Close up on tyres.
    Establishing girls in the car and they get out with alcohol in their hands.
    They wander through the woods    Gets dark
    See house and open the door.

2) Exploring house and find a locked door.
    Tries to open it - pushing the door.
    Looks under the door and sees footsteps.
    Looks through the keyhole and there is an eye looking back.
    A jump back, turns around to shout for her friends and the door swings open.

3) Takes a teddy from the bed.
    Flash of white light.
    She sees a girl playing with a teddy.
    Hand on shoulder.
    Parents by the grave.
    Back to room/Drops the teddy.

4) Exploring the girls room more
    Finds a music box, opens it to hear music.

5) Another friend pulls a sheet off a mirror.
    (Nothing there) Girl looks into the mirror
    Little girl walks past the door behind her.

6) Lights cut out.
    Light switch not working
    The friends are all downstairs together
    They hear the music box being played upstairs
    Little girl walks from one place and appears in the other.

Trailer:

Our basis trailer idea (incomplete):

-Establishing shot of the woods and house.
-Girls mucking around in the woods and the drive up.
-Gets dark & the car won’t start.
-Find a house - no one is there.
-Shots of them individually exploring the house-Strange event with the locked door and the keyhole scenes that is involved there.
   -Sheets being taken off
   -Bussing sequences
   -Lights not working
-Weird events happening  -Music box being played
  -Bussing sequences
  -Doors slamming
  -Windows jammed, Can’t get out of the house.
Idea for the ending:

Panning out from house. Day light. Music box music playing. Car messed up (Doors and bonnet open), teddy sitting on the driver’s seat. Little girl skips/Crawls towards the camera giggling.

Horror time line - From the 20s-90s

Horror time line

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Production process of my horror film trailer.

Production name: VII

Pitch:
Fourth Kind and Poltergeist meet Amityville Horror in the woods.

Analysis - Fourth Kind: Real life, possession, unseen, unaware, isolation, therapy and not in control.
- Poltergeist: Demonic, torture, unseen possession, voyeuristic, weird things happening, things moving on their own and warnings.
- Amityville Horror: Murder, possesion, unaware, haunted, night and unseen
- Woods: Dark, isolated, low-tech, quiet and no support.
Amity horror meets paranormal activity in the woods.
analyisis - Amityville horror: haunting, unseen, killings, night, possession or demon, unaware.
Paranormal activity: torture, demon, voyeuristic, haunting, unseen, possessed.
Woods: alone, lost, quiet, dark, isolated, cold, no technology, no support.

Paradigm key:
Character paradigm
Setting paradigm
Plot paradigm
Villan paradigm
Prop paradigm

Scenario:
Teen is haunted by spirit, taken to the woods, her friends become possessed and attack her.

Treatment:

Opens up with main character in therapy after the event, talking about her experience with the paranormal, Ouija board etc. On the screen we see the time and date, the video goes static, and the time changes, earlier time and date, as we see her everyday life, friends at her house for a sleep over. They hear a banging on stairs and when investigating the noise see a smashed picture at the bottom of the stairs of all three of them. They all freak out, mention the Ouija board and then later go to sleep. Whilst asleep poltergeist activity and sounds. The camera fades to black and with giggling comes back into focus in the woods as the girls wake up. Moment of Disequilibrium. The main character is the first to awake due to the giggling and thinks it’s her friends trying to play a joke on her; she wakes them up and starts arguing with one of them about the situation. As the two are arguing the other one is sitting down with her head down, the camera zooms into them and you see a smile spread across their face and they giggle (same as before) the other two react and then - BOOM - instantly she comes back to normal. Then there is a sequence of weird things that happen (bussing etc.). One friend then again becomes possessed and tries to attack the other two, in an attempt to escape the other two run away. When the main character thinks they are safe, the possession then jumps to the other friend signified by the giggle, after attempting to attack the possession stops and they re-unit freaked out by these events. The main character decides to try and catch the poltergeist out and volunteers to keep watch for the night, but nothing happens. There is an escalation of paranoia etc, but nothing happens. One night one of the friends when keeping watch comes across a sharp object and wakes up the main character to concern her about it, as the main character wakes up with her friend holding a sharp object over her, she assumes they are possessed and pushes her away. As she pushes her she slips and hits her head on a rock, accidently killing the innocent girl instantly. The last two bury the body mortified and the morning after hears a giggle, they both freeze scared out of paranoia that the poltergeist has returned but instead a little girl appears through the trees with her parents, the two realise they aren't far from an opening and ask their way out. When they are out and life is about to go back to normal, the other friend becomes possessed when at home and commits suicide, with a close up of the blood and the smashed picture of them three in her hand. It then cuts back to therapy and as the session ends and the main character exits meeting her boyfriend the giggling sound appears from her boyfriend’s mouth, giving the impression that the haunting is far from finished but only just begun.

THE END

First draft planning, more improvements to come.

Paranormal activity - Film Review

Title: Paranormal Activity

Directed by: Oren Peli

Year: 2007

Studio: Blumhouse Productions, Solana Films

Paradigmatic conventions:

Setting: A two-story tract house in suburban San Diego, California

Character: Kate and Micah, a young couple.

Villain:  A ghostly presence

Props: Household items, sound and movement.

Evokes fear: The unseen becoming an opposing threat and wanting to rid you of your happiness.  

Plot synopsis: A young couple Kate and Micah move into a new house in suburban San Diego, California, when strange things start happening to them, items moved, loud noises in the night and other odd things. Kate claims that she has been haunted by a ghostly presence earlier in her youth and that it has followed her to her new home. When they call in a psychic they are informed that it is not simply a ghost haunting Kate but a demon. As Kate’s panic begins to increase alongside the odd happenings, Micah decides that he is to take this into his own hands and begins to attempt to get rid of this demon himself. However he tends to over look what the psychic had told them that ‘demon’s feed off of negative energy’, and what Micah thinks is him helping becomes him encouraging the demon even more, and the beginning of a slippery slope to living hell.

Second Bussing sequence

Planning:

When planning this second bussing sequence we used story boarding to better our outcome. In order for this story board to be quick and effective we roughly drafted what we wanted to appear on the screen with in the box, drew the character movement within the box, the camera movement outside the box and the shot type below the box.

What made the story board so helpful and effective is that through this planning method we were able to see clearly what we intended the finishing project to look like, and this time was not depending on the image in our heads. This made the filming a lot easier, however if i were to change something it would most likely be the detail in the storyboard, I would most likely add more detail and make it crystal clear what my intentions for this sequence was, in order to encounter fewer problems.

Execution:

Due to our storyboard planning our execution seemed to be a lot quicker and easier with a lot less useless shots. However we due to the complexity of our sequence we found that we left out a lot of reaction shots as well as close ups as we had so much to do in so little time. Therefore if I were to change the way this was done I would most likely simplify our storyboard more in order for it to be more efficient.

Editing:

As this was now our second time using the editing software, we decided that we wanted to be more adventurous with the editing and therefore made good use of jump cuts, making the camera action seem jagged and from the perspective of the "thing". We also mixed up the order in which we originally pictured the shots to be shown in. We realised that we didn’t actually have all the footage we needed and therefore had to reverse some of the footage for it to make sense (looking out of the door). We also decided to use a montage of shots to show time passing as the main character was working on the computer. If I were to change this I would probably use fewer shots as it was quite time consuming cutting each shot as well as adding some eerie music in order to add tension and make the audience more scared.

Bussing exercise.

Planning:We first started the process by thinking of a bussing sequance that we could easily film with the number of crew we had and the enviroment we were placed in. Once we had an initial idea in our heads of what we wanted in our bussing sequence we began to plan what we wanted to see. This envolved writing down the shot types we wanted and what the character was doing at the time. If I were to improve this process I would be more indepth with the planning, being clear about exactally how we would move from one shot to another whilst focusing on the character and the action with in the sequence.

Execution: The execution of the sequence was harder then we first thought. This was because we found it difficult to present what we imagened in our heads through the camera. We found our selves using a lot of film and taking more then one take on each shot. If I were to change anything it would be to take a wide range of different shots to give us more choice in editing but also block through what we wanted more before we started filming, in order to make sure we got exactly what we wanted.

Editing: When all the filming was finished we began to edit the shots we had in order to transform it into a horror sequence. We cut and moved certian shots inorder for our sequence to flow and make sense, we placed shot reverse shots and edited the speed in which some shots where played in order to gain a greater outcome. When editing our film we realised that the person running behind the main character in the mirror wasn't clearly noticed in normal speed and therefore decided to have that shot played in slow motion to draw more attention to it. We then decided to cut to a reaction shot in order show the characters paranoia kick in. In order to improve this sequence I would work with the music more, enabling it to create tension through out the piece as well as adding a more unexpected, sharp and abrupt sound towards the ending as the villan is revealed in order to get the audience jumping in their seats.



Piranha Trailer analyisis and Film report.

Title: Piranha

Directed by: Alexandre Aja

Year: 2010

Paradigmatic conventions:

Setting: the lake at spring break

Character: Group of teenagers

Villain:  ‘Piranha’

Props: teeth

Evokes fear:  Being stuck in a place that you can’t escape, surround by things that want to harm you.

Plot synopsis:  Spring break has just begun as an earth quake results into the floor of the lake breaking, and with it releasing deadly piranha’s that were known to be extinct for other two million years. The piranha is loose, but so are the teens, how long will it take for one of them to killed off?

Narrative time line:

Period of equilibrium

1.)    Calm setting

2.)    splitting of the floor of the lake

3.)    Entering the lake

4.)    Exploring the lake

5.)    Discovering unknown life form.

Moment of Disequilibrium

        Reveal of the Piranha 47”

Period of Disequilibrium

1.)    Scuba diver eaten alive

2.)    Realisation of what type of Piranha they have discovered.

3.)    Woman being bitten in the water

4.)    All the teenagers begin to be attacked in the water

5.)    Boat being spiralled into the sea by the Piranha.

Conflict: Piranha

Complication x3: Outnumbered, Don’t know how to get rid of them, They hunt in packs.

Crisis: Spring break has just started and they are having trouble getting the teenagers out of the water.

The Strangers Trailer analysis and Film Reveiw

Title: The Strangers

Directed by: Bryan Bertino

Year: 2008

Paradigmatic conventions:

Setting: House

Character: Just engaged couple

Villain:  ‘The Strangers’

Props: Axe

Evokes fear:  An invasion of our sanctuary, something endangering our happiness.

Plot synopsis:  A couple having a nice romantic meal in the comfort of their own home, about to become fiancé to one another. When a loud noise occurs, slowly things begin to go downhill as outsiders begin to intrude into their happiness, and kill every sense of joy they once had.

Narrative time line:

Period of equilibrium

1.)    Rose petals all over the house

2.)    Lighting Candles

3.)    Bathing

4.)    Proposal

5.)    Hugging

Moment of Disequilibrium

        Sharp noise à Swing (1 min)

Period of Disequilibrium

1.)    Axe through the door

2.)    The man being stalked with an axe

3.)    Rammed by a car

4.)    Running in the woods

5.)    Face to face confrontation.

“why are you doing this?”

               “Because you were home”

95 camera shots

35 close ups = 1/3 shots.

Structure time line:

AntiChrist - Film Review

 

Title: Antichrist

Directed by: Lars Van Trier

Year: 2009

Studio: Centre National de la cinematographie

Paradigmatic conventions:

Setting: Apartment/ woods (Eden)

Character: Middle aged couple (former parents)

Villain:  Herself

Props: Psychological - The research of Genocide sends her insane.


Evokes fear: Psychological insanity; Reoccurring dreams; Satan and Nature; Women wooven between branches; noises; uncertainty; demonic/unseen and Darkness.

Plot synopsis: Woman writes a thesis about Genocide (women killed by men because they feel they are evil) i.e. witches. By doing so she takes the role herself, i.e. planning her own son’s death. As she goes into her madness she attempts to kill her own husband forcing him to kill her in attempt to save himself.

Gothika Trailer Analysis

This trailer works effectively as a horror movie trailer as it doesn't reveal too much of the plot yet wets our appetite and suspicion leading to us wanting to watch the film. It introduces us to the Paradigms of characters, setting and villain in this trailer yet does not give away the story. It allows us to see the journey in which the main character embarks on through insanity by jump cutting (fading to black) through different scenes, representing time passing. The dark colours of the scenes again go with the image of a horror movie, and enforce the audience’s primal fear of the dark. The writing on top of the scene's being played which describes the main character is white so that it shows up more but also so that it contrasts with the red word at the end, signifying her change from sanity to madness. It could also represent blood which could link to the killing of her husband that she is accused of. The trailer is also effective as it shocks the audience by flashing the image of the dead girl on the screen unexpectedly. That alongside the eerie music sets the mood and instantly positions the audience on the edge of their seats. The pace of the music changes through the trailer, going from a slow eerie piece to a fast tempo piece, showing the progression of her madness but also the pace of her and the audience's heart beat. This trailer also ends with a black out of image when asked "are you scared" and the reply is "no", the black out of the image and dim of the music makes the next speech "you should be" more eerie and has the ability to send shivers down the audience's spine.