Horror Film Genre Conventions

The horror genre itself has role to provoke a response; emotional, psychological or physical of an individual to react with fear. Horror films often deal with the viewer’s nightmares, fears, terror of the unknown and insecurities. In order to make a horror film successful in scaring their audience, they usually follow a set of guidelines known as the codes and conventions which are explained below.

CHARACTERS
Characters which often feature in horror films can be fantasy characters such as aliens, ghosts, spiritual figures, werewolves, vampires and many more.
Other characters include:
Hero/villain: most horrors include a hero whom has to defeat an evil character, the villain. The narrative develops with these two characters as they both fight for or against eachother for something. The majority of films often end with good beating evil however some films choose to subvert this and make the evil character unbeatable to surprise the audience.
Helper: most commonly known as a sidekick. Both the good and evil sides are likely to have one or more or even a community of sidekicks who help them defeat the opposition.
Princess: many horror films feature a female character of some sort. She is usually attractive and a figure whom the audience aspire or are appealed to. They can sometimes play the hero (or the villain) or even be the victim whom the hero and villain are fighting over.

NARRATIVE
Hero Vs Villain, mission or quest, deaths, curses, young children, possessive characters, good defeats evil, side-kicks and police officers involved, set in an isolated place, involves intrusion of an evil force, event or person into everyday life (disruption of the equilibrium).

THEMES
Good Vs Evil, revenge/grude, nightmares, hallucinations, visions, insanity, possessed, religion/belief, supernatural, gore, deaths, torture, violence, suicide and spiritual horror. 

SHOT TYPES
High angle: this is used to make the subject look inferior and insignificant (e.g. a parent shouting at their child)
Low angle: this is used to make the surroundings look distorted in size and make the audience feel like they are small.
Close-up: this is used to convey emotions such as anger in a horror film
Point Of View: a very commonly used shot to make the audience feel as though they are taking part in the action. They feel involved and as a result, scared.
Hand held Camera: to create jerky action shots to make the audience feel uneasy,
Jump Cuts: these transitions are used to make the tempo of the action appear faster and make the audience feel scared.

PROPS
Weaponry: knives, guns, axes, chainsaws, firearms, sharp/heavy/blunt objects. Weapons can be stereotypical to a character too to make the audience remember them in sequels.
Make- up: dramatic, blood stained, cuts, bruises and open wounds.
Costumes: every day natural clothing for the goodies and dishevelled, ripped, blood stained clothing for the evil.

SETTING
Derelict or abandoned buildings, graveyards, churches, forests, hospitals, cellars, basements, roofs, castles, historical and isolated areas. 

LIGHTING AND COLOURS
Low key lighting: allows dark shadows to form and spook the viewer and also create a dark, gloomy atmosphere to compy with the horror genre
Back lighting: to form a silhouette of a person or object which scares both the on-screen characters and the audience. It makes the figure look evil, superior and sinister as their identity is masked and hidden.
The lighting is often expressive and unrealistic.
Colours: reds are often used as they represent blood, evil and danger and black is often used as it represents death, evil and darkness.

SOUND
Non-diegetic: sounds such as a narrator explaining the story or music playing whilst the hero is walking down the street.
Diegetic: natural sounds in the shot such as footsteps, dialogue and background noise
Sound effects: horror films use many sound effects as they are necessary to create a scary atmosphere such as heartbeat sounds, violence, stabbings, gunshots, wind, screams and creaks. They are effective in making the audience feel uneasy as it makes the scene feel more realistic.
Crescendo: this effect is often used in horror films to build a climax in a scene which creates tension.

SUBGENRE'S
Supernatural, sci-fi, psychological, slashers, fantasy, gore, comedy, true stories, animal, zombies, werewolves 

Preliminary Task PLAN

The Shining Opening Sequence Analysis

This is my analysis of The Shining's opening sequence. You may need to pause the video at times to read the annotations as the text duration can be quite short and difficult to read in time.

Importance Of Media In My Life

Analyse The Variety and Importance Of The Media In Your Life

Without the media, for me, communication with my friends, family and the public would be non-existent. I use it from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep at night. Although being a teenager and being expeted to always be using the latest technology (new media), I still often use various old media forms such as reading books, magazines and newspapers.

The public communicate with me via newspapers, posters, adverts, leaflets and television which are all examples of old media. The majority of the above medias are for educational and entertainment purposes.

For social purposes, I communicate with my friends and family via the following media: mobile phone, social networking sites (Twitter and Facebook), the Internet in general and occasionally e-mailing. These media are important in my life as I need them to communicate freely, instantly and wherever I am. They are not only key for social reasons, but for safety reasons such as keeping in contact with my parents. I think that communication amongst the world and also friends and family would suffer immensely without the tools of media.

Analysing 9 Points of the opening credits of "The Happening"

Camera Movements

TRACKING SHOT-  A tracking shot is a shot in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly; a mobile platform which steadily travels along a rail to create a smooth movement. In this shot the camera follows the character or an object (e.g. vehicle.) It can also be known as a dolly shot. Depending on the speed of the tracking, this shot can have different connotations:

• a sense of dreaming, hallucinations or trance if the tracking is extremely slow
• chaotic, tense and jumpy scenes if the tracking is extremely fast (e.g. car chase)

TILT SHOT-  A tilt shot is when the camera tilts up or down, rotating on an axis. A downward tilt shot can be used to give a sense of inferiority or weakness such as an adult looking down at a small child. On the other hand, an upward tilt shot can give the opposite effect and signifies superiority and the sense of height and power. A popular scene is a tilt shot from the base of a tall building to the top, to represent the sheer size of it. They can also be used in conjunction with a point of view shot, where one character is looking another character or object up and down.

ZOOM -  A zoom shot is as obvious as its name states, it simply uses the focal length on the camera to zoom in and out of a shot. They simulate tracking shots and are often used if the necessary equipment isn't available (e.g. dolly). However, zoom shots can be tricky to achieve unless you have an extremely good, most likely- expensive, camera which can effectively zoom in smoothly. If the zoom is jerky this will make the shot look unprofessional and unclear for the audience to follow. Zooming in isolates and focuses on a person or object whereas zooming out places that person or object in a wider context and the location can be seen clearly.

ARC SHOT-  An arc shot is the movement of the camera in a full or semi-circle around an object or character. An arc shot is used to add drama to a film sequence and increases the intensity of the narrative. They are known to be greatly effective when filming a moving object, although a complicated shot, it holds the audience's attention.

CRANE SHOT-  A crane shot is when a camera is suspended by a crane or a jib which moves electronically (usually). They are used when the camera needs to be a few feet higher than usual. An obvious use is when they want to view the actors or scenery from above or move up and away from them (which is a common way to end a scene or film). There are two types of crane shots:

• Rise up- camera rises vertically
• Fall down- camera moves vertically downward

PANNING SHOT-  This is the movement of the camera from left to right in a fixed position which follows character movement, e.g. somebody walking or running. It is a very common shot used and can be successful if done on a smooth track to avoid any jerky movements. It can easily capture the audience's attention and leads them through the narrative or scenery thoroughly.