Movie Profile

Gender: Male/ Female

Age Range: 18 -25

Class: Lower/Middle Class

Interests: Horror films, rock music, Comedies, Gore, Thrillers, outdoor activities, normally associate themselves with the rock subculture or enjoy the horror genre because of the fright factor or they are apart of the genre community.

Narrative

Narrative

 

Iconography

 

Blood  -Blood is normally associated with horror, death, pain. Convention in horror films. It is also used to cause pain and can be used to create suspense or the build-up to the break in the equilibrium.

Knife – a symbol of power and is normally used as a weapon in horror films, so it follows conventions of a horror film. Example of a horror film, Friday 13^th

Scalpel- professional, easy to obtain, normally used by doctors. The contrast of this as a weapon clashes with the idea that it is used to help people by doctors. 

Village – Small, ominous, isolation.

Swing – normally associated with children and having fun, plays on your memories as a child, but the fact that it is empty and seems unused shows the isolation around them and the lack of life in the village

Fire/ Match – Fire is used as a cleanse of identity and is used to cause panic

Style

The way the match is dropped in slow motion holds the suspense of the audience, creates an eerie atmosphere as you know the outcome is going to be bad. A typical edit used in any media genre to keep the audience in suspense and the build-up to the equilibrium breaking as we as see it break when people flee the building, with a close up on peoples feet and legs, as well as people being stamped over, again asking the question “Who is who?”.

The shot reverse shot shows a break in Marks mental state as he begins to talk to himself. It creates a break in the equilibrium and in the conventional state of the film. It is also used to create suspense.

We use Sepia up until shot 13, to signify that up until this point everything that has been shown is in the past.

Point of view shots are used to create a connection with the character as well as displaying the isolation and bareness of the village in the scene where they enter for the first time.

For our trailer we are going to use a gothic style whilst filming with an emphasis on shadows to create a sense of unease and impending doom.

The beginning of the trailer acts similarly to that of a shot reverse shot, where one minute the corridors are empty and the next Lilly appears there. This is used to mirror different time slots in the past, which builds up to the break in the equilibrium and signifies her escape, however the long shots don’t revealed her character so she is still anonymous.

During the end of the trailer there is a montage of shots which in parallel to the quick cuts, creates panic and easily portrays the break in the equilibrium.

Setting

Village – The village is used for its rural look but with the sense of a community, however the break in this idea comes when the patients take over the village and use it as their own. The village is used as a game for them, due to their psychosis, where they can manipulate their surroundings and use the villagers to hide their true identities. The village is also effective in portraying isolation and create a sense of unease due to this. 

Hospital corridors – The sanitary bareness of the corridors are effective in portraying a mental asylum – refer back to style

Mental asylum

The bedroom  -The bedroom is used to create a familiar and safe environment but is manipulated by the contrast where we use it in the trailer. The action in the scene isn’t conventional of typical bedroom scene, as well as the fact that a female character is the one attacking the man, which breaks the stereotype of a weak woman.

Cornfield – The cornfield acts as a maze in which the characters get both physically and mentally lost in, for example Marks breaks down and develops a new personality. As well as this Charlotte gets physically dragged into the cornfield. 

Basement – The basement is used to emphasise the break in Marks personalities as this is where is begins to talk to physical copy of himself which he has imagined.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Script - Begining Scenes

[Opens with a long shot of the entrance to the mental asylum. The shot alternates between long shots and medium shots of the asylum corridors, with the alternates between the shots of LILLY in the corridors. The effect of Sepia is used to show the alternate time periods and the diegetic sound effect of matches being stuck is used to show the change in scenes. It then moves to a medium shot of Lilly in a hospital bed, with pictures and drawings around her. It changes to a medium close up of her hands lighting matches and blowing them out. The camera cuts to a close up of the match as its being struck; the camera then pans down as the match falls to the ground and falls into a puddle of petrol. It then cuts to a blurred point of view shot of the corridor where patients are running with the sounds of screaming echoed in the background. The camera pans down where there is a dead patient laying with a pool of blood under his head, with shoe marks on his face. It then cuts to a low medium shot of LILLY in the field running with three other patients, with the sound of heavy breathing in parallel to the sound of sirens in the background.]

Paranormal Activity Movie Analysis

Paranormal Activity is a Supernatural/Horror film released in 2007. Initially it was an independent film however it was later acquired by Paramount Pictures and released in 2009. It was written and directed by Oren Peli.

The plot revolves around a young woman who has been haunted all her life by a spirit and moves to a new house in San Diego with her partner. To confirm any paranormal action in the night, they set up a video camera in their bedroom to record them while they sleep. As the nights progress, the activity becomes more aggressive and frightening, which leads up to the horrific ending involving demonic possession.

This unique selling point for this film, which makes it original in terms of a horror film, is that it is all filmed on one home video camera instead of the usual cameras used for films. The reasoning behind this was to make it appear believable, as if it were recovered footage from the camera that was found days after the climax of the film. This therefore makes it seem like a "home movie" type of recording, due to the lack of professionalism in the filming and realistic behaviour of the characters as the film continues. This of course was seen on another successful budget film, the Blair Witch Project.

The characters used present authenticity to the audience, as they are a relatable young couple who have just moved into their new home but find themselves vulnerable and unaware from the beginning. During the day, the man records any relevant events, such as meeting experts for help or the current state of his girlfriend as she suffers the most throughout the nights. Again this type of film was mostly new in terms of what it offered for thrills and expectations, whilst maintaining a sense of realism and horror simultaneously.

Its use of camera shots and angles is hard to determine due to its home movie style camera work, which then leads on to the use of a soundtrack, whereby there isn't one. The effects of this horror come solely through its content and story.

Finally the setting and prop usage are quite cliché, seeing as though it stands alone in other aspects. It uses a big suburban house as its primary location, with plenty of space and rooms, leaving it with enough space for paranormal events to occur. Meanwhile its props are minor, conventional house related objects that simply add to realism, the main prop however is obviously the camera, which serves as the audience's only method of witness to the events in the house.

In my opinion, it is a strong horror film that conveys its thrill through a realistic and relatable manner, and because of this the film is very effective for its purpose.

PhotoShoped Images

The images I have edited are a few from the recent photoshoot, which I have edited to reflect on the theme of the scenes (The Past) to help create a visual difference between the action later on in the trailer. The importance of these images shows Lilly and focuses on her as well as her mental state and isolation around her. The bare corridor is useful in showing this, as it portrays a clinical environment which is stereotypical of a hospital, as well as due to its emptiness creating a contrast with what we assume a hospital looks like. To create the effects shown in the photos I used Adobe Photoshop to create different contrasts to the images and by using different layers creating a sinister images similar to that of The Ward and other horror films, to make it seem more realistic.

Photoshoot 13/11/13