History of Horror film

Codes and coventions

Codes – they are typically seen as guidelines of a typical film of the associated genre

Conventions – this is something you would typically expect to find on a certain genre

Codes are systems of signs which create meaning and conventions are the generally accepted way of doing something. Horror films generally have the same setting that connotes isolation and normally include little or no lighting to make the setting more intense. When props are used there is use of different props in different types of horror films; in ‘psychological’ horror there is the use of olds items and antiques oppositely in ‘slasher’ horrors there is the use of thing like chainsaws and other weapons which are more upfront threatening.

Genre Theories

Initial ideas

   

This mind mapping shows our initial ideas for our horror opening scene, we collaborated as a group to come up with a range of ideas and narrowed it down to one idea. We thought about a number of things including narrative , genre , props , mase-en-scene and conventions. This mind mapping has helped us as a group come together to think of ideas and quite literally put them down on paper. From this callablration we have now got an initial idea which we can adjust later on if we come up with other ideas, this mind map includes key concepts we need to consider before even thinking about storyboarding our ideas to make out opening scene.

We spent a lot of time sharing our ideas and discussing ideology , codes and conventions we are hoping in using for our horror genre opening scene 

This is our mind map of our ideas , this briefly outlines what we are thinking about including in our open scene. 

Horror Film Poster Analysis

Automatically this poster catches the eye of the audience who are looking to watch a horror film this is due to the references to other popular horror films (‘the conjuring’).

There is a minimum of colours used in this film poster, there is only red, white, black and a little bit of colours on the doll however over all there isn’t a huge range of colour used. The doll have more colour on this this could be used to represent that the doll has more of a main role so will stand out more from beginning to end. Even though there was a limit of colour these different colours represent a lot in themselves , Black symbolises death , darkness and the darkness makes  in more daunting as it leads the audience to thinking what could be in that dark space ; red symbolises blood also the red wording links to the red tear coming out of the dolls eye. Also ‘the conjuring’ is a popular film so thinking this to the conjuring would intrigue the audience as they would or could have been a fan of the producers who made the conjuring, this could lead them to wanting to see another one of their films. A lot of attention is draw to the eye and face of the doll as it looks intimidating and it is strange to think that a doll could make a human feel this way so again this makes the potential audience to ask why? And makes them want to watch it to find out,

The dominance of the image suggests a variety of things. Firstly it shows that the doll must have a significant role of the film as it is significant in the poster as it takes up most of the image. Also the dolls eye isn’t a normal eye this is signifying that it isn’t a original doll so there is something strange about it that is different, already this is making the film seem intriguing as they will want to know why this doll is different?

The title of the film further suggests why this doll is different as the name ‘Annabelle’ is a normal name. This connotes that something different is going to happen.

Overall I think this film poster is affective as it already makes the audience want to ask questions of why? And maybe How ?  These are enigma codes of Barthes and they all lead to the intrigue in horror.