Evaluation Question 1

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In our film poster, we have also conformed to poster conventions, through this we believe that we have created an industry standard poster. For example, in our poster we add film/institution credits at the bottom of the poster, which is the conventional position and the used the conventional font to write this. Conforming to this convention has allowed us to appeal to a niche audience in our target audience who are film fanatics and may only wish to see a film because of the institutions involved, such as the production company, director, or sound editor. As a result, this helps us to gratify our niche audience within our target audience. However, me and my partner are not a well-established production company, so in our case, including film credits may encourage individuals within our target audience who know us personally to view what we have created.

In our film, we used green screen in moments the ghost appeared in our film and this is a convention found within the horror genre. The use of green screen allowed us to manipulate the ghost scene footage, so that along with the ghostly makeup, our ghosts looked freakier and grotesque. For example, in the ghost scene of Richard Williams in the modern section of our film, we increased the pace of certain parts of the footage, so that it seemed Richard Williams was moving his neck in an abnormal matter. The use of this effect, made the ghost of Richard Williams appear as if he was cracking his neck, which is seen in the final scene of the horror film The Grudge 3 (2009), whereby the female protagonist confronts the female ghost, as the ghost reaches towards the female protagonist cracking her neck. This increased the scare factor of our film and made our ghost seem realistic, in the sense that the Ghost of Richard Williams seemed less like a human and more of an evil spirit.

We have developed film conventions in our short horror film, by not following the linear narrative structure introduced by Todorov. Todorov argues, that every film starts off with an equilibrium whereby everything is normal, then the film moves to a disequilibrium due to the introduction of a problem in the narrative and lastly, a new equilibrium is created whereby the problem is solved and everything returns to normal. We decided to not conform to this convention, by ending our film on a cliff hanger, which provided our audience something to talk about and perhaps encouraged our audience to create a narrative for themselves to satisfy their curiosity, which agrees with Paul Auster, who argues “we construct narratives for ourselves”. Moreover, we developed Noel Carroll’s, 3 act horror structure, that in a typical horror film, there is an onset phase, then a discovery phase and lastly a disruption phase. We developed this narrative convention, by creating a discovery phase in the 50’s section, when Richard Williams sees the ghost of his wife in the mirror and in the modern phase where Alan Smith sees his ghost Doppelganger (Richard Williams) in the same mirror. Through developing this convention, we think we could offer our audience something new to see in our horror film, to feel gratified by. In our narrative we can apply and develop Propp's 8 stock characters, which is a theory that suggests all films will contain certain 8 characters in one shape or form. This is evident in our film, because the princess is represented by the wife of Richard Williams, who is Sofia Williams, as she is who Richard Williams attempts to search for after she goes missing in the 50s section of the film. The villain is represented by the spirits in the haunted office. On the other hand, we developed Propp's theory as instead of having one hero, there are two heroes represented by Richard Williams and Alan Smith, who both attempt to figure out the mystery of the haunted office, but both in the end are defeated by the villain. Therefore, we have challenged Propp's theory and added an unconventional element to our film, in doing so, we believe this gives our audience a different ideology of a hero, that not all heroes succeed.