Horror Essay

Horror films all use similar features to convey fear into the viewer, such as using high pitched and fast paced music, or using different types of lighting to create mystery, and especially using camera angles and different types of shots to confuse the audience.

In the Paranormal Activity films the lighting is mainly low key throughout, just to give the audience a sense of fear that something dangerous is lurking in the house and is hiding in the shadows. As well as this the directors use a lot of wide and high angle shots, this is probably so that the audience has to look at a lot of things in the frame at the same time so if something was to move around it would catch the viewer off guard and make them question what just moved in the frame, creating mystery and confusion for the viewer, also used are jump scares throughout and frighten the audience suddenly. In the films you get to witness the protagonists during the daytime which is always set in high key lighting to make you feel safe since it is daytime, this relates to the usual horror stereotype that if the sun is up then the evil will disappear, during this time a lot of close ups are used too to show what the characters are feeling and experiencing while they are victims of the horrors.

In one clip of the film you get to see a dog sleeping in the same room as a baby and you get to see this from the viewpoint of a surveillance camera, the footage in dark by using low key lighting and then the dog begins to bark wildly and dominantly. This scene is to probably show that the dog is protecting the child from evil as we know that there is evil present in the house, and when the dog begins to bark we can tell that the evil spirit is probably nearby and might hurt the baby so the dog is trying scare the spirit off. The fact that the camera is positioned in the baby's room probably means that the evil spirit want to harm the baby, or that the baby may even be important to the spirit as if it has a motive. We also know from this scene that the dog may be able to see the evil spirit and might be used later on to get rid of or even defeat the spirit. The high angle of the camera in the scene shows that the baby and the dog are inferior to spirit and that they are helpless against it no matter what they try to do, and because we are unable to see the spirit there are no camera angles to show the power it has and so we as the audience have to assume that the spirit has unlimited power which cannot be shown. The camera has a slight static effect in the scene, which conveys mystery since you cannot get a perfect picture of what is going on.

Favourite Film Induction Task

My favourite film this summer was the latest Star Trek film ‘Star Trek : Beyond’, which meets the crew of the enterprise half way through their five year mission which was given to them at the end of the last film ‘Star Trek : Into Darkness’ where the crew were excited for the mission, however at the start of Beyond we see the crew rather depressed and not up to the usual standard we have seen them in the past. This caught me by surprise because I got to see the main protagonist in a different light, where he is caring and sad instead of being smart and ready to get into action, and this I liked because I got a different perspective of the enterprise crew instead of them when they are fighting an enemy. During the beginning of the film you also get to see a new artificial planet that was created by the films main faction, and I loved this because you get a sense of scale like we got in the first film when we saw Kirk next to one of the federations latest starships, but this time we see one of these starships next to this giant glass sphere the size of a moon. It isn’t soon after this that the tension begins to rise when the director makes us think that the new planet is in danger of attack by suddenly snapping to an unknown ship approaching and using a shaky camera to feel like the protagonists are in danger. It isn’t till later on where we do eventually see the first bit of action, but this time its to a scale non of the previous movies have shown before, and this is the enterprise being fully destroyed, and the director set the tone for this scene perfectly by switching from interior shots of the ship being attacked to wide angle shots of the exterior of the ship being destroyed, this made me feel sympathy for the protagonists as they face an enemy they cannot defeat for the first time. It was not only the camera shots and angles used that had an effect on me but it was also the music used during the destruction, a sad and depressing score that really set the tone of the scene, where the protagonists are defeated. After this we get to see the protagonists fight back even when they are at a disadvantage by outsmarting the enemy and eventually figuring out a way to defeat them. We see this in an action scene where the main protagonist rescues his entire crew on his own, where the camera pans around following the protagonist and also cuts between different moments of the battle. Even later in the film we get to a bit where this new planet is under actual threat and we see that they are helpless against the undefeatable enemy, and so the audience feels sorry for them, but then protagonists come in and manage to save the day which makes the audience feel joy, and want to celebrate. During this big fight the camera follows the new ship around and gives a sense of scale again amazing the audience, and the music used also conveys the sense of victory.

Deadpool Induction Task

Deadpool became a box-office success because of how different it was to other movies of similar genre and style; cinemablend said that people love the characters “blabber-mouth and general insanity”. This is completely different to other comic book characters, who just tend to be serious and only speak when needed, where as Deadpool literally doesn’t shut up and this creates humor as he annoys other characters in the film and as cinemablend says “humor goes a very long way into making comic book movies stand out”. We get this humor from the protagonists constant 4^th wall breaks where he talks to the audience, or references the production of the film, and his non stop jokes when in the middle of intense fights and normal conversations. As well as this, the film doesn’t stick with the hero cliché and instead follows an anti-hero, which allows the film to contain a lot more action and violence than other comic book movies, but it “never pushes the violence towards unpleasant gratuity” claims cinemablend. The film also tied into the x-men films with the main protagonist meeting with a few x-men characters at their mansion, and for a lot of big x-men fans this was a surprise and a good treat for them, and by doing this future x-men films could have deadpool in them and bring back a loved character. Another reason for success is that the film managed to balance a story and action together very well by giving us deadpools backstory, the reason why he does what he does and showing a caring side of him while also giving us the action and humor that we want to see from the character, and through all of this they still managed to keep humor high throughout even during times we should have been feeling sorry for the main protagonists. One of the big reasons that deadpool was a success is because the director stuck to how the character should actually be and not try and alter it to how they like it, so in the end we had a protagonist who turned out how every fan of deadpool wished he would be, a skillful killer who runs his mouth and doesn’t care what other people think of him. The actor who played deadpool fit the role so well and managed bring him to life and make him a loveable character who stands out from other characters in films. Even with a small budget to make the film, they still managed to make it look great, from the amazing latex suit up to giant fight scenes with fire and explosions.

A films success is measured directly by the ticket sales during the opening weekend, and by the overall reviews is gets from renowned reviewers. In deadpools case they made $132,434,639 in the opening weekend and a total of $782,612,155 worldwide, which for a film made from a budget of $58 million is an incredible success, and as well as the money they received great reviews from top reviewers from 4 up to 5 stars, so overall Deadpool was a box-office success

518 Words