Q1 - Reflective Evaluation - Raja Virdi

In this question, we have to show how these images from existing films develop or challenge the images from the horror film we made. We will need to show how these photos show conventions from our films and how we have used these as a kind of inspiration for how we want our film to be perceived, and how well it has turned out like these images.

This is the Lionsgate logo in the opening of the film. Personally, I feel it represents the film using the red which is kind of like blood. Also, I like the font of "Lionsgate" as it quite scruffy but bold which gives it a very interesting look which would certainly attract an audience. I also like the background of the clouds as fonts contrast with it. For our opening logo, I would be very interested in creating something like that.

This is our logo, we created for our production company - Diamond Films. We believe we have developed conventions as we have used colours which have been found in other company logos such as the Lionsgate one which is mostly red, to show blood/evil. We also used a Serif font which challenges the Lionsgate conventions as we wanted it different and not as bold and in your face as we have used the logo of a Diamond to symbolise our logo.

The use of this logo is very simplistic in that the logo is on its own with a black background which represents darkness and fear. Also the font is very bold with "Haunting" and "Connecticut" in bold which could symbolise the importance of those two themes. It represents the sub genre of psychological as it makes the audience think what the film will be about with such a simple logo and title sequence, which creates tension and fear of the unknown.



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This is the last scene from our opening credits. We believe it develops conventions from the Haunting in Connecticut titles as we are using old photos, used similar colour correction to show aged photographs but we challenged them in that we added bold text which fades in and out. We also added some eerie dark piano music for an added scary effect.

The use of the titles represents the conventions of the psychological sub genre as it shows vintage family portraits at first with eerie piano music but the camera then zooms out as the music starts to distort to show the photos are actually people with corpses. This represents how the psychological sub genre can play with your mind and create quite a scary and fearful image.




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We can see here that our sub-genre is shown as the lights are flickering (showing ghostly presence) and it's a dark tone. We also think we developed conventions because in establishing a psychological sub-genre, there needs to be a haunting, which was happening at this point in our film.

We can see here that the sub-genre of this psychological film is shown, as it is showing a ghost (the girl), which implies it's a ghost/psychological film. The use of mise en scene is used here with lighting as we can see the lighting on the girl which shows she is a key character and is ghost-like. Also, she is dressed all in white to show purity whereas the male character in in darker clothes and along with the destroyed setting it reflects him as a character.


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We have developed the conventions of character here as we can see she is a young teenage girl. By her facial reactions here, it shows she is scared which is another convention of a psychological that we followed. We put our character in dark clothes to represent our films dark tone.

In this image we can see that the character has been scratching the walls. The idea of being hurt from the mind reflects a psychological which is happening here. This could reflect the conventions of a psychological story as usually they target younger characters from the inside. Also, the mise en scene can tell us that the character looks like he is wearing something from a mental institution, and the fact he has no top on could show he is confused.



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This shot shows good mise en scene which develops the conventions of our sub genre as we used the photos in the beginning of our title sequence so it shows continuity. Also, the photos are a key prop in our film which are found to be haunting or character everywhere she goes.

This scene is showing good mise en scene as the woman is in the direct lighting whereas the ghost-like being behind her is in darkness. Also, we can see she is in clean clothes whereas he is in old tatted clothes which have been burned. The sub-genre of a ghost psychological can be understood here. This image also shows that the darker character may attack the woman.




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4 Key Images:

In this image, it is showing the character seeing a wall break down with blood. It implies the sub genre of a psychological as the Room 1408 is playing with his mind. The mise en scene shows him in quite a lot of shadows which could imply darkness which is usually represented with psychological horrors.

In this scene, we can see the characters soul being taken out as the paranormal happenings have taken over her body. We believe this is a key image because it shows the climax of our film as to why she is being haunted. Also, we feel we are developing conventions because in a psychological usually a ghost can take over a human, for example in Paranormal Activity, which is where we got this idea from.



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In this image is shows a ghost about to jump out the window. This is also showing the room is playing with the characters mind, and is a key point as he contemplates suicide.

The lights are a key scene in our film as it is when the haunting begins to start for our character. The lights turn on and off by themselves and we added electrical sound effects to add to the scare of the scene to show the haunting building up.











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In this scene, the character starts to become mentally unstable as he keeps seeing ghosts and past histories which cause him to lose his mind. As the characters hands are on his head like that it shows he is confused, which is a normal convention for characters in a psychological horror.

In this scene, our character is trying to escape the room as she has been haunted and is scared. These are developing conventions of a psychological film as in Room 1408, the man is trying to escape the room but he can't.







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In this image we can see the room giving him a rope to hang himself on. The ideas of a threat playing with a characters head are the conventions shown here, which is very normal in a psychological horror. Also the conventions of the story start to build up as we as an audience now understand that the room destroys peoples minds until there death, which is shown in this image.

In this scene, as it is a long shot and pans around the room, we can see it shows the conventions of a psychological as the scene is in a old/vintage styled room. This is quite a scary image as the room is also desolate and we don't know what is going to happen. The mise en scene for lighting is very good in my opinion as the shadows are quite long and scary.