task 2 essays

1. Farben Nikon Ahamed
Task 2 Unit 2, 3, 22
Single Camera
What is single camera production?
The single-camera setup originally developed during the birth of the
classical Hollywood cinema in the 1910s and has remained the
standard mode of production for cinema. It means that during the
actual taking of the footage, 1 and only 1 camera is being used to
take the shots; there can be multiple cameras available, but in the
actual scene filming only 1 has to be used. This type of production is
mostly reserved for prime-time dramas, made-for-TV movies, music
videos, commercial advertisements, soap operas, talk shows, game
shows and most reality television series. This type of production
usually means you have a low budget and therefore there has to be a
lot of editing, it is not recommended for filming films in general and
especially in big establishment as it will take time to move and set
everything up again.
Examples of single camera production:
This is an American teen drama television series that has been filmed
with just one camera

2. In this setup, each of
the various shots and
camera angles are taken
using the same camera,
which is moved and
reset to get each shot or
new angle. If a scene
cuts back and forth
between actor A and
actor B, the director will
first point the camera
towards A and run part
or all of the scene from
this angle, then move the
camera to point at B, relight, and then run the scene through from
this angle.
Positive side of single camera: There are a lot of things to consider
when choosing how many cameras have to be used during filming,
firstly the most important that usually impacts on the decision
whether to use one or more cameras is the fact that it is really cheap
to use just one as it is not all just about the price of the camera by
itself, but it is also about the rest of the equipment and the
accessories related to the camera (tripod, dolly, …) and not only this,
but also the staff that will have to be stay with the camera and stay
behind it to give advice (cameraman, second continuity error
manager, …) which means that less cameras you have, less money
you’ll spend. Another key point is that by having just one camera
there will be less waste of time on setting up the equipment needed
and then at the end you will also have less shots and takes to go

3. through when editing. Another advantage that a single camera
production might have is that this will test the skills of actors and
crew even more as they will need to be precise when re-taking the
same shots to get a match on action for example.
Downsides of single camera production: As for the advantages, there
are many negative aspects of it, firstly being that depending on what
type of media product you will be producing it will take longer to film
and there is going to be a lot of wasted time for re-taking shots from
different angles and prospective. In other occasions you might have a
scene that requires a lot of money to be done, for example an
explosion scene may be expensive and as you want to take shots
from different angles it will cost a lot to re-do the explosion just to
get it from a different view.
The biggest problems of a single camera production are the match
on action errors, continuity errors and change in lighting or acting.
Here there is a big continuity
mistake in the show
“Friends” and it is to be
expected as in single camera
production is really hard to
keep an eye on these
mistakes.

4. Quarantine (2008): https://seriesonline.io/film/quarantine-
yxx/watching.html
Genre: The genre of this film is horror and the subgenre is zombie
and it is all been filmed in “found footage”. It looks like it is being
found by someone else and then the public sees it as the founder is
showing it to them almost to inform the viewers that this has
happened and has been documented by someone else. Although the
genre is horror, there are some unconventional things that occur in
the film such as the fact that the “zombies” are way more aggressive
than “normal”, they only want to attack you, not eat or bite which is
what usually zombies in other media content do, the zombies in
other films are also slower and shaky as if they are already dead and
in the process of being decomposed.
This is a picture
from The
Walking Dead,
(which shows
many
conventional
aspects of a
common
zombie themed
show) we can
see here that
the zombies are looking at the camera and are slowly walking
towards it, not rushing desperately to you like in the next picture
which is from “Quarantine (2008)”

5. Here, as the
characters are
going
downstairs a
zombie
attacks them
(1.07.45Hour),
he was really
aggressive
which again
emphasises
the fact that it is unconventional for a classic “zombie horror” film as
zombies are expected to be slow and hungry for blood not for
aggression. In my opinion this unconventional aspect has been added
to create much more suspense and create phase in the audience’s
feelings, we know it’s been filmed as found footage so not many
cuts/editing can emphasise the fast phase of characters and fast
zombies do, they make the audience feel more scared as such fast
zombies can jump up to “you” in any moment without even giving
the time to realise that “you” are dead.
Another unconventional thing about this film is that everyone dies at
the end, even the main character (Angie) who looks like is the one
who gets help from everyone to survive as much as possible, but
then at the end dies as he has no more protection (helper such as
Jake).
NARRATIVE: The narration in which the events have been shown is
linear and it would have been impossible for the producers to make
it non-linear with this type of filming which is found footage. Found
footage means that someone documented something and then lost
its whole footage and then someone else finds it and shows it to the
public, so by documenting everything as you go, like in this film,

6. there is no chance to add a movement in time (backwards) as the
raw footage has been shown in a chronological order as the shots
have been taken.
The ending
doesn’t end in
a cliff-hanger,
all the
characters die,
and the only
one remaining
until the very
end was Angie
who gets
dragged in to the dark making the audience think in different ways,
the ways in which she dies. The sequel does not follow the same
characters which confirms the ending of the one from 2008 being
closed and in addition to that, the other film, the original one is open
ended making it irrelevant to the ending of this one. So the storyline
of Quarantine 2008 is closed to tell the audience that everything is
finished and that there is no hope for the characters inside the
building as they all died.
EDITING: There is no evident editing and all we see its raw footage,
there is no effects such as fade in/out, added text, dissolve and
others as the way in which it has been filmed doesn’t allow any
evident editing to be added. The whole film is meant to be shown as
footage being found to give it more meaning and to give it more
tense as it almost looks like you, the viewer, are actually personified
in the camera/cameraman as if you were actually there when it
happened which makes the audience feel more involved and more
inside the film as if they are actually there looking at the situation.
There are a few cuts, but they are not edited and they are all ellipsis

7. as they are supposed to show that the camera has been turned off
and then back on after to record something else, they are all ellipsis
because the “cuts” cut to a different scene or place emphasising a
move in time (forward), in addition to this, the whole film story
duration should be long the whole night meaning the characters
have been in that building for 6 hours or so, so because you can’ t
just show everything that happens in 6 hours straight and
ellipsis/cuts are being used to show time passing you are making the
audience think about what could have happened in the meanwhile
which gives them more mystery and tense and can convince them to
carry on watching as they want to know what will happen or what
happened to the other characters during the ellipsis.
This is an example of ellipsis/cut that has been used in the film.
(10.44-10.55 mins)
We can see
Angie
talking
about the
fire fighters
who were
just
washing the
fire truck
and then
straight after a
cut to them all
together
playing
basketball, this
ellipsis has
been used to

8. show time has passed.
On the scene where they all are going to the place where help was
requested there are a few cuts that show all ellipsis again which
emphasises time passing as we, as the audience, don’t want to see
the whole
scene of them
seating down
and not doing
anything so the
cuts have been
done also to
show the most
interesting
bits. Here is an
example of a
cut, the
camera was
looking at the
front, at the
road (13.03 – 13.12 mins) and then suddenly cuts to the fireman
seating at the front right.
Not having many cuts throughout the whole film means that there
has to be a constant good acting from actors and having to take a
long take can be very hard as the rhythm and the phase of the film
itself will depend only on the actors themselves (heavy breathing,
shouting, running…).
Although there is no evident editing, editing has been used in 2
cases:

9. 1 being to put all the cuts together in to a whole film and
2 to edit the blood when the cameraman smashes the camera on to
a zombie to kill him and also after, the scene where the cameraman
cleans the lens from the blood has been edited.
(46.15mins)

10. Here the cameraman
cleans the lens from
the blood and it’s
clearly fake, added
through editing to
make the scene have
more sense and
reality
In these two cases they needed it to make the film more fluent and
realistic for the audience, but with evident editing there would be no
verisimilitude to the genre and the way it has been filmed.
Sound
Diegetic sound:

11. Diegetic sounds are sounds that the actors by themselves can hear
and these could be the noise made by the helicopters around the
infected building, people talking, gun shot, police and people
outside. Some of these are sound that may have been recorded
separately and then added, but seen the way in which the film has
been recorded,
these sounds were
supposed to be
there all the time
and all these sounds
create
verisimilitude within
the audience which
lets them think that the film they are watching is actually real and
what happened was real as it looked like it was a documentary.
(1.09.13 hour)
There is no Non-
diegetic sounds as
they can be added
only through
editing and as said
before, there is no
evident editing
making the whole film way more realistic for the viewers.
Dialogue/acting:
Throughout the whole film we can notice that the actors had
different accents which shows that Los Angeles is a diverse city and
there were even some people who couldn’t speak English.

12. The dialogue in
the film
progressed
towards a
“scary way” as
at the
beginning
everything
looked and
sounded calm, everyone was relaxed and confident, but as the film
progressed we can hear the panicking increasing as people, the
characters, understood in which situation they were which makes
the audience feel more anxious, like the characters inside the film.
In the characters we can see an evident contrast between the
policeman and the fireman (Jake) who based on their voice and
dialogues were showing completely different behaviour.
The policeman almost all of the time was speaking on an
authoritarian way as he wanted to be in charge of everything and he
also wanted to bring control to the situation as he had a weapon and
the police uniform
which meant that
in that case he was
the most reliable to
stay in “command”
of the situation.
This is due to the
fact that he was
the most authoritarian and was in the highest social class among the
people in the building, but he was really unstable as oftentimes he
panicked and used the gun to protect himself; also his voice and the
way in which he spoke when he panicked emphasised he was losing

13. control of
himself, he was
desperate for
protection as he
pointed the gun
to people
(survivors) as
well.
The fireman
instead (Jake) was
always trying to
reassure everyone,
he wasn’t
authoritarian, the
only thing he was
doing is trying to
find a way to solve
the situation by staying calm, without panicking or making others
panic, in fact in this screenshot we can see the policeman pointing
the gun at the fireman who instead is trying to reassure (by using
hand gestures), to calm, to explain him that they are all on the same
boat.
Acting was crucial in this film as it can make a difference between
what would happen in the real world and what could be just a film
and in the Quarantine 2008 acting was well done and made the
audience think that that could have actually been real as it looked
like an actual documentary, also acting for the audience creates
more meaning to the context and situation in which the actors were.

14. When the actors look
at the camera, they
break the 4th
wall role
and Angie does it
when she introduces
something new to the
camera or simply
describes something,
but she has to do it
because the style of
the film is a
documentary-found
footage so she has to
address the audience
in a certain formal
way as she is the
presenter, the main character that goes in to places to analyse and
show things happening in different places. This makes the audience
feel actually part of the audience of a documentary as well as it looks
like Angie is doing that documentary accordingly for them, to inform,
show and make the viewers aware of what happened there.
Although we have some formal pose and speaking, generally
throughout the film we had informal conversations as at the
beginning especially, the characters looked like they were getting
along well with each other, having fun, but other than when Angie
breaks the 4th
wall there is no formal pose/dialogue.
Music:
There is no external music that has been added to create meaning,
as we know there is no editing so music could not have been added,
the only thing we could hear were the same things that the actors
themselves could hear.

15. Mise En Scene:
Lighting
The lighting
got
progressively
darker as
time passed
not only
because it
was night
time, but also
to show the increase of desperation among the characters.
In fact we started with nice bright colours emphasising good and
relaxed mood as the actors were jokey and happy about their
situation and then we got in to the building with progressively colder
colours with low key lighting that yet got darker as time passed to
the point where it was pitched black where in order to see we were
watching the scenes through night vision on the camera.
Here’s some pictures of the lighting getting darker.

16. Here it looks really cold
as well.
Here there is
barely any
lighting.
From this scene
onwards the
only lighting is
provided by the
camera itself.

17. At this point it’s
all black
pitched, we are
able to see only
thanks to the
night vision of
the camera.
Location
Throughout the whole
film there are 3
locations, 2 of them
being main locations.
The main locations
are the fire station
where everything
starts and the
“infected” building where everyone goes after, the other location
with minor importance is the street where they drive to get to the
infected building, the shot below is taken on the street right outside
the building. (14.45Min).
This is the fire station,
the initial location.

18. This is the
entrance of the
last main
location, the
“infected
building”. (15.10
min)
Props
Props are mainly used to create more context and meaning to the
film and an example of a prop used in Quarantine that could have
more than one meaning is the needle used to sedate the fire fighter
who got infected and they used a needle instead of something else
because the audience usually relates it to a medicine that gets
injected in to someone’s body to make him/her feel more relaxed
and slippery as
experiments or
cures have to
be done on the
subject, which
is what will
happen after
this scene. (40.26 min)
(54.37min)

19. The gun of the policeman instead is another important prop as it
portraits his own mental situation and his feelings, the way he uses it
to protect shows his concerns and feels, usually in such a situation
the audience would think that the gun is a symbol of power as it can
save people, but in this case the gun was used to protect the holder
of it itself and the policeman used it to almost terrorise others as he
felt being threatened.
The way the
gun has been
used in this
scene makes
the audience
think that
there is
panicking
among the
characters and that there is clearly something bad going on as they
do not trust on each other and that they only care about
surviving.(35.04 min)
(24.46 min)
Here the gun
has been
used to
protect the
whole group
of people and
also to
protect the
policeman

20. itself, but this scene is before the one shown before and here the
mental there was not as much panic as on the scene after so the
audience should take the gun here as a symbol of protection from
the zombies.
(1.12.36min) the keys
are another prop that
show and emphasise a
way to escape a way to
be safe and survive, for
the audience it’s a
symbol of hope for the
characters in the film as the keys can let them try and find a safe
place or to simply find the way out, but at the same time that hope
can be lost if they lose the keys.
(1.17.25 min) Here, in
this scene, the
newspapers and
clippings are talking
about the end of the
days and as we’ve seen
what happened before
it is a brief explanation
of one of the reasons for which everything happened in that building.
It gives the reader a hint, a short explanation of why everything
happened and without it, the viewer would have had too many
unanswered
questions.
(1.17.28 min) This is
a tape recorder that
appears after they
discovered the
newspapers and

21. clippings and this is another key prop that adds up to the whole
meaning of the “end of the day” as when they played it they heard
some weird noises as if a zombie was talking which emphasised that
there is something wrong about the researches that the owner of the
“laboratory” conducted.
(55.07min) In this
scene there is a
drill which has
been used to get
a sample of the
brain of an
injured fireman
and in this case
the drill makes
the audience feel that there is no hope for the fireman and that
there is something serious going on that actually needs some deep
analysis and experiments that have to be conducted by some
experts.
Colours and dresses
(53.22 min) In the
scene where the
people with the
“chemical suit”
came in we can
notice that they are sort of
helpers as they came to solve or
to see more about the infection.

22. The suit they were wearing makes the audience think that they are
scientists who came there because there is an illness, danger or an
infection that could spread everywhere.
(3.58min) At the
beginning, in the
fire station, the
firemen were in
blue showing to
the viewers that
they are brave,
loyal and are
actual helpers
that would risk their lives to save you.
(1.13.30 min)
Angie instead,
is the main
protagonist
and she is
wearing white
in the second
part of the film
emphasising
that she is innocent, that she has nothing to do with that situation as
she came only as a reporter and she almost looks like the princess
who gets help and gets saved by the others multiple times and the
fact that she dies at the end make the audience feel sorry for her as
the last hope was having her as a last survivor who could then tell
everyone else about that day.

23. The old man had
grey hair and he is a
helper too as he
tried to help Jake
and the others to
escape by telling
them where the
keys were. He had
grey hair which tells the audience that he was quite old and wisdom,
he didn’t panic, he was almost someone who know that is not going
to make it and gives its best for the others.
Camerawork
(1.10 min) At the
very beginning,
the first scene
has been taken
with a tripod as
you can see that
the camera is
really stable and
at some points it
shifts to the left to show the fire truck moving and the movement
was really smooth making us think that a tripod has been used for
that take.
There is hardly
any high/low
angle shots, the
main shot types
are long shots,
some high angle
shots can be
seen when the

24. cameraman was looking down the stairs to look at the zombies
coming upstairs to make the audience feel unrelaxed and anxious as
they wanted the characters in the film to hurry up and solve the
situation, looking the zombies chasing after you from a high angle
shot also puts you on the edge of the seat. (1.05.55 min)There is
another high
angle shot and
it has been
taken when the
guy who tried
to escape got
shot, here the
cameraman
looked down to
show how busy the street was to make the audience feel like the
characters who are trapped in that building without any escape as
the crowd surrounding the building and the protection meant that
they were isolated. Usually there were a lot of close ups to show
faces, emotions and claustrophobia to create tense and scare in
within the audience.

25. THE CONJURING 2 (2016): http://123moviesfree.com/watch/the-
conjuring-2-2016-online-free-123movies.html
The conjuring 2 follows the Warren’s family who travel to London to
help another family without a male figure as a father, the mother is
trying to raise four children by herself and in the house they live
supernatural events occur as a demon/spirit takes possessions of one
of the kid (Janet).
Genre
The genre of this film is clearly horror as it shows many conventions
that portrait the common details that lead to horror. This film has
also other subgenres as there are some elements that lead to them,
these subgenres are mystery and supernatural and this is because
there are certain elements and scenes where there is no scientific
reason that could prove them.
There are also unconventional aspects, one of them being the fact
that in this film no one dies. Dying is always a conventional thing in
any horror film as generally, someone has to die to give the film itself
more impression and impact on to the audience as they will feel
sorry for them and therefore, want for the rest of the “people” to
“survive” (the concept of “surviving” depends on the context of the
film).
A typical convention that we can see in this film is the fact that the
main antagonist is a supernatural antagonist (demon) and alongside
him/her we have the
poltergeist which is really
common figure in a horror
themed film.
The audience thinks
straight away that the
antagonists are the poltergeist and the demon as it is conventional to

26. have this kind of scenario in a horror film, also these two antagonists
have a certain make up that affects and impacts the audience even
more as this shows how scary and threatening they are or could
become if you annoy them. In this film we can see that the family
being haunted is composed by 4 children and a mum without a
husband which would the male figure who always helps and stands
out as the strongest in the family with the main objective being to
protect the familiars. Having to miss the male figure in a family
means that the audience would feel more scared and sorry for them
as there is no protection and another conventional thing is that the
one being possessed in the family is a child (Janet) this is because
nowadays possessing a child or disturbing a family with children (in a
horror film) has way more impact on the audience than scaring a
group of friends. For the viewers it is easier to relate to the children
and a family being terrorised as they have a closer connection to
their family than to their friends.
Other typical
conventions may
be the silence that
is used to build up
tense and the jump
scares who are
used multiple times
in the movie to leave a stronger impact on the audience on how
scared the actors may feel in that situation and lastly I would say that
the low key lighting is another crucial element part of the classic
conventions you can see on a normal horror themed film as this
makes the audience feel less comfortable and more exposed to
sudden attacks which usually are jump scares.
The Conjuring 2 also has many unconventional elements such as the
hierarchy on the antagonists as the main one is “Valak” who controls
the poltergeist and the “crooked man” to terrorise Janet’s family and

27. in a normal horror
film usually you
only have one
main antagonist or
if you have more
you don’ t have a
hierarchy on them.
Based on the antagonists there is another unconventional element
and this is that no one dies in the film, usually the main enemy on a
film is able to kill someone, but in The Conjuring 2 no one dies.
No one dies and in addition to that the movie ends in a positive note
with having the Warrens dancing which is unconventional as usually
you would have a ending jump scare or something that impacts the
audience a lot so that they remember it, but they have been original
as well as during the credits they have put the real recordings of the
Enfield case. This
leaves an important
message to the
audience and
although it is a film
it makes them feel
scared as they think
that the film was a
representation of what reality was as that may have happened to the
family who got haunted by some ghost presence.
Storyline
The storyline in
this film follows a
chronological
order, it starts by
establishing the
two families that

28. then merge their stories and have a unique “happy ending”, there
are a couple of flash backs, but there is no going back in time as this
would ruin the whole story and realism due to the fact that for the
audience it may be confusing to understand and at the same time
this could ruin the tense and some important scenes of explanation
to the viewers.
The ending instead is closed as the story finishes there, the problems
are solved and the main antagonist is “dead” so there are no more
key questions left that the audience may think of.
The conjuring 2 has also a multistrand story and as said before, there
are two main families who have different stories, but merge their
story to have a unique ending and at the beginning we can see
parallel editing of the two families in different scenes doing different
things and also having a
different life. This has
been chosen to affect the
audience even more as it
is a juxtaposition due to
the fact that the two
families were living a complete different life, one, the Warrens had a
good life with a good house (dresses, job…), the other, Hodgsons
instead were poor and were barely able to live (money based).
Because of this the
audience can relate to
them even more as
they can chose whether
to be personified in to
the poor family or on to
the good living one.
Camerawork

29. There is a good combination of shots used throughout the movie
that didn’t require the use of multi-camera production, but some
scenes needed the use of more than one camera as it would have
been really hard to get the same shot twice. Most of the of the film
has been taken with a single camera as the main sets and locations
were quite small telling us that there would have been no space for
another camera set up as it would also need more crew that
manages it which means that it would be more expensive as well.
The majority of the
jumpscares are mid-
close ups/close ups
and this is being done
to show the face of
the enemy in the whole screen almost to show the audience how
close it is to you as it wants to jump at you, this creates a more scary
situation as the viewer/s should feel more unrelaxed and anxious.
Other than close-ups
for jump scares they
are also used to
show key objects and
props that are
conventional in a horror film, such as in this shot where a close up of
the Ouja board has been used to almost foreshadow the future.
In the scene where
Lorraine talks to Bill in
the vision, the camera
shifted from being at
the level of Bill’s eyes to
a high angle shot from Lorraine’s prospective to show how weak he
is as he is being controlled by another demon. The camera keeps on
changing the angle a bit by showing different prospectives untill the
second last shot of the scene where we can see a high angle shot

30. from lorraine’s
prospective where we
see the hand of the
demon on Bill’s
shoulder and then cut
straight to a mid-close up of Valak to scare the audience. The use of
this combination
of shots was really
good as it makes
the whole scene
more interesting
for the audience as
it gives it more meaning to the feelings of the chacarcters as not only
high angles are used to show the weakness of bill, but also to
emphasise that Lorraine is a strong woman who is capable of
“solving” the
situation which
makes the viewers
think that there is
still some hope for
Bill and the
Hodgeson’s family.
This is a long shot that has been taken when Ed firstly enters in the
roob where most of the paranormal activities occur and the

31. producers used this shot for this scene to establish the surroundings
and the place as the audience would immediately look at the crosses
that fill up the walls which are a concern for Ed as he also looks
astonished by that.
This is another
long shot that
has been taken in
the pub and they
used this before
the characters
started the discussion to show in which place they were as it looks
live, people are happy and talking to each other which resembles a
good mood. This shots tells the audience the situation in which the
characters are as they joined up together to have a talk.
During the discussion
there were many
close ups and mi-
close ups to show
people’s feelings and
emotions as they
were disappointed, also we can see their eyes rolling which shows
again that they are not liking the situation, the close ups to show
feelings and emotions of characters have been used to make the
audience feel like them as they know what’s going on so they, as the
actors, feel disappointment.
Extreme long shots
are used to create
pace and space for
characters as they
are usually running
In these extreme
long shots. These are being used to make the audience think that

32. there’s heavy breathing, tension and scareness among the
characters.
There is also some tilting up used in this film to scare the viewers
even more and is when the dog transforms in to the “crooked man”.
Here we can see
the camera tilting
up and moving to a
high angle shot
telling us how
weak and small the
kid is compared to the “enemy”. There are also some shot reverse
shot from the different prospectives of views to show both how
weak the kid is and
how terrorised he
feels and how
huge the crooked
man is. Tilting and
moving the
camera also makes
the audience feel
more active as if they were personified in the actors in the movie.
Also during scare scenes where there is a jumpscare or especially
after the jumpscares, quick cuts are used to create more tense and
to catch more the audience’s attention, also panning is another
important conventional element as often times before a jumpscare
there is a slow panning to create false safety among the viewers as it
all looks quiet.

33. This is another
camera
technique that
has been used
and it’s a tilted
camera that
shows Bill walking upstairs, this is being used to create a sinister look
to it as the audience also feels uncomfortable as if tehre is something
wrong or bad that is going to happen.
This is the longest
take in the film which
lasts around 2
minutes and here Ed
is “interviewing” Bill
who posseses Janet;
during the whole conversation there are no cuts and the figure of
Janet transforming is blurry and not clear whereas the face of Ed is
clearly visible, this is being done to make the audience’s focus
concentrate on Ed as the mid close-up of his face is used to show his
concern and frustration
that he has because he
can’ t see Bill. Bill/Janet is
not visible enough
because the producers
wanted to create mystery
around him as he is also someone who doesn’t like “being watched”.
This scene lacks of cutaways for the reason stated above, but
throughout the rest of the film there are constant cutaways and
match on action. A cutaway example is in this scene where we have a

34. shot of the kids where
after we have a cutaway
of students running out
of the gates and then
back to the group of
brothers and sisters,
this is being done also
to show what happens
in the surroundings and
not to make the
audience bored
This is an example of match
on action, here the kid on
the left gives the cigarette
to Janet and straight after
the action made by Janet
matches the cut before as
she is still holding the
cigarette.

35. Sound
Sound is another important conventional element in a media text
and it is used in order to create atmosphere, tense and meaning to a
scene. Diegetic sound in this film has been used to create more
verisimilitude as footsteps, banging and general noise is used to
make the audience feel more in to the characters and what they can
hear. There are also some sound effects that are being used to
emphasise a scene even more and this also helps to create the
mood.
Even dialogues are
part of sound and
they play an
important role too
as based on how
actors speak they
can make the
audience feel even more scared, intimidated and fearful, in this
scene especially where there is a small jump scare the sisters are
screaming which could make the audience more panicked as the
sisters are. Synchronous diegetic sound is also used to give the
audience more sense of verisimilitude such as the sound the rain
makes, whereas asynchronous sound is used to create a scary
tension. The synchronous sound made by the rain also emphasises
pathetic fallacy as from it the audience should understand that there
is something wrong going on, also the use of slow music before a
jump scare creates more tense and almost foreshadows the
audience a jump scare, but as mentioned before, the use of cuts
makes the actual jump scare less predictable.

36. Mise en scene
The mise en scene in The Conjuring 2 adds more realism and context
to the film as depending on the conventional elements of the mise
en scene there could be more meaning and emphasis certain scenes.
The wall behind the
armchair where Bill died
looked old and degraded
which resembles death.
All the props and décor have been used to make the film fit more the
genre which is horror, these elements also create more verisimilitude
for the audience. The Hodgeson’s house looked really poor and old,
this is because it was probably a council house of the 1960s as the
family was a poor innocent
family, in fact we can
understand this even from
the hairstyle and clothing
the members of the family
have.
Lighting changes based on
the context and situation,
generally it was dark, more
towards blue to emphasise
darkness and mystery, but
for example, during
Christmas where everyone was reunite together and singing as the
mood was happy and enjoyable the lighting was much brighter with
happier colours.
Another example of high key lighting used is during the conversation
in the pub, the characters were discussing as normal in a public and

37. safe place and as a result of
that they used high key
lighting to make the
audience more comfortable
as the antagonist should
not appear in such a place.
Also people were more relaxed, opened and confident as their body
language was showing how calm they were in that scene.
The décor, props and
lighting again of the
Warren’s house
compared to the
Hodgeson’s house is
much brighter as this
makes the audience feel like the Warren’s house is a house for richer
people, it’s more comfortable welcoming and safer. In addition to
that the haircut of the Warren’s had much more cure and attention
which again shows
that they are in a
higher social class
that the other
family. The mother
of the Hodgeson’s
family wasn’t well
kept physically and mentally compared to Lorraine which shows
another juxtaposition as the producers wanted the audience to feel
sorry for the family who is a victim.
The crucifix is a prop used by Ed during the last fight when he was
half blind against Valak and this is something conventional that
usually gets used against devils or it just gets used by the characters
to protect themselves. Ed holds on to the crucifix hardly to try to be

38. safe as even the
audience in that
situation was
thinking about the
crucifix as the only
prop that could
have saved him.
At the same time even the bible was emphasising and telling the
viewers the same message also because the answer to Lorraine’s
question was in that book
which again symbolises a
way to be safe.
Editing
Even editing is a crucial part in the making of a media product as this
also creates pace and meaning to diverse situations. For example
during the scene
where Ed was half
blind the cuts were
really slow (1 cut
every 5/6 seconds as
an average with
some being more
than 10 seconds). Here there is also parallel editing as while Ed was
trying to save Janet we have Lorraine in the outside trying to get in to
save Ed.

39. This is being done to
show the audience what
happens in the outside to
the other characters and
not to make them bored
as the scenes with half
blind are quite long and slow and because the parallel editing of the
scenes are one slow and the other one quick, we have another
juxtaposition used to emphasise the contrast.
Loads of cutaways have been used to show other people’s reactions
and the objects/décor around as they also create meaning as said
before, also during jump scares there’s cutaways and the producer
always adds one more cut to put more tense and to kill the
audience’s prediction as he wants to make the viewer less
comfortable as they can’t predict when the “enemy” is going to jump
at “you”. An example would be when Lorraine looks at the mirror
and the noun appears behind
At the same time we have a good use of combination of shots as the
cuts get closer or far away from something which is a conventional
element in a media film as you want the audience’s eyes to move in
a certain way and not to make them loose the focus by making their

40. eyes more too
much, an example
of good
combination of
shots is used
during the
discussion in the
pub as from a long shot it went to mid shots and mid close ups of the
characters around the
table. Also in this
scene the camera at
the beginning was
slowly getting closer
to the characters to
create more tension as the audience does not know what to expect
in that discussion.