2. Supernatural horror
• Myself and my partner; Charlie, originally thought
that we wanted to do a supernatural horror.
• One reason for this is that last year we focused our
film opening on a supernatural horror, therefore we
feel this is the genre which we understand the codes
and conventions of the most.
• We also feel that it’s easier to make look realistic
than the other horror sub-genres, for example in a
slasher it would be quite unconvincing if the correct
props needed aren’t used, for example a gun, knife
or fake blood which looks realistic.
3. Conventions
• Characters: Typically there are the two main groups of characters, the
antagonists (typically the heroin/the character causing the threat) and
protagonists (typically the victims). The other characters are stock
characters who could have a relation to the protagonists or are trying to
help them – i.e ghost hunters.
• Location: A conventional setting of a supernatural horror is an isolated area
where the protagonist is made to feel alone and is commonly in a large old
house, where they are made to feel disconnected from other stock
characters. This would therefore be more accessible to us as we both live in
fairly large houses and have plenty of other places to film if we wanted to
change, for example a woody area.
• We could therefore use this to our advantage as supernatural horror films
are also meant to be close to real life to make it look like what they are
experiencing could happen to anyone, and by using a 'normal' location we
can make our opening scene more realistic and believable.
4. Conventions
• Low key lighting is often used to create a dark,
ominous atmosphere, this mood is then transferred
to the audience which enables them to feel tension
etc.
• Incidental music is also typically played over the
narrative to enhance the mood of the scene, for
example a soundtrack can be used over the top
which gets faster in pace to insinuate when
something significant is going to happen, this too
gets the audience involved in the moment.
(Annabelle, an example of a supernatural horror trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdUysoK6tdQ)
