EVALUATION 14 - Comment on Influences

 In our planning, where did we take some inspiration from and how did this become realised in our final production. Include screenshots and analyse in detail.

The first film that stood out to us was The Grudge. The ideas and themes that we gained from this were the idea of using a young girl as the antagonist. In the film, the young girl is represented as a curse and this is something we were considering and we thought was effective. This kind of idea is most effective in subverting the typical expectations of a young child; expecting them to be quite innocent and vulnerable, however in a horror, then being portrayed as evil. A creepy, young girl is quite conventional of a horror which is important as, despite wanting to make the trailer original, we want to use some conventional ideas/techniques. Children are simply innocent and the more they stray from that, the more frightening it becomes for us. In our trailer we significantly portrayed the girl as being vulnerable and innocent from the start where she was shown in a home location, in her bedroom, asleep. Typically, the audience would get the sense of safety and security which is what we want them to think. By the end of our trailer, however, this representation changed where she was shown to have become possessed. And this is where we were inspired by 'The Grudge' whereby - we ended up incorporating an eerie young child to which audiences are confused by with her abnormally fast actions when writing and the fast-paced actions of her slamming her head down - all of which create tension and fear the audience as it is not what they would typically expect from a young girl.

The second influence on our production was from the film, The Visit. The idea we gained from this was from having an elderly women as the main antagonist in the film. This idea would be significantly effective through the fact that old people generally tend to be represented as sweet, innocent and vulnerable. Because of this typical representation of old people, if they were to be represented in the opposite light of that, in specifically our horror film, it is likely that the audience will be scared/shocked. In our trailer, the elderly women is an enigma - whereby she is not at any point throughout 'fully' revealed. The effect of this is that it engages the audience of being curious of who she is and what she is doing but it is also effective through having unexplained events and unanswered questions. The old women creates a ghost-like presence where she is there then shes not and this creates a suspicious atmosphere as audiences will not be sure of what is actually happening.

The next film that we gained ideas from was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. The first influence from this film was the ideas for clothing for our young female character. In this specific film, all of the young children are dressed in white gowns/nighties. Significantly this gives a kind of old fashioned, historical context with the kind of clothing all of them are actually wearing. Usually, it is likely that white gowns/nighties are associated with night clothing, however in the image above, it is clear that it is not night time; therefore giving the old fashioned context with that being the clothing in previous years. In our trailer, we did not create this effect on the young girl where we chose to apply the stereotypical look of her wearing childish pyjamas. However, we created this kind-of old fashioned look on the old women whereby she is wearing a laced netted head scarf, along with the leather gloves- also stereotypical of an elderly women.

Our final inspiration film was Orphan. The young girl who is the main character in the film, alike with that being the case in our trailer, is presented in old fashioned, Victorian style clothing; yet again creating a historical context. This was effective in influencing the key area of mis-en-scene which is significant to consider in all film. We also picked out the idea of the young girl being based around a park location and being on a swing; significant through the fact that a park tends to be a natural setting for a young child. In association with the swing, the eerie diegetic sounds would be something that we have incorporated into our trailer and are most effective. For example, in our trailer where we used the eerie sound of the creaking door as the character's arm reaches out. This is effective as it creates the sense of realism where they are sounds that you would typically expect to hear but on top of the silent atmosphere; it creates much more tension and is much more eerie.