Codes and Conventions

Our production will attract quite a large audience as it follows the codes and conventions of the typical psychological horror: though ours does not stay stickt to conventions. 

Psychological Horror usually tends to follow a number of conventions:

 The killer usually appears to be normal; there are not usually any usual physical signs that would identify the person as a killer. In our own production we have followed this as our main antagonist is just an average girl who them later advances into a possessed, out of control killer.

 Psychological Horror films will generally rely on the characters beliefs which in our production we have been able to manipulate our main character (killer). when she posses the book she will be unaware that this is the cause of her personality change; believing that the book is just something that she needs. allow for her to evolve effectively as a character.  Very often the evil works of this character is not shown until the end or when the story of the horror is fully established. Although, the audience will be have the privilege knowledge of knowing who the murderer is.

In our movie we are having the murderer to be a women. The woman that she will be killing are a mix of between a weak, naive women and a strong women much like the women in alien. whereas in ours they all will die.

Our female killer will be quite similar to the female killer in 'Jennifers Body' we are able to follow the current role of a strong women in society. Women have been developing more into the current society and are now a great influence in modern films. A women is no longer stereotyped to be the weak victim therefore our female will take on a dominant, murderer role enabling her to be fearful.

• 15 or 18 Certification- Our production will be a fifteen because of the content involved in the production. The deaths in our short film might be easy to copy (drowning) 

• Slow pace of Editing, builds tension. Long takes - In our film we wont be using long takes as we want the suspension to build up quickly so that the pace will escalate and make the audience feel apprehensive about what is going to happen.

• Use of low key lighting- This will be important for us to think about when filming as we are aiming for our film to look sinister.

• Dominant, hegemonic representation of gender: The Female Victim- As we have an all female cast this convention will be true. The victims will all be female and one of them are playing as the stereotypical weak women in need of help. 

• Extensive use of close up- In our film there will be a lot of quick close up shots, which will be shot from different angles.

• Incidental non-diegetic sound- We most likely wont be using using non-diegetic sounds to make it seem creepy as our murderer wont be possessed, all the noise will be viable on screen.

• Distorted diegetic sound- This will possibly accure if we decided to continue with sound during the drowning scene. 

• Point of view shots- This will accure when we have our antagonist preparing to kill(possibly during a murder scene).

http://media.edusites.co.uk/article/horror-genre-codes-conventions/