Characters - Conjuring 2

This is the main character from 'The Conjuring 2'. She is possessed with a 72 year old man who is trying to get her to "commit the ultimate sin". The 11 year old girl is wearing her pyjamas which portrays her innocence and vulnerability to the audience. This makes the audience feel bad for the young girl as she has no control over who she is. The protagonist has a long fringe with curls at the bottom of her short hair, suggesting again that she is very sweet and childlike. Her facial expressions suggest that she is very scared and confused, wondering what is going on in her bedroom. The girl almost seems lost which really makes the audience feel sad, but also worried if they if they were putting themselves in her shoes. The girls body language can also portray what she is thinking. In this image her shoulders are slumped. This makes her seem very submissive to the audience because she isn't standing up for herself. The director would have done this in order to make the audience feel compassion and empathy for the protagonist.

This is the antagonist from 'The Conjuring 2'. In the image on the left, the nun is in at the end of a long hallway. Her facial expression is very serious, showing little emotion in the image. Her body positioning is very relaxed, but leaves the audience on edge as horror movie stereotypes suggest the nun is scary so her stance is very creepy to the audience. On the right are two images from the same scene. The above image shows the reflection in the mirror of the lady trying to help the protagonist and the nun. Here we see a close up of the antagonist, scaring the audience more as the nun is very expressionless. In the below image on the right, we see the lady come face to face with the nun, creating a jump scare for the audience, The director uses an extreme close up of both the characters to show each of their emotions in great detail. We can tell that the lady is petrified of the nun and fearing her life. This scene is very dramatic for the audience as it is one uncut scene with lots of mystery involved, ending with a loud scream, frightening the audience.

If we look at the lady on the left of this image, we can see a great detail about what she is thinking just by her facial expressions and her body language. She has just seen seen the reflection of the nun in the mirror, turned around and nothing has been behind her. This image was then taken when the lady turns back around to look at the mirror and the nun is in the reflection behind her. The lady has a very shocked expression on her face, clearly showing the fear that she feels. Her body positioning indicates that she was surprised as her arms are bent at the elbows, showing she is very tense and nervous. This feeling is then passed onto the audience who feel the same as the character in this scene.

Overall Narrative

The main character is happy as they walk through the park. As they are walking through the park they receive a text message from one of their parents informing him to return home immediately. Feeling worried about this they return home straight away in a bolt. As they get home their parents are sitting around the lounge with their heads down in their hands and flowers by their sides. They are then informed that their Grandma passed away earlier in the day.

With time having passed on, the family decide to all together move house away from the troubles that they have all faced with it.

Having moved houses, the family starts to realise that something that they threw out start to appear randomly in the house. After sometime the family see one of their kids toys that they threw out before moving, a Golliwog, starting to appear in random areas around the new home. Feeling as if the others are playing a prank on them none do anything about it however, after sometime passes and the doll keeps on appearing around and even moving when the family isn’t in the house.

Trailer Plot

Trailer Plot

• Main character walks through a colourful park in autumn. The protagonist gets a text that reads “come home urgently”.

• They are sat crying, holding a bunch of flowers.

• The protagonist’s family decides to move house, and escape their troubles.

• They move house and find their golliwog, however they know for a fact they didn’t pack it.

• The golliwog changes places everyday and scares the protagonist.

• A stop start animation of the golliwog moving.

• The protagonists brother jokes about, holding up the golliwog and mocking the protagonist.

• Protagonist gets really scared.

• Decides to bin the golliwog in the big bin outside, but it finds its way in their bedroom again.

Todorov's Narrative Theory

Todorov's narrative theory suggests that most films will follow a basic five stage narrative. These five are the following, equilibrium, disruption, realisation, restored order and equilibrium again. Todorov suggests that these five elements are common to most plot lines in films.

The Equilibrium is the start of the story where you are given a neutral narrative to start you off with the film, so as the audience you know what is going on within the characters lives. An example of this would be within 'Kingsman: the Secret Service', where the main character, Eggsy, is shown with living his normal life in London, this being him messing around with his friends.

The Disruption in the film then is when Eggsy is arrested by the police for breaking into a car, and then as he is in prison uses his one phone call possible to call a number that he was given to as a little boy when his father was killed. This gets him through to the Kingsmen, a secret service that completes super dangerously missions across the globe.

The recognition of the disruption in the film is when Harry Hart dies and Eggsy starts to uncover the truth about the leader of the Kingsmen, this being that he is in corporation with the antagonist of the film and tries to discretely poison Eggsy.

The attempt to restore order in the film is when Eggsy sneaks into the base of the antagonist to try and stop the plan being executed fully, that being having control over all people and make them fight to the death at his command, leaving only the rich and important people across the planet alive, thus creating a dystopian future.

The restored equilibrium happens after Eggsy defeats the antagonist and his sidekick, thus stopping the mind control of people across the world however, in that process killing all the people the antagonist planned to keep alive.

Audience Pleasures

Focus Group - Answers

Focus Group - Questions

1. What do you think are the conventions/themes for horror films?

2. What kind of characters do you expect to see in a horror film?

3. What do you think a good trailer should include?

4. How much of the storyline should be revealed in the trailer?

5. Are any trailers you know of that you think were really good?

6. What are your thoughts on teaser trailers?
_________________________________________________________________________________

We asked these questions so we could gage our focus group to what they enjoy about trailers and what they think a good trailer should include. We asked our focus group key questions such as how much of the plot they think should be shown in trailers because it is a good indicator to us of how much we should include of the plot in our trailer. The focus group also told us their opinions of teaser trailers and whether we should create one to increase hype and marketing of our film. We also asked them how much of the storyline should be revealed in a trailer so we can make sure we could figure out the correct balance between an interesting trailer, but not giving to much away so that the film gets ruined and isn't worth watching.