Deconstruction of location in The Exorcist - Georgia Serrecchia

Deconstruction of location:

The exorcist film is set in an isolated house, which is common in psychological/supernatural horror films. For example, in the Sinister and the Conjuring, they are both set in an isolated house which is quite big.It is a modern house which appears to be located in a town but slightly isolated away from the rest of the town as it is placed right on the corner of a long street. An isolated house is a convention of the horror genre and it is effective because it makes the shots become more eerie and it gives the impression to the audience that no one will be there to help them, making the film more scary and horrific.

Throughout the film, there is also a church area which connotes spirits and ghosts because around the church area there is usually a graveyard. This convention of horror films is very effectives because it means the audience may become more scared due to when they see a graveyard, they normally associate it with death.

Deconstruction of Location - Mehrabi Ward

Deconstruction of Location:

The images below are from the films, 'The Woman in Black', 'Sinister' and 'Paranormal Activity 3'. All of these films are horror films, and their sub-genre as well are all supernatural horror's.

The Woman in Black:

This location used in this film is slightly different to the locations used in the other films I have also talked about below. This is because:

• This house is much larger
• Its more old fashioned
• More abandoned looking
• Parts of the film is also filmed in the forest and graveyard around the house.

Sinister:

The two locations used in 'Sinister' and 'Paranormal Activity 3', are more similar to each other because:

• The houses look more recently built
• They look more modern
• They look like they belong to a normal working class family, where as the location for 'The Woman in Black', is more mansion looking, and looks as though whoever lived there was quite wealthy. 

Paranormal Activity 3:

As I found that the location for 'Sinister' and 'Paranormal Activity 3' are fairly similar

 

The location used for 'Paranormal Activity 3', is more of a normal looking house, from looking at the house there is nothing that suggests danger other than from looking in the windows from the outside it looks very dark and again darkness is the connotation to danger and unhappiness. But other than that the property does look perfectly normal, however this does then make the film a lot more frightening for the viewer, as the house looks so normal it gives the impression that whatever happens in this film could easily happen to anybody, which gives more of an 'after scare', which is very effective.

The thing that I have noticed most about the locations used for a supernatural horror is that they are all filmed in a house or also for the film the woman in black, some of it is also outside

Practical Task: Location - Mehrabi Ward

Practical Task Location:

For my practical task, I went to a nearby castle ruin. The ruins were located in Sutton Valence, at the top of the hill. Below are a few images i took of the castle ruins.

This image is from the bottom of the hill looking up at the castle. I think that this shot is very effective as it has the dead tree branch leaning across one of the main walls of the ruin. Also on the wall there is a large crack which could be used quite effectively, if we were to have a figure looking through, to show the ruins are dangerous.

This is the first part of the castle you can see when you reach the top of the hill, i liked this shot because it looks quite eerie and you can clearly see where the entrance to the castle used to be. In this shot you can see the information stand to the right, so if we were to film at this location we would have to make sure it doesn't get into the shot because it could ruin whole atmosphere of the scene.

This is another shot of the ruins, this is now from inside the castle, with all of the walls surrounding. Each wall has some sort of crack, which i thought looks effective because you can see the amount of destruction has been caused to it, for it to be int the state it is in now. 

This shot shows one of the pathways, leading out of the castle, which I thought we could have the dark figure walking out from, if again we were to use this as our location.

 This shot is from inside the pathway, from the previous shot, this area could be quite good to film in because the level of lighting is quite low, creating more of a gloomy effect, which conforms to the types of lighting used in horror films, so this place could be quite a good location to use for the film opening. In the back of this shot you can see the information stand again, which if we were to use this as our actual location we would have to make sure that it doesn't get into our actual shot, by positioning the camera in a different place.
Overall even though this type of location isn't common to see in a horror film, as it doesn't look to be in a house or in a secluded wooded area. Although, this location does seem to look quite isolated which is what locations are usually like in horror films.

Deconstruction of location - Mehrabi Ward

Deconstruction of Location:

This is a deconstruction of location used in various horror films. I chose to base my research on the two films, 'The Cabin in the Woods' and 'The Conjuring'. I chose these two films because I thought that conformed to their common conventions of sub genre's. I also thought that even though their sub genres are different they still have similar aspects to their locations, which I will analyse further.

The image above is the location from the 'Cabin in the Woods' film. This is the main location in the film, which is the actual cabin in the woods. This is a very secluded location, which conforms to the common conventions of a slasher horror, as usually we see a group of people (usually teenagers) who gradually start to get killed off by something and as they are in such an isolated location, they are too far away to get help from anyone. I like this location as it is very clear it is isolated because of all the woods around it. 

This second shot is from the film the conjuring. This is a shot of the main location which is the house, in which the family live in. I like this shot as it is a low angle shot which makes the house almost look superior to anyone not from it. The house is also surrounded by trees, this adds to the effect as it again makes the house look isolated. The house also looks quite old, which also makes it look more realistic as it would be more likely for there to be a demon or some sort of supernatural being in there. 

When it comes for me to find my own location, that could be used for the film opening, I will think about these two locations and their different features. Also if we were to use the location I have found, then I would begin to think about what types of angles could we use to capture the location as well as lighting - where does the sunlight come in from or where are certain shadows that could look effective.