Evaluation Q1 - Conventions and Representations

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

NARRATIVE

The film opening starts with a girl character walking upstairs showing nothing at all. The walls are white, [colour of the floor] floor, like a typical inside of a new simple house, which is how the film start with: a normal day, like how ‘the boy’ film started. Everything in the film looks normal until the doll is introduced.

Enigma is created when the main character first see a mysterious doll lying at the corner of the stairs, which then change to various angle of the doll including close up and high shot. The song that suits the doll atmosphere come in after the sound of flowing water is heard. It's when the character starts to get pulled into that doll.

CHARACTER

We only see one living character in this opening sequence, and the idea that she lives with her mother when she shout out to her after finding the doll. She is introduced with not her face but her legs, like she is not the important person. The girl has nothing eye catching at all; the clothes are plain, as people can overlook her easily. Her character indicates the weak vulnerable victim in this type of film, the one that always be saved by the hero/protagonist.

The girl character is not very expressive in her feelings, as her room is very clean and neat, and only her work and the doll is shown. Other than that, her room is very similar to the stairway, nothing but whiteness.

The doll character that is with the girl is seen mostly close up at its face, particularly focusing at its eyes, and every time looking at the girl. There are three shot which comes from the doll's angle to show that it's looking at the girl, however, she isn't noticing it until the very end of the opening. It also show that it can move to places when no one is looking at it, gives a spooky feeling when it's not in the camera.

FONT/TITLES

As doll is the main story in this film, I use the font that looks curly and fluffy to go with the thought that most dolls are cute and cuddly. The credits are switching between the doll shots blacking out. The title also used the same font as the rest, appearing at the very end, like it's the thought of the doll towards the girl character.

I also tried to make the credits come up in the same rhythm as the song so that it look smooth.

LOCATION

The location in the film is a normal simple house where the walls are white with oak coloured floor. The place that’s called home usually represent the safe/comfort place, however, there are now something unusually strange happen inside the house which give the unsafe feeling which the opposite of what it’s supposed to be. This can also relate with the audience that live alone in a house

There are, in total, 3 places seen in the opening: stairways, the girl’s bedroom, and the bathroom. All are in the same colour palette, which can add to the girl character, plainness. However, this is just the opening, she could’ve just moved into the house.

SUB-GENRE

I chose to do a horror thriller which centres on the possessed doll (this convention can be seen in dolls (1987) and child’s play), which is also supernatural. In one of the long shot shows the weak girl character alone with the danger that sits within less than one metre apart, creates the hopeless feeling, not to the clueless character, but to the audience.

The sound, such as suspense violin, creates the scary feeling is used when the doll appears in a strange place. Music used in this film reawaken the childhood; childish feeling, which is when we have the greatest fear of many things because of our ignorance.

(dolly dearest)

There are many horror doll film that the doll can teleport (move when out of the camera) such as ‘the boy’, ‘Annabelle’, ‘dolly dearest’, which I also use it in this film opening. The doll is seen to move 2 times: first is when the girl get up to wash her face, the doll appeared at her right side until she turned her head. And the other time is when the girl character open her eyes to see the doll lying beside her in the bed

TECHNIQUES USED

I use the angle from the doll to secretly tell the audience that the doll is watching the girl. The way the camera not completely still in the doll’s angle is because living things cannot stand still like objects. To create a lonely atmosphere, I used a long shot that captured most of the room and the two characters sitting in the corner of the frame. The room space compared to the space the characters take up give the lonely feelings.

I added some horror sound effect at when the doll suddenly appear next to the girl character in the bathroom, the suspense sound of violin increasing in dynamic kind of telling there will be some jump scare sometime soon, however, the sound disappear suddenly as well as the doll’s body. The other sound effect is added at the end part where the doll is showed lying in front of the girl’s face.