Blair Witch Project Codes And Conventions

Task 1

Introduction…

To start off with the Blair Witch Project just as any other film needs to actually follow a strict

set of codes and conventions in order for it to evoke the genre quite effectively. The Blair

Witch Project kind of follows horror conventions of which can tend to make the film quite

easily recognizable to the viewer as a horror film. Tzvetan Todorov, Claude Levi Strauss,

Roland Barthes, and also other theorist’s theories can in fact be easily located throughout.

Such conventions can actually help the viewer to realize the typical genre of the text that they

may be watching or even reading, within a short amount of time. This film can tend to fulfill an

expressive, persuasive, or poetic purpose and it does utilize

There are generally close up shots used in this type of movie and that its

mainly low resolution lighting, in other words dim lighting. Such objects appear quite obscured

and unfamiliar that can give an unsettling feeling.

Semiotics…

Naturally, The Blair Witch Project tends to use semiotics throughout to actually create

different moods and to also define the change from normal life to the horror/ documentary/

legend life. The film itself begins in colour, it can reflect the reality and also the normality in

their live at that particular given point. This can also really reflect both their happiness and

excitement. The first black and white scene is the opening scene of the documentary of which

is seen to be set in a cemetery; it can in fact evoke such uncertainty and quite a eerie feeling

to the whole scene itself, of what was originally trying to be created. The students went into

the woods to film a documentary about the legend of Blair Witch, however they do end up

becoming part of it. This can be shown by using a lot of black and white nearer to the end of

the film. Although, this tends to work well as it can create more of the un-known, not really

knowing what colour things are can be quite frustrating to us as the audience, as well

Also, there were no special effects or lighting that were used throughout the film. Its set up to

be a convincing everyday reality and furtively sneaked the horror in the movie. The image

quality and camerawork were quite authentically amateurish; and for most of the time, there

wasn’t much to see on screen at all. Instead of showing you terrifying images, it kind of gave

you the space create your own. The sounds of distant twigs snapping or feet shuffling through

the leaves can take on terrifying connotations, and as for a childs voice to be heard in the

forest darkness, it can make the viewers question ‘why is there is a child there?’ There is

obviously something is not right. It’s also to be said that the panicky shaky-cam footage that

ran through the night-time forests to both trigger and give the effect of our evolutionary

ancestors fleeing such jungle predator. There is also all that supernatural backstory, of which

was compounded by that whole feeling of not knowing where you were exactly going or even

where you