The Ghost in the Image

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Sayad
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Found Footage ◽  
Horror Genre ◽  
Book Covers ◽  
Spirit Photography ◽  
Historical Examination

The Ghost in the Image offers a new take on the place that supernatural phenomena occupy in everyday life by examining the horror genre in fiction, documentary, and participative modes. The book covers a variety of media: spirit photography, ghost-hunting reality shows, documentary and fiction films based on the Amityville and Enfield hauntings, found-footage horror movies, experiential cinema, survival games, and creepypasta. These works transform our interest in ghosts into an interactive form of entertainment. Through a transmedial approach to horror, this book investigates our expectations regarding the ability of photography and video to work as evidence. A historical examination of technology’s role in at once showing and forging truths invites questions about our investment in its powers, which is pertinent to the so-called post-fact scenario. Behind our obsession with documenting everyday life lies the hope that our cameras will reveal something extraordinary. The obsessive search for ghosts in the image, however, shows that the desire to find them is matched by the pleasure of calling out a hoax.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Cecilia Sayad
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Spatial Relationship ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
Image Capture ◽  
Analog To Digital ◽  
Found Footage ◽  
Film And Video

The book’s introduction revisits questions around the ontology of photographic and filmic images in order to lay out the role of technology in making supernatural entities become part of everyday life. An examination of theories about the transition from analog to digital image capture considers the potential of photography, film, and video to expand our senses, enhance our perception of the physical world, and work as evidence. The indexical link between the object placed before the camera and its image extends to a discussion about the spatial relationship between the contents of the framed image and the surrounding physical world, which informs discussions about framing techniques in found-footage horror films and participative spectatorship in experiential cinema and video games.

The Aesthetics of Artificial Authenticity

2015 ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
Peter Turner
Keyword(s):  
Horror Film ◽  
Less Is More ◽  
Found Footage ◽  
Horror Genre ◽  
Visual Style ◽  
Primary Location

This chapter discusses the visual style of The Blair Witch Project (1999). In notable opposition to the slasher cycle and the later ‘torture porn’ trend in modern horror, The Blair Witch Project takes a distinctively ‘less is more’ approach to visuals. It fails to reveal much that is horrific in the truest sense of excess that characterises much of the horror genre in film. The Blair Witch Project relies on the power of suggestion and the fear of what is unseen. While the film has a witch as the central antagonist and the dark and frightening woods as its primary location, it attempts to create a realistic atmosphere through its presentation, deceiving the viewer into thinking they are watching the actual found footage of three disappeared students. It is presented to the audience as a work of fact; not a traditional horror film, but a documentary chronicling real events that were filmed by someone involved in a terrible experience. The chapter then considers the mockumentary or mock-documentary approach of The Blair Witch Project.

The Blair Witch Project

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Turner
Keyword(s):  
Internet Marketing ◽  
Serial Killers ◽  
Less Is More ◽  
Video Cameras ◽  
Found Footage ◽  
Horror Genre ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Digital Filmmaking ◽  
Independent Features ◽  
Year 2000

Few films have had the influence and impact of The Blair Witch Project (1999). Its arrival was a horror cinema palette cleanser after a decade of serial killers and postmodern intertextuality, a bare bones ‘found footage’ trendsetter. The Blair Witch Project was the tenth biggest box office earner of 1999. Even with strong competition in the horror genre, the film managed to stand out from the rest. It was arguably a product of its time more than any other film of the 1990s, heralding the advent of digital filmmaking. Backed up by an internet marketing campaign, The Blair Witch Project became a glowing example of what could be achieved with cheap emerging technology, imagination, and a ‘less is more’ approach. By the year 2000, and due to the influx of digital video cameras, there were far more independent features being made than ever before. This book explores the aesthetics of The Blair Witch Project, how identification is encouraged in the film, and the way it successfully creates fear in contemporary audiences. The book tells the story of the film from his conception and production, and then provides a unique analysis of the techniques used, their appeal to audiences and the themes that helped make the film such an international hit, including the pioneering internet marketing.

The Birth of Modern Horror

2019 ◽  
pp. 99-118
Author(s):  
Bryan Turnock
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Horror Genre ◽  
Box Office ◽  
The Face ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Lasting Influence

This chapter focuses on the birth of modern horror. The horror genre is ultimately concerned with the battle between good and evil. At times this can be very clearly delineated, but in real life this is not always the case. At the time of its release, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) was truly ground-breaking in its approach to horror in everyday life. Shocking and controversial, it was initially denounced by critics yet became a worldwide box-office sensation and set the direction of the genre for the next fifty years. One of the most analysed and discussed films in cinema history, and arguably the single most influential film in the evolution of the horror genre, entire books have been written about every aspect of Psycho's production, reception and lasting influence. By contextualising the film in the environment of a Hollywood that found itself under mounting pressures, the chapter examines how Hitchock's low-budget film changed the face of horror forever.

Who Am I? Positioning the Spectator and Identification

2015 ◽  
pp. 53-66
Author(s):  
Peter Turner
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Found Footage ◽  
Horror Genre ◽  
Continued Use ◽  
The Spectator

This chapter examines the notion of identification in relation to The Blair Witch Project (1999). One of the primary reasons for the continued use of the found footage aesthetic, popularised in The Blair Witch Project, must be that it increases identification for horror film viewers. These fans of the horror genre search for films that will terrify them. Having a character hold a camera is the closest a spectator can get to living the film, but they get to experience it from the safety of their seat in front of the screen. Considering the positioning of spectators, and exploring the cognitive processes that lead to increased identification, is essential. Is it really as simple as suggesting that, because the cameras are in the hands of the characters, audiences will identify more with them, and therefore be more scared? Many film theorists have considered identification, empathy, and emotion and some have applied their findings to The Blair Witch Project.

Thriving in Academia: Understanding and Managing the Complexities of Faculty Work

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ketevan Mamiseishvili
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Education Research ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Work Setting ◽  
Higher Education Research ◽  
Faculty Work ◽  
College And University ◽  
Teaching Research ◽  
University Settings

In this paper, I will illustrate the changing nature and complexity of faculty employment in college and university settings. I will use existing higher education research to describe changes in faculty demographics, the escalating demands placed on faculty in the work setting, and challenges that confront professors seeking tenure or administrative advancement. Boyer’s (1990) framework for bringing traditionally marginalized and neglected functions of teaching, service, and community engagement into scholarship is examined as a model for balancing not only teaching, research, and service, but also work with everyday life.

Moving Forward

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet B. Ruscher
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Spatial Metaphors ◽  
The People ◽  
Stationary Objects ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Affective Forecasts

Two distinct spatial metaphors for the passage of time can produce disparate judgments about grieving. Under the object-moving metaphor, time seems to move past stationary people, like objects floating past people along a riverbank. Under the people-moving metaphor, time is stationary; people move through time as though they journey on a one-way street, past stationary objects. The people-moving metaphor should encourage the forecast of shorter grieving periods relative to the object-moving metaphor. In the present study, participants either received an object-moving or people-moving prime, then read a brief vignette about a mother whose young son died. Participants made affective forecasts about the mother’s grief intensity and duration, and provided open-ended inferences regarding a return to relative normalcy. Findings support predictions, and are discussed with respect to interpersonal communication and everyday life.

Mental Contrasting of Future and Reality

2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 138-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriele Oettingen ◽  
Doris Mayer ◽  
Babette Brinkmann
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Brief Intervention ◽  
Middle Level ◽  
The Other ◽  
Metacognitive Strategy ◽  
Mental Contrasting ◽  
Low Expectations

Mental contrasting of a desired future with present reality leads to expectancy-dependent goal commitments, whereas focusing on the desired future only makes people commit to goals regardless of their high or low expectations for success. In the present brief intervention we randomly assigned middle-level managers (N = 52) to two conditions. Participants in one condition were taught to use mental contrasting regarding their everyday concerns, while participants in the other condition were taught to indulge. Two weeks later, participants in the mental-contrasting condition reported to have fared better in managing their time and decision making during everyday life than those in the indulging condition. By helping people to set expectancy-dependent goals, teaching the metacognitive strategy of mental contrasting can be a cost- and time-effective tool to help people manage the demands of their everyday life.

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