Week 5: Research & Cultural Influences

Horror has always been a genre the thrives on playing with peoples fear, from pounding hearts to shaking hands that is what horror wish to achieve, that is what makes it significantly different to other genres. It has be come a key element to pop culture very recently due to development of the pop culture TV Series American Horror Story. The series follows iconic places in which the horror genre has taken place in iconic horror places with America, such as a asylum, a place that is normally thought of when it comes to horror. As you can see this regional identity has made the television series very popular. Thus showing the effect of cultural influences and how they have became something of the genre. This is why I plan to take inspiration from the locations used within my characters to represent the american culture. This could be the potions seller of a coven or the shopkeeper of a cafe in an asylum. Overall I feel this is really effective way to show cultural influences that a character has experienced.

                                                                                                 

In China spirits are often used as a form of the devil or bad luck, this in fact has became a key part to the horror culture represented by forms of ghost and supernatural appearances. This is something I would like to reflect in my characters. I could use the spirit as a way the shopkeeper carries the goods or as a bodyguard. This is a key element I want to distil from the Chinese culture as I feel it represents the ideology of the unknown and that itself is quite scary. I will also uses the Chinese oriental style to reflect there culture as I feel the designs really suit the spiritual Idea, such as the swirling patterns and plum reds. I feel with a dynamic pose of the character casting a spell with the spirit looming behind the character it will give it a very good looking effect. Overall I feel that looking into regional identity has really helped me with this weeks task and I will continue to develop in my last week of quick fire concepts.