Argument/Discussion With Housemates About Horror Films

I spoke to John briefly about this and he said it was important to recognise and consider things that could influence your professionalism from outside the sphere of design.

This evening two of my housemates were arguing about what sort of horror films were better, the traditional type that use costumes and make-up, or the modern ones that use CGI. One claimed that the traditional style was scarier because you knew they could exist in the actual world. The other said that's why he finds CGI ones better, because the fear of the unknown it provides is scarier. Initially this made me think about how you can use different approaches to things in order to get the same result, scaring someone, in this instance. 

Their arguments are both opinion based, but as their argument continued, it became clear that they both saw their arguments as right, whereas the other was wrong. The person who favoured costumes and make-up said, "you'd be more scared if a weird creepy guy (a star wars villain for example) was sat next to you than some cgi character, because the CGI character can't exist in order to be sat next to you". The other then claimed that if he was sat next to you, he clearly does exist, and, even the fact that you know it shouldn't exist is what makes it scary.This continued for a while and it became clear to me that it wasn't going to be resolved, so I went to my room.

It made me think about communication though and how it's important to think about how you word something, so you don't lead to a hypothetical situation where you're sat next to some scary character who's not scary because he can't be there, but he is scary because he's sat there even though he can't possibly be sat there.

Not only did it make me think back to the lecture on semiotics from last year, and the importance of knowing the difference between an object and a picture of an object, but it also highlighted the importance of communicating within the industry. From the point of view of someone who studies at an Art College, it's easy to assume that when you're talking to someone who's in the same field as you, they're always going to know what you're talking about and understand it, but this discussion clearly suggests otherwise.