IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR

CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA

PRODUCTS?

At the beginning we conducted research into the horror genre and the horror sub-genres, this allowed me to understand the forms and conventions of real media products, which helped us when plotting the story for our sequence

As a group we looked through and analysed many horror films Such as Insidious, Durham County and Se7en.From analysing these films, we discovered the typical Conventions of horror films.

Cinematography (Camerawork is important with creating fear in horror movies)

- Point of view shots are effective as they allow the audience to see the point of view from either the protagonist or the villain. We used an over the shoulder shot at the beginning, showing Angus on his journey home, this allowed our audience to become more involved in our story.

- High and Low angle shots connote fear and vulnerability A low angle shot was used when Angus and Scarlett were having an argument at the dinner table scene. This helped to emphasis Angus' becoming increasingly more angry about Scarlett's confrontation.

- Handheld shots tend to cause the audience to be unaware of what it happening or cause confusion and fear from camera shake. At the beginning of our sequence Angus was using a video camera to record his message to Scarlett. This was inspired by, The Blair Witch project. The entire film is done using a handheld video camera.

Sound

- We used Gentle non diegetic music on the more everyday scenes (such as Scarlett preparing the dinner) to create Equilibrium and a feeling of normality for the audience. This was inspired by Hannibal, the cooking scenes had classical music playing in the background (conforming to stereotypes of serial killers being associated with classical music). This also gave it the creepy horror essence as well as creating a calm everyday environment.

- We wanted to use our sound to create a thrill so we changed our soundtrack at certain points. This allowed each scene to have a different impact on the viewers.

Editing - Whilst the sound created equilibrium in our sequence we wanted to use some of the

conventions that we researched so we disrupted the continuity by adding jump cuts. This followed the typical convention of disequilibrium in horror films. The jump cuts were inspired by paranormal activity.

Mise en scene – The mise en scene in our horror sequence was a typical from the majority of horror films. The sequence did not include many knives, fake blood or any other typical items seen in a horror film. Instead, we used more conventional items such as dinner plates, normal cutlery and food items as we didn't think that, being a psychological horror, we needed a large amount of violent pieces of mise en scene or any particularly scary costumes.

Iconography - Red and black are typical colours of a horror film, they connote, blood, danger and evil.We followed this by giving Angus a red tie. This also created a connection to his character, as the audience can now associate Angus with his costume. A prime example of this is Jason Vorhees and his link with his mask - Lighting is expressive and non-naturalistic. We used low key lighting on our opening scene to create dark shadows in the background and on Angus' face, this was also taken from the Blair witch project.

The setting for our horror sequence did not follow typical conventions. As it was not based in an eerie location like a forest or a haunted house.This was mainly due to the lack of budget we had, but we also felt that we did not need a scary setting to produce a psychological horror.

The use of monsters are popular in horror films , however, being a psychological horror we did not feel it was appropriate to use monsters or any supernatural form.

We challenged conventions when deciding on our characters. Typically there is a more vulnerable character and a villain . However it in our sequence our more vulnerable character developed into the villain/ killer. Despite this, psychological horrors tend to focus on the developing behaviour of the vulnerable character, as there is a high chance that their characters traits can trigger a bad past memory and take a wrong turn.

We had a young vulnerable male as the victim. This challenges conventions as usually the victim is a fragile female. We also slightly switched gender roles during the dinner table scene where Scarlett dominated the argument and showed her ability to hold her ground against Angus.

- We followed narrative conventions of horror films by using a hero protagonist, (either male or female)

Which can involve the protagonist embarking on a quest or mission to solve problems, an example of this used in our sequence is Angus setting out on a mission to get revenge on the boys that bullied him as a kid.