EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1.   this is one of the first of a sequence of pictures edited on Photoshop to give the red effect. This set up the back ground to the film and the villain and letting the viewer know that he has killed before, the connotations of red are danger and blood which in enforced by the loud music changing the tone of the film and convincing the audience that the film is of the horror genre.

2.  This moment in the film introduces the 2 girls, tara and an unknown girl. We have not given her a name as our film will not follow them further than the 2 minutes, giving names to people who will shortly die just gives the audience some information that they will not need, this is commonly used in films to allow the attention to be directed at the maincharacter. Instead our film will follow the story of the killer and his inevitable downfall with different cast members which are directly challenging the conventions of a horror film where the script focuses of the victim. The camera shot we have used on this meeting scene is an over the shoulder shot I feel this works well as it gives the viewer a scene of exclusion, they are not allowed to see the inside of the house but also gives the sense that someone is watching them very common in the horror genre and will be developed further into the clip.

3. This moment in the clip is very common in the horror genre and has been used in classic’s like the ring this works well in our opening two minutes as it takes the audience back to their routes of the horror genre and in doing this we make sure that we don’t alienate our typical viewer.  This clip also shows the costume they are wearing as something very typical of a laid back teenaged girl style making the viewer identify with the two girls more by using this convention it helps develop feelings toward the two girls and makes the effect of them dying in an unknown way more effective.

4. this shot in some ways can be considered to be Could be seen as using the tradition horror convention in the use of the setting, a girl alone venturing outside on her own in search of a strange sound but we have tried to develop this concept with the use of camera work. By having “Tara” move out of the shot the traditional thing to do would be to cut or pan to follow the movements but instead we have hidden the villain which makes his first movement very effective as the audience would not be expecting it. The setting for this scene is a darker version of the establishing shot adding to the atmosphere of the shot as the viewer has something to compare the shot to, was bright and nonthreatening now gray and suddenly more intimidating.

5.  for me personally this is one of the most critical camera shots in the opening of our film the reason for this is that it directly challenges the stereotypical conventions of a horror genre by way of taking a different perspective of a commonly used moment in horror films (catching a glimpse of the villain in the window but is unsure of what you saw) this new technique we have used also emphasises the fact that the victims are not the main focus of the film and will shortly die inset it is the killers proses we are focusing on. The props on the windowsill use another convention of the horror genre to show how the setting is very stereotypical of the 15-23 generation allowing people to relate more to the characters.   

6. this shot is a close- up of our killer moving up the stairs we used match-on-action to very this shot as it could be seen as quite boring and slow paced whereas a typical convention of a horror film is lots of tension build up, our use of the close up and match-on-action allows us to develop this convention as it allows the viewer to really notice the significance of him walking up the stairs to wait for his victim to follow.




7. this is a very stereotypical moment in our film it is commonly use in the horror genre, the victim walks straight into the killer. by using this convention is creates the suspense needed to make our film a true horror film by the way of knowing that she is going to die if she goes up there but something stops her at the last moment, this sadly does not happen as the point of this opening is to introduce you to this unknown killers methods.

8.by using the contrasting colours of light among the dark you can clearly she the hand of the last victim on the window before she fades away, this hand print of the window becomes the signature of our killer that will be repeated  throughout the film. by use of a primitive version of the special effects used in other horror films you can just about make out the imprint of the hand on the window the use of fake blood our film uses the convention off blood and gore associated with the horror genre to allow the audience to be aware that this is going to be a part of the film as we have a not shown any deaths in detail.  

9.  this is the part in our film where the title is shown, normally in a horror film the title is shown near the start in simple font with white writing  the style we have chosen fits more into a convention of an action film where there is a big fight/chase scene before the title sequence. We have opted for a bold strong font to reflect the killers persona the red tint in the white title stands out against the black background, this coupled with the solute of the killer walking away singles the start of our film. the red in our title connotes the blood of our horror film reaffirming the fact that this film is of the horror genre.