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

We agreed that we wanted our titles to be in red as it is a typical convention of a horror film. Also in capitals as it makes them appear stronger and bolder.

Both our opening and the grudges opening have used offset titles, this creates an uneasy feeling as it is as though they have just been pushed to the side. This adds to the atmosphere that we are trying to create for the audience.

Grudge comparison

Grudge comparison

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We wanted to have the opening with a slow pace when the little girl is around. We did this to leave the audience on edge as you can see the character is in danger but the scene is so calm, giving it an unsettled feeling.

We thought that this shot from the grudge worked really well to suggest that something is there behind the person. We wanted to incorporate it into our opening.

To change it slightly we had the main character positioned to the opposite side of the screen and taking up more of it.

We chose to use the corridor with the light at the end instead so that at first we see the little ghost girl as a silhouette, making her appear more mysterious at first.

The Grudge comparison

We challenged the conventions of a typical horror in the way that we have clearly shown what it is that is following and killing people. I think this works well for our opening because it gives the little girl a sense of identity as well, which then creates the questions of ‘who is she? and why is she doing this?’ leaving the audience wanting to know more.

We also challenged this convention by using a point of view short from the little girl. They are normally used to allow us to relate to the character and you would more commonly get this from the victim rather than the killer.

Lighting

From our research we found out that lighting was an important factor of horror films. Most of the films that I had researched used low level lighting so this is what we wanted to include.

We used low level lighting and put a night effect over the top to make it look like night time and also give it a dim look to make it feel eerie.

On some shots we also used a black and white effect to make it look as though they are CCTV shots.

Scream comparison

Having the scene set at night is a common convention of a horror film, the effect we used made it look like we filmed later than we actually did.

This shot works well in showing that not only us can see the CCTV footage but that the security guard has it up on his screen too.

The light in the room was pretty bright and therefore reflects off of the computer screen that we used. Because of this you can then see a slight reflection of our legs on the screen.

We didn’t realise that you could actually see the reflection until the editing stage where we had to compromise and choose this shot as it was the one with the least reflection.

It would have been better if when filming we had held a black screen down by our legs so that it would stop the reflection of our legs onto the screen.

I think that this shot works really well with way that we have sped it up. The way the girl is swinging her doll looks abnormally fast and jumpy compared to the security guard who is sat still so the speed of the clip doesn’t affect him.

It makes the girl seem even more ghost like because of the way she appears to be moving.

The black and white effect makes it clear that this shot is different from the rest, being CCTV.

Also the high angle and the way that the characters are positioned in the shot makes it seem more like CCTV, as cameras are normally positioned looking downwards and on a space rather than a person.

The non-diegetic crackling sound over the top works well to let us know that it is CCTV as this is a sound that we relate to watching old film or CCTV without sound.