Question 1

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

products?

For this question I have chosen to snap shot all the different frames from my film opening and analyse them. By doing this I will be able to show how my film opening conforms to the convections of horror.

I decided not to start my film opening with the main title because from my research I discovered that most horrors like Insidious and Paranormal Activity also conform to this style of film opening. This shows that my product is following the conventions of my genre. I chose to use this shot because I believe that it sets a softer, eerier tone. I think that it also gives the effect of confusion or distortion as you cannot clearly see the location which connotes with the way that the characters will feel later on in the film.

Inbetween each of the shots I chose to place credits. I believe that this slows down the film and adds to the tension creating suspense. It also clearly lets the audience know who is in the film and who it is made by.

For the second shot, it shows a sunset at a beach, which is a very calming and beautiful shot. This challenges the forms and convections of horror as it is not an ‘intense’ or ‘scary’ shot. I used it, as it is the location where I filmed and I believe that the innocence of the shot is quite creepy as it is unusual to see in a horror.

After this shot, I chose to include another beach shot. This time it is from a different angle and shows more of the sea. I did this because I wanted the audience to have a clear understanding of the location. It also shows the sea moving in slow motion, which adds to the eerie feel.

This shot is an unfocused look at the house in which the film is based around. I chose to make it unfocused because I didn’t want to give away too much right at the beginning. I did this to add suspense and make the audience wonder what the house clearly looks like. I also believe that this shot is as if it is from a first person point of view, which may make the audience feel as if they are really there. This shot follows the convections of my genre as the ‘first person’ feel is frequently used in horrors.

In the next shot I begin to introduce the characters. Something that you cannot see in the screen shot is that one of the characters is behind the camera. I did this because I wanted to, again, use the first person view which also leads to hand held camera filming. I believe this is one of the best ways to shoot a horror as it really makes the audience interact and get to know the characters better which may lead to an emotive response when anything bad happens to any of them. I also chose to film like this because it is used in a lot of horrors such as Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project.

The sixth shot is when one of the characters is running through the dark whilst panting to create realism. This shot is meant to make the audience wonder what is happening and to hint at what may happen later on in the film. By suddenly cutting the previous shot I wanted to perhaps scare the audience, which follows the convections of horror. Whilst editing this clip I took into consideration that the audience would not be scared if I played it for too long as it would perhaps become boring so I decided to cut the clip so that after about five seconds it would cut back to the previous scene. I did this twice, cutting back to the running clip randomly.

On the third time of cutting to the running scene I cut to black at the end of the clip and cut the music as well. At this point nothing is happening for around three seconds, which makes the audience worried and scared about what is going to happen. After the three seconds it fades into the main title and low droning note fades in too. As seen in question three of my evaluation, my main title is very similar to the insidious, which shows that my film opening follows the conventions of real media products.