Alex Middleton Media - AS Miss Meehan

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

Films have conventions, which are used within them to identify what genre they belong to and can be told apart from other films in different genres. These conventions consist of, setting/location, camera angles, lighting, iconography, character types and themes. Horror, as a genre has many general conventions that are related and used within horror films to differentiate them from other genres and make the film identifiable. Horror has its specific conventions, the conventional setting within a horror films are isolated, small, suburban, dark, run down areas. Like within the film Cabin in the Woods.

Within this screen shot, you can see a cabin in the woods, which is isolated, in the middle of nowhere, where no one can help the characters when met with the killer. Also the camera angles within a horror film are conventionally, High to Low angles, to express dominance, usually when the killer is doing the killing. Point of View (POV) shots, to express fear and put the audience in a position where they feel as though they are in the position of the possible victim. Also a Low to High angle shot, to express inferiority, usually when the victim is getting attacked and the camera is showing the killer is higher up than the victim. Also establishing shots are used to set

Alex Middleton Media - AS Miss Meehan

the scene and give a sense of tension, mystery or death. Here are some shots from the screams film:

High to Low angle

Low to high angle

Point of View (POV)

The conventional iconography within a horror film is anything that you tend to see within horrors; generally they are the weapons, the lighting (dim, dark and shadows), the dark colours (red and black), masks and supernatural. Also the iconography of the monsters, the disgusting and vile sight of them helps to inflict fear on the audience. There are also conventional characters which are generally the same through all horror films, but there can be differences, this is the usual character types: The main protagonist, usually final girl (virgin) - hero. The villain, monster, mutated freak, alien or serial killer. The Jock 2x (one is nicer than the other) Dies, usually first. Police either good or bad. The promiscuous girl (blonde) dies early. The different male, usually has more knowledge of what is going on than the others.

There are also conventional themes throughout a horror film such as: Good Vs Evil Depression Religion Childhood issues Revenge Supernatural/Science gone bad Beyond death Zombie Apocalypse Nightmares Madness/insanity Lust

Alex Middleton Media - AS Miss Meehan

These themes are used throughout many horror films and are what the film is based on. Within the sub-genres in horror, the conventions slightly change. Our film is a slasher horror film, in which the conventions have to be slightly adapted. These things that change from the general horror conventions are: The killer tends to be masked or unknown, to make the audience more fearful and in the dark. The weapon tends to be a handheld weapon, to make the killings more intimate/personal. They tend to be in isolated suburban areas, where the audience would usually feel safe, which makes it more fearful. There tends to be a lot of blood within the film because generally the weapons create a bloody scene.

Within our film introduction, we have tried to incorporate certain conventions, so our audience can identify what subgenre we are putting our film into. We used establishing shots for the first half of our clip and edited our credit within the shots. We done this because our film idea is a student that attends school goes around the school killing his peers who mock and disown him for getting in a car accident and is disabled in a wheelchair. So we wanted to set the scene for the audience, we wanted them to know that the scene was within a school and it was late at night, with no one around. This fits in with the conventional setting, its isolated and the victim will be helpless as there is no one there to help.

Within this shot you can see its a school and the sun is going down. This is one of the first shots and as it gets towards the end of the credits, the final establishing shot is much darker as shown below. This is done to show the location is getting darker and its going into the night, which implies there is no one there as schools finish at 3pm.

Alex Middleton Media - AS Miss Meehan

Within the shot above there is conventional location/lighting trait, which is that it is dark. This is done to express fear within the audience, giving them the feeling as though there the darkness is masking an unknown killer within the shadows. This makes the clip more intense, more confusion and more of a mystery to the audience, which keeps them on edge and interested within the film. Also the dark trees giving shadow is conventional in the sense that it gives the killer somewhere to hide and gives off a sense of mystery. Another conventional technique we used is the handheld weapon, this is done to show the murders are more intimate, they are close and personal which shows the killer is enjoying the murders. The murder weapon we chose to use was a crow bar, we chose this because it is not used very often in slasher films and we wanted to be different, but still incorporate the convention. So we challenged the stereotype of a knife or sharp weapon, to a blunt, larger weapon that will inflict more pain upon the victims when being struck. This was done because the kills are revenged fuelled, so the killer would want them to go through the most excruciating death and a blunt weapon would bludgeon them with the first blow, not kill them straight away, torturing them before actually killing them.

Alex Middleton Media - AS Miss Meehan

Within this shot, the weapon is show in a conventional camera angle, which is low to high. This has been done to show the murder weapon and the holder of it is in a powerful, dominant position. This is done throughout horror films because the killers are often in the more powerful position when killing the victim. Also another conventional camera angle we used when filming our film opening is the high to low angled shot. This is done in the opposite way to the low to high shot as it displays the inferiority of the person who is at the low point of the shot, usually an over the shoulder shot, to show there is someone else there for them to be inferior to, which is shown within the shot below. Also within the shot below, there is the male, who is the first person the audience see dying, which is a very stereotypical order for the characters to die in; generally the male jock dies first, but sometimes its the promiscuous girl. We have gone along with the conventional deaths within the characters because we think its a fundamental function that is needed to identify the horror genre. But this death also challenges the horror convention of how the jock dies, usually there is a power struggle and the killer has to overpower him, but within the scene 1;04-1:06, you see the victim reach up for the crowbar quite passively and weak, this is where we have been unconventional within this scene. But if a full film was made, then the audience would see that this was his second attack, this is why he is weak.

We have used one of the main conventions of slasher horror, which is the usage of blood, at 1:19 you see the victim spit blood. This has to be incorporated within a slasher horror as there is kills and the weapons used are always ones that will make bloody wound, like our weapon. The contrast of the white shirt to the red blood, emphasises and exaggerates the convention we have used.

Alex Middleton Media - AS Miss Meehan

The main convention we challenged was the iconography of the killer. We showed the killers face within our opening clip, which is not usually done because the slasher genre usually relies on the mystery of who the killer is. But within our full film idea, the mystery is why the killer is killing people. We are relying on the audience wanting to know why he is killing, what the other people have done to him that is so bad that he has to kill them.

Screen shots of masked killers.