Evaluation Question 1

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

Conventions the film followedMost of the main conventions in a horror film have been implemented into our horror trailer, as the concepts of suspense, jumpiness and darkness in clips are what makes a film fit in the horror genre. The horror genre as a whole is wide, as we found in our research, and we chose not to go down the route of gore or psychological horrors. Due to this, shots that would shock or disturb viewers in those categories have not been followed.

The title of the filmOther than insidious, all of the titles we researched either gave an indication as to what the film was about or provided anchorage over what genre the film was. We researched many types of 'eroded' and 'spooky' fonts which we thought were similar to ones seen in our researched film titles. However we had decided that our posters were going to be composed in a periodic style, a strong bold and simplistic font like the 'Sinister' title would be more appropriate and in keeping with the effects. A problem occurred when attempting to insert the texts displayed on the left hand side of this page from 'Dafont'. Therefore we decided to use Times New Yorker and Agency FB. We also decided to use chiller for our magazine front cover as we were attracted to the 'spooky' fonts but thought it displayed better on the magazine than the poster.

Setting/locationThe setting of our trailer is one of the main things that breaks typical horror conventions as most settings tend to be rundown, dark and grungy whereas our main location for scenes was an average family household, with the twist that the doll house was our ‘haunted’ location. This breaks the convention of one location for the entire film as seen in several horror films, especially psychological. A way our trailer stays with horror conventions is that there is a typical horror location as opposed to contradictory light hearted locations for all of the film.

Costumes and propsOur costumes and props in the film break conventions in the colour scheme of the main character as she is wearing white, a typically innocent colour. Furthermore, the dolls used in our trailer aren’t in a poor condition or holding a dark demeanour; the horror comes from inside the doll house and as the tagline says: ‘murder blinded by innocence’. It does however follow conventions of a house that looks normal on the outside but holds dark secrets on the inside.

Camerawork and editingOur main use of camera angles came from a zoom, a low to high shot and then effects on all shots that have occurred from the doll house. This follows conventions of power, but the idea of the powerful character in the trailer being a tiny doll breaks the convention, with the camerawork helping to maintain normality. The editing is also conventional with quick cuts and fade to black, but the static transitions break the conventions as they represent a bad quality which is what most films try and avoid, with some static even being used not for a transition.

Story and how the trailer sets it up The story is of a young girl who finds a dolls house in the attic and asks her mother whether she can keep it. Unknown to her, the dolls represent members of her family, with the cursed girl representing her and she is forced to kill them one by one. The cursed girl craves attention and ‘play with her’, making more members needed for her dolls house. The film ends with the family in the dolls house and the cursed girl still unsatisfied with the deaths. The trailer sets this up through establishing shots of the dolls house, a brief dialogue and the starting of the killings. It does not however give away the full brunt of the story or all the deaths.

Special effectsThe special effects used in our trailer are static, extreme close-ups and opacity with fade over scenes with two things going on at the same time as seen in the first shot and with the girl appearing and disappearing. These are not unknown to existing horrors and thus follow conventions, although it could be argued it is hard to break conventions without much more professional software and hardware. They do however follow the connotations of horror films. Static provides a feeling of things being broken or not right, with fade over shots and close-ups making a ‘ghost’ type feeling.

How does your trailer challenge the conventions of existing media products?

The ways in which our trailer challenges conventions of media products, other than in the sub-sections provided earlier, are through the use of one music track playing through the majority of the trailer, along with the fact it is a nursery rhyme. Also, the static being used to effectively make the video quality worse is challenging conventions of trying to make the highest video quality available. Finally, our trailer ends not with the title but with another clip, which gives the recipient a ‘what happens next’ type feeling.