Thursday 31 March 2011

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

Our media used forms of conventions of real media products in the genre of slasher horror. One of the camera angles used was a point of view shot. This created a sense of mystery as the audience were unaware of the identity of the villain, and this is a key convention of thrillers and horrors. We also used high angle shots on the dead bodies to show vulnerability. The location we used was not conventional of slasher horrors, as in our research we discovered that in this genre the location is usually a blood covered cell, or operating room, as seen in 'Saw'. We used a house which would seem ordinary to our target audience. We felt that by doing this, our target audience could relate to the situation and location of the house party and therefore feel more threatened and uneasy about the events that take place in the trailer. The deaths in the house took place in more conventional places, so by doing this we have developed the convention. We used stairs and a shower for scenes of death, as these two are both codes and conventions of thrillers and horrors.


The lighting we used was dim for the party and light for showing the corpses, this challenges codes and convetions as usually the gory scenes are lit dimly to show depression and hopelessness and fear, and parties and social events are filmed in the light to show equilibrium, however we challenged this by having it in reverse. This gave the effect of the party showing foreboding (combined with the eerie music) and the death scenes were in a strong light with a blue tint. This gave the effect of a 'flash forward' of the bodies being discovered the morning after, the blue tint also giving a cold feeling associated with death.


In our editing we used footage which we sped up and slowed down. This gives the effect that the villain is possibly mentally unstable or under the influence of drugs (which would fit with the codes and conventions of our trailer as it features teenagers at a party, therefore our audience would expect, or suspect misuse of drugs). We follow conventions of a slasher trailer with features of blood and death, and also fast paced editing just before the titles to create tension and excitement.


Our Mise en scene is an ordinary house, which is against codes and conventions of an ordinary slasher horror but we completely emptied the rooms shown in the trailer of any ornaments or objects that would make the home seem like it belonged to a particular social group. We dressed our victims in ordinary clothes, avoiding stereotypes of any social groups (such as 'emos' or 'chavs') to keep our target audience as open as possible, but also to make our events seem unexpected to create fear for our audience.


For our sound we used conventionally eerie sounds in the background of the deaths and leading up to them to create tension for our audience. We used a loud noise before the title which is a convention of horror as it creates stress and anxiety. We used an upbeat song for our party scene, but one that is not recognisable so the focus is on the events not the music, but also so our target audience can relate to the party. We used a mix of non diegetic and diegetic music to create equilibrium at the end of the trailer which is not a convention of slashers, it is contrapuntal to the events that happen in the trailer, we purposefully end our trailer with this to create a sense of uneasiness as the music is the first thing the audience hears before the gory events take place.

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