Evaluation - Conventions

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

My media product uses many of the typical conventions which films of the same genre, horror, tend to use. For example, many horror films use light to change the mood of a scene and to emphasise the fact that it is a horror film. This use of dim lighting, or in some cases very bright lighting, can change the feel of a scene dramatically and completely change the effect of the scene.

Our film, similarly to other films in the horror genre, has been edited to dim the light on a scene to make it appear darker and gloomier. Without this effect, due to the fact that we have only shot 2 minutes of the film, our clip doesn’t look like a horror; it looks more like a documentary because of the ‘hand held’ style of shooting the film.

This hand held filming style challenges the conventions of real media products in the same genre as mine. Although now many more low-budget horror films are choosing to film in this way, this technique of filming still isn’t used very often. Most of the films that are shot in this hand held style only use shots that are filmed from this hand held perspective. Our media product however has also used shots filmed from a third person perspective. We have decided to use this to challenge and differentiate our film from others in our genre and to give more of an effect that the characters in our media piece are being watched (this fits with the story line of our film).

Our choice of setting for our film is also very similar to other films in this genre. We chose to film in a dark, isolated forest away from people. Almost all horror films which we have studied have also chosen to set their films in an isolated/secluded location. This, in most cases, adds an effect of loneliness and helplessness to the characters in the film; this is why we have chosen this location for our film. It adds a scarier feel to the film and makes it seem that the characters in the film have no one to help them if something were to happen to one or both of them.

The shot types which we have used challenge the conventions of a typical horror film. Horror films use large amounts of close ups and extreme close ups to emphasise emotion (mostly fear or fright) and to show gory wounds more closely to give a scarier effect. We however have used very few close ups or extreme close ups. We haven’t included them because no events which evoke emotions or wounds worth showing a close up of have occurred due to the fact that it is only the opening 2 minutes of the film.

Also, as in most films of any genre, especially horror, the main protagonists in our film have been introduced from the beginning of the film/ very early on in the film. This is another example of us using typical conventions of other films.