Evaluation - Question 1

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

Overall I think our open sequence includes many conventions of our chosen genre - horror/thriller. The main issue I found was the title sequence and where to include it and how. I didn't want it to just pop in and out distracting the audience from what's going on but also not to be too camouflage. When finding a title sequence to compare to, I turned to Art of The Title to find something. I spent a lot of time looking through several opening titles and finally found one that had similarities to ours. I decided to choose the movie Dreamcatcher. Although it differences it also holds similarities and the two together give dimension. 

I feel our product uses the forms and conventions of a real media product as it blends together many typical codes and conventions together to give the audience a clear view of what they are viewing. Not only does it use these clearly it also challenges the typical conventions of a real horror opening sequence with its in depth, thought-provoking plot fitting into not only one solid genre but a genre with a sub-genre of psychological  which is a popular new wave of horror/thriller.

We did many things to fit into the horror/thriller genre and for it to slot nicely into this category. For example, we used plenty of 'artsy', close-up shots and made sure the locations for each shot were very desolate and isolated. 

Our mis-en-scene we used props such as food colouring for fake blood and a knife, a very typical prop in the horror/thriller scene, to capture more of these qualities.

Right from the get-go the atmosphere and setting was tense. It was alluring and left questions. The silence from our protagonist, Charles leaves the audience question his somber look and tense facial expressions; evoking a sinister, mystery element to the film. Most horror/thriller movies, especially those with the sub-genre of psychological build there strengths around the elusive mystery plot. This gave us a lot to play with to get to our final cut.

Our influences were films such as Saw, 100 feet, Se7en, Dreamcatcher and Number 27. 

Our protagonist Charles is similar to the one in 100 Feet; although being a different gender, both characters murdered someone leaving sinister consequences.