Question 1

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

When planning for my film I decided that it would be better to follow the conventions that are in the horror genre then it is to break away from them. While researching into other films I found that the most successful films follow the typical conventions for example, cabin in the woods, they made a large profit and their overall score on IMDB is 7/10. For a horror film this score is very good. Cabin in the woods was one of the films which inspired me to create mine. Cabin in the woods follows most conventions which I will go into detail later on.

I decided to call my film “lost In The Wild” as that normal conventions means that the title indicates to the audience what the film is about. As the first word is lost it connotes across to the audience that someone within the film is lost, this add vulnerability to the film which often is linked to the horror genre itself. A main part to the horror genre is to set the scene in an isolated area often forest/woods. In my title I have included the word wild; this is basically the same and therefore follows the conventions of the horror genre perfectly.

Most horror trailers open with a scene which is a peaceful home environment, for example cabin in the woods starts with a normal bright happy introduction with nothing wrong. I have done the same, I have started with my trailer showing Harriet in a safe environment (her home), and most horror trailers start with tricking the audience into a false security. This is what I have done with my audience. I have began my trailer with Harriet sitting at home reading a book, In this opening scene I have used a book as a prop, the book itself is from the horror genre. From this the audience is now able to see that something bad may happen when the character within the film doesn’t know anything yet, this affect is called dramatic irony. I feel I have done so in the correct manner. Dramatic irony is mostly used within written language and I haven’t seen this yet used in many horror trailers. I feel that by using dramatic irony has challenged this convention of not informing the audience anything. Most trailers leave the audience in the dark about the plot.

To add tension to the trailer and build up a mysterious atmosphere I decided to play around with using unusual camera angles. In one scene I have the camera facing downward onto a large puddle; in this shot we are only able to see two set of legs walk past. This low angled style camera movement connotes that there is strange mystery to the trailer. Also this angle allows me to show the villain and still hide their identity.

Another large part to the horror genre is the location. A key part to building suspense is the choice of location. Typically used within this genre is an isolated area. Mostly in Cabin in the woods the area is set in the woods and this is the same for my film. While researching into cabin in the woods and other films from the horror genre I found that most of them at some point in their film or trailer featured an isolated area. Most of my trailer features an isolated area, I have followed the convention as that I felt it would be best to do so as it connotes across to the audience a sense of vulnerability. 

I have used multiple type of sounds within my trailer. I have tried to use a mixture of both diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. One of the most common affects done for horror trailers is to have voice over. However to break this normal convention I have not used a voice over as I found it will take away the mysterious affect I planned to create.

One of the major theories that I researched into when planning my horror trailer was Propps theory, this theory came from the idea that there is 7 different character profiles that are featured in films, these profiles are; the hero, the villain, the donor, the princess, the princess’ father, the dispatcher, the false hero. Typically two profiles can be one person. Often this 7 character profile is found in horror films, for example cabin in the woods has several main characters and they all fit into all several profile. When researching this perspective I decided that it would fit perfectly with my plot idea and I would be following this convention.

When first creating my poster I looked into posters that are already published, my main influence came from the posters, Final Destination and Drag me to hell. I found that these two posters followed the normal conventions. For example they both feature a main image, Tag Line, masthead, realise date. However they both did not feature the actors name on the poster which was something that I wanted to do so to make my poster stand out against the others I decided to do so. I have found that most new films not to this and it were something that was done in the past. I decided that I wanted to bring back this old tradition. Part of the horror genre is to use low key lighting within the trailer. However I wanted to carry this on into the poster as well. By using this style of lighting I have been able to give my film poster a dark scary look.

In addition I have followed the same conventions for my magazine front cover. My main objective was to follow the conventions as I felt that it would be able to attract my audience better as I all ready knew what they wanted from my extensive amount of research. Within the horror genre, the colour red is featured a lot as it often connotes blood or danger. I have also featured this colour as I knew the colour would be easily recognised with the genre of horror. On my magazine front cover I have included a masthead, Tag lines, main image, bar-code and anchorage text. I have done so as I was able to find all things components on other magazine covers.  

In conclusion I believe that I have followed most conventions that are within the film industry, I have also followed the conventions that are for a poster and magazine cover. However there are a few areas which I have challenged conventions in order to make my film unique against films already published.