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

real media products?

By Oliver Watson

• In our opening film sequence we used atmospheric music and sound effects to make our film look and sound more like a ‘scary’ horror/thriller.

• We added this atmospheric music into our opening sequence as it’s a convention of horror. Adding music is conventional in horror films because it builds up tension and makes the overall film more scary and that is what our audience is looking for.

• Other conventions of horror that we used in our opening sequence was in the scene where there was the point of view (POV) from the murderer. This was definitely a convention of horror as it puts the audience in the shoes of the murderer and possibly makes them feel like they are a part of that character. POV’s are shown in multiple horror films such as ‘Halloween’ and ‘Insidious’.

- Our opening sequence

Halloween Insidious

• Our film develops the genre of Thriller by combining it with the Horror genre. By having conventions that belong to both genres means it will attract two types of audiences, the ones that like thriller and the ones that like horror. This means that our film will attract a higher percentage of people, meaning our film will become more popular.

• In the first sequence of our film, we challenged the conventions of a typical horror film as we had a young male who was the victim. This is challenging the conventions of horror because in a typical horror film, the victim is normally a female as in horror films, they are seen as lower class.

• Nightmare on Elm Street -

Victim ‘Bad guy’

• This is our logo for our production company. As we knew we were doing the horror genre, we chose to include some conventions of horror in the logo. Black background – symbolises

darkness and death. This makes the audience feel like they know it’s a horror before the film has already begun.Skull – convention of horror, symbolises the villain and violence in the film.Red writing – symbolises blood, makes the audience feel like the film is going to be violent and gory. The name of the production company – ‘Soulplex’ is a company specifically making films with the horror genre in them. ‘Soul’ makes the audience feel scared before they have even seen the film.

• Overall, I believe that my horror film uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products. I believe that there are multiple conventions of horror involved in the film that makes the film a successful horror/thriller film.

• I believe that I have challenged the conventions of real media products by having a male as the victim instead of a female. However, I also believe that I have involved typical conventions of horror to make the film like original horror films.