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

real media products?

Frame One

Frame One Analysis

• At the start of our film we really wanted to depict an eerie and mysterious opening, as conventionally we felt this was best to tie in with a psychological horror production. From this frame we really wanted to give the audience a grasp of the surroundings, and we have done this through the panning of a handheld camera shot.

Frame Two

Frame Two Analysis

• In order to capture the serenity of the setting for our opening scene we captured the protagonist approaching the house with a long shot, as we feel that this gave us the effect of making the protagonist look small in comparison to his surroundings. We felt this really conveyed the point that in most psychological horrors the protagonist can become very isolated and we have tried to show that from the offset. Also, it makes the looming impendency of the antagonist seem greater and it’s as if it is watching him walking towards the house, creating the sense that the antagonist is almost tracking its prey, waiting to pounce.

Frame Three

Frame Three Analysis

• The first time the protagonist is featured in a close up shot is when he enters the house. This depicts that the events that are going to take place are becoming ever closer as the camera is moving closer to the protagonist. This is because the close up shot can really reveal and show the protagonist’s emotions and this becomes more evident as the scene moves onto its latter stages. As you can see from the first close up however is that it doesn’t give much of the protagonist’s emotions away, adding to the feel of mystery and unknown within the opening scene.

Frame Four

Frame Four Analysis

• For the lighting in our opening scene we wanted to convey most of the inside of the building as dimly lit, as we wanted to continue with our main theme of mystery throughout the opening scene. In this shot you can see that the bottom of the stairs, where the protagonist is, is dimly lit as to show the insignificance of the downstairs area of the house. From the top of the stairs there is light coming down as to show the significance of the upstairs area of the house. We tried to tie in the significance of something with the usage of lighting as to create a signal of when an act of importance was about to happen.

Frame Five

Frame Five Analysis

• We have the real first clear shot of the protagonist’s face in the bathroom through a close up. You can also gather his surroundings as well through the analysis of the background. This is the first sign of any related emotion from the protagonist as he is shaving unaware of what is about to happen. This is your classic horror scene in that sense, as the people who are taken out by the antagonist never see it coming and act as normal in the events leading up to the physical or mental attack, in this case mental.

Frame Six

Frame Six Analysis

• This frame shows the blood on the hands of the protagonist as he goes to wash his hands. We have used blood as it is your most commonly associated feature with horror movies and matches with the semantic field of the genre. You can almost feel the dismay of the protagonist as he is looking down at his hands and this is because this is also a POV shot and we have used this as it really capture the dramatic essence of the moment.

Frame Seven

Frame Seven

Frame Seven Analysis

• These two overlapping frames show our use of editing and special effects as it cuts from an empty mirror reflection and then to the antagonist’s face simultaneously. We have done this to show the fast pace of this moment in the scene and just the lack of control that the audience now has watching the film. We had gained this inspiration from the famous knife-stabbing incident in ‘Psycho’ where there is a horrific use of non-diegetic sound and how it almost conducts the scene.

Frame Eight

Frame Eight Analysis

• This final frame enables us to depict the lifelessness of the protagonist’s body, with the inclusion of blood on his shirt to symbolise his death. The close up of the protagonist’s face connotes the gloominess of the overall opening scene and really again reiterates the theme of mystery, as you can no longer see the protagonist’s face as it is covered and you don’t know exactly what the antagonist has done to the protagonist.

Frame Nine

Frame Nine Analysis

• The next important frame was of course the name of the film. We decided to place it after our protagonist had been followed into the house by something, as this would add more to the effect of the unknown and this also announces our antagonist to the production. The title of our production (The Rising) enabled us to connote the ideological themes of a horror because of the effective imagery that it gives to our audience. We kept the title of the film quite basic, as we felt that this would add to the sinister element of the film and again communicate the feeling of the unknown. The ellipses at the end of the title further add to the mystery of what is going to happen next.