Clear understanding of conventions and

forms.

General forms and conventions of short film

openings. • Definition a film opening: The purpose of a film opening is to catch the audiences attention, and to include and show the short films genre and to introduce the protagonist and Antagonist.

• Definition of a convention: The conventions are the guidelines in which people use for a specific genre or media product. They have to understand and accept the guidelines of the genre in order to show the right conventions of the genre. Some Genres have similar conventions, and some are very different. You can challenge the conventions to enhance the product.

• An example of the similar conventions would be in the romance genre the convention colour is red and in horror films the convention colour is red.

Conventions• General conventions: The general conventions of any short film are their to set

the audience up for the film and what is about to happen. The general conventions of any short film create a relationship between the characters and objects, settings and other characters. The conventions of a opening normally are split apart from the main part of the film through animation to then create a clear difference between the opening and actual film.

• A sound track usually signifies the film opening which then ends at the end of the opening of the film.

• The opening credits: A few of the main characters or director or producer and the director names will be in the opening credits as it is a typical convention.

• Editing conventions: When editing conventions their is usually a establishing shot at the start of the short film. They set the conventions through numerous shorts after this which include closes ups mid shorts long shots etc which help them identify relationships. The non diegetic sound helps understand the feelings of characters. The titles are normally entered in the film opening within the second half of 30 seconds. Their will be a clear equilibrium during the beginning. Openings are usually two minutes to five minutes long for major short films whereas independent short films are a lot less, normally up to two minutes.

Conventions • Lighting: Within any short film the lighting is used to

create any lighting which will represent the atmosphere, genre or tension. In the opening of any short film, By using lighting you can create shadows this can build tension clearly. This can clearly create such things as a darker presence and the fear of the unknown. It makes it harder for the audience to understand the situation.

• In most short films: They do this by creating a lighting rig to create all sorts of lighting. Which fits any type of film. They use a few of them in different film openings to create a different affect on each one.

Conventions in Horror and how we represented them in our film.

• The first horror convention i will be showing you is the convention of the props. The conventions of these props are the following..

• In modern horror films their is usually a teenager of the modern era which instantly represent the technology era. Therefore the phone is used as a prop frequently in most horror films as seen in the 1996 Scream film.

• Another prop used is the film was a laptop, also referring to the new modern technological era. This includes more than just messaging service.

- Another convention of a horror film is the characters, this includes the different types of characters and how they are perceived.

- The different types of Antagonist are usually in the teenage age gap, they usually tend to be women as they are seen to be there weaker person. They always tend to be the most vulnerable. This theory is called the final girl theory.The final girl theory is based upon the Carol J clover as she create this theory of the final person being alive being the venerable girl.

- Another convention of this is the lighting, Horror lighting is usually used to darken a situation or put light on one section to emphasise it. it is used to create shadows and used scare the audience. the normal convention for horror is dark lighting throughout, if people cant see anything or just see a shadow it gives the the fear of the unknown. this makes it increasingly scary for the audience. This uses the theorist and makes it easier for them The other convention of horror is the enemies, the enemies are the protagonist, The protagonist is the part of the convention of horror as they are now in horror as the evil villain or someone that ruins the plan and kills someone or haunts them. they are the plot twist. In our short film we did this by making it easier for the audience and showing them who the antagonist briefly in different sections to still give the fear of the unknown throughout. in most horror films the antagonists prevents being seen till crucial moments.Another convention of this is the credits, The credits of any horror film normally start with very little, They include things such as the directors name and the characters names at the very start briefly or at the very end. In our short film we split them so some are at the start and some are at the end of the film when all the characters are introduced.

The more the credits the more of a film it is instead of a short film as the credits, their are hardly any if as their are hardly any characters in a conventional manner.

• The research i carried out shows the conventional films in the horror genre which re set in an abandoned or common locations such as a school. The main age for people in a horror film is within a teenage or young age which are the protagonist in the film is normally conventional. The sub genre can sometimes be hybrid meaning two types of horror. For our film we chose to do this and use it as a paranormal slasher. As seen below i will list how it is this.

• These are the only shots shown of the antagonist, he is not seen and flickers in and out of being seen showing the paranormal, during the end the girl is stabbed making it within the slasher genre.

Genre and Sub Genre

Horror Posters• Horror posters usually consist of the antagonist or the protagonist, normally

looking scary, scared or mysterious. This will be the centre of the poster. Usually put with conventional colours in which in horror is, black and red and deeper colours to have an eery feel. The facial expression on the antagonist or protagonist not he cover is usually straight faced with no emotion or scared and shown to be.A horror poster gives there audience the first impression of the film and what kind of horror it is. For example for our short film we created a horror poster and a magazine article. My horror poster has all the conventions of this and the normal conventions. Textual analysis of poster:

As you can see here there is often visual styling such as shadows and the text is usual black or red.These colours will continuously used to create a more conventional dramatic view of the short film. This also shows part of the narrative of the film so the audience know exactly what their going to see.

How is used, developed and challenged these forms?

• Introducing the Antagonist To start with we did not introduce this antagonist we only introduce our protagonist when introducing the antagonist we showed the audience a build up of tension until a release when their physical appearance is shown.

• Opening credits, Once their is a graphic breakdown around horror films. it was then easier to understand the order of the film credits and when they should appear on screen. I also research film credits on the internet to make sure each of my credits was conventional to both short films and horror films. By doing this we split our titles, half and half and therefore the titles were split conventionally.

• shot sequence The close ups and extreme close ups are what show reactions and emotions. We chose more and different shots as we wanted to challenge this form and make sure we chose a shot sequence which played our audience into believing this was reality and anticipating what is to happen next.

• challenging the Equilibrium, This is where the equilibrium within the film is the balance that is usually shown at the start of the film before it gets in to darker side of things including the antagonist. We then challenged this convention and challenged the equilibrium by bringing int he antagonist physical appearance in over half way through the film.

• Length of opening The length of the opening will change according to content the conventional meaning to this. This is because short film are usually at least 2 minutes long and horror short films including the narrative were around 5 minutes in which ours was.