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Media Evaluation-Horror Conventions

ben smith

Updated April 30, 2010

Transcript

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

Mise En Scene aspect of the Horror Convention

Kitchen Knife

This is shown from a point of view shot from the murderers eyes in which he obtains a kitchen knife.

What does this show?

This indicates to the audience the Horror convention as the scene signals that the murderer will use the knife as a weapon, as the cross cut editing switches to the victim that is the female.

Enigma

Killers hidden identity

This is shown in a low medium shot with the victim stood above the victim disguising his face, he then stabs her which transpires into a shadow on the wall to again disguise his identity

What does this do...

This convention creates a mysterious atmosphere throughout the sequence as the killer is unknown.

How do the conventions indicate our subgenre ?

What is our subgenre?

Slasher

How is this shown?

A handheld shot of the murderer stalking his victim suggests he is a serial killer to the audience. Also the knife and stabbing scene introduces the sub genre of a slasher.

What Social groups are represented?

Within our sequence the main character we focus on is a young female .

We see this in films such as Halloween which contributed to our ideas.

Particular shots show the women’s vulnerability such as when she is walking up the stairs and is shown from a high and low angle. This represents there is nothing around her and she is on her own.

The use of sound perspective of her footsteps shows she is on her own Also the over the shoulder shot of where she is texting shows she is on her own as she is contacting other people, again telling the audience she is lonely.

Is gender represented in a stereotypical way?

An atmosphere is created where the women is lonely and will struggle to put up a fight against the male murderer which represents a society where men are foreseen as stronger and more dominant of women.

What type of media constitution would distribute our product?

Reasons to suggest this is the nature of out titles that appear which were influenced by other horror movies as they appear in a similar order.

The sequence could be used as a trailer that provides the audience an exhilarating opening as they are immediately faced with a murder and tense atmosphere that draws the audience in.

Although a secondary option could be TV movie as it is similar to other TV products such as Midsummer murders and Pride and Prejudice with similar enigmas where it’s a murder mystery.

By using this as a trailer to a Hollywood film,this would help to create a media franchise in which a sequel to the film could be made. A possibility of merchandise through refreshment sales and fan memorabilia would also offer a unique merchandising opportunity.

What target audience would our sequence appeal too?

18 rating logo

Our ideas include...

Explicit Language

Rape

Discrimination

This would make it an 18, as rape is not really suitable for a 15 rated movie. Also discrimination between characters results in explicit language, although this is permitted in 15 rated films this could be too extreme for a 15 rated film.

What content makes our sequence an 18 rating.

There will be violence within the scene that may result in harm towards the victim so therefore this would be rated an 18 film. My opening sequence also shows alcohol use to create an view on the character as middle class or maybes troubled, although this isn’t promoting drugs it may be scene as extreme alcohol use so is 18.

What target audience would our film specifically relate too?

The audience would obviously appeal to horror fans particularly murder mystery fans. This is created by elliptical editing where you don’t see the women being killed and the murders identity is concealed as the enigma of it is too find the killer of the women.

This is created by elliptical editing where you don’t see the women being killed and the murders identity is concealed as the enigma of it is too find the killer of the women.

How is the audience addressed?

The audience is firstly addressed by an establishing shot which provides them with knowledge of the surroundings and introduces them to the sequence.

The use of mise en scene such as knifes and alcohol relates to an adult audience and even more so a horror as a blade is being shown in the flesh intended for use.

They are also addressed by shots such as ?

low angled point of view shot in which the murderer is watching the victim walk past in the comfort of her own home

handheld point of view shots which use cross cut editing back to the female victim which therefore links his actions to the female and furthers attracts the audience.

How are the audience affected?

The situation involves and addresses the audiences as different emotions are played on and also the different shots involve the audience into the thoughts of the characters.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

Camera Equipment

Weaknesses

Filming in sunlight affects the shot quality
Using the camera in small spaces

Strengths

Tripod allowed us to film from different angles.
Pan shots etc were given a smoother look by using the tripod

Editing software

Strengths

Splitting shots
Sequencing together

Syncing music

Credits

Adjusting contrasts and saturtion on shots

Transitions

Garageband

Our specific aim was to produce and eerie soundtrack to assist the process of events which would gradually build up in temp significantly decrease and then increase.

We were able to do this by using the same sample of music combined with a different bass line while the software allowed us to adjust the tempo and decibels of the alternative bars, making it a useful programme to use.

A downside was their was a limited amount of samples

Within the plan we aimed to use a variety of shots and angles to increase our marks and continued with this in our actual film by using our ideas.

We produced an animatic in order to show our planning more clearly and fluent so we could easily identify what shots we needed to do in the filming stage.

Improvements we recognised

While filming the sequence we recognised we needed less still shots and to add some rotation and movement to the shots

Also we decided we needed variation as we went on with our editing techniques

As we progressed through the filming of it we realised improvements upon shots and also developed our knowledge of the equipment the more we used it which helped our camera skills.