The document discusses how the filmmaker conformed to conventions of the romantic horror genre. Shots like mid shots and long shots showed what was happening and allowed audiences to recognize characters, while close ups created paranoia by restricting the frame. Costumes, makeup, props, music, sounds effects and locations were chosen to follow genre codes and thrill audiences. Characteristics of the villain Jason were inspired by The Joker to instantly signal his craziness. Overall, the filmmaker aimed to develop the narrative and characters in a way that would differentiate it as belonging to the horror genre.

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

2. For cinematography I mainly focused on capturing specifics shot to conform
to our sub-genre, Romantic-Horror. I had to carry this effectively in order to
produce an excellent opening. Basic shots such as Mid Shot, Long Shots,
allowed us to show our audiences what was going on and also to recognise
characters.
Close Up
While filming, my main focus was not only to conform to common shots used
in the genre chosen, but to follow the feedback given from our audience
research.
Most results came to terms of using a lot of close ups.
The effects of close ups intends for the audience to become paranoid as they
do not know what’s happening outside the frame; this also creates a thrill that
most people enjoy about watching Horror films

3. Focus
We took the focus of the camera to our advantage. The camera focusing in and out,
allowed us to send a message that something wrong is going on which conformed to
our genre and narrative.
The camera not being in focus also allowed us to challenge ourselves to see if
audiences actually understood what was going on and this was shown through
feedback received.

4. Mise-en-scene impacted our film massively! We really nurtured how our characters
were portrayed to conform to the codes and conventions of our genre.
Costumes
We kept our costumes to a minimum. There was no specific reason for this, we just
implied that it would make it easier to understand the stereotypes of the characters. For
example, Annabel was dressed in a pink cloak, to exaggerate how feminine she is. In
addition, the male characters, which stuck to their costumes to a simple colour, which
conforms to the simplicity expected for male characters

5. Make-up
Make-up allowed us to create effective
images to follow codes and
conventions of our genre and to also
thrill our audience.
For Jason’s make-up, we received
inspiration from well-known villain ‘The
Joker’ from batman.
The joker’s well-known for being crazy,
which we wanted to portray for Jason.
Doing this allowed audiences to
instantly understand the characteristics
of our villain.
Props
Props that were effectively used are
the pictures in Scene one and the gun.
This helped me to construct our
narrative. The use of the pictures
helped portray Jason’s obsessive and
crazy characteristics.
In addition, as the gun helped portray
danger to conform to the genre of
Horror.

6. Location scouting was a problem. We debated over two locations. Our first initial
location was more proficient than the location used in our film, because it’s surrounding
were more drastic where as the one used was found to be basic.
However, the location used still allowed us to conform the horror genre. The forest
emphasised the thrills we were trying to convey.
Haggerston
-Location we
Filmed at
Hackney Marshes-
Initial location

7. Without sound, I believe our opening would have meant anything. Sound allowed us to
emphasize mystery, horror and impact onto our audiences.
The music used at the beginning conformed to the psychotic behaviour of Jason. The
heartbeat used helped to create paranoia and allowed the atmosphere to be tense. The
sound effect of the gunshot helped to create realism as the gun used was fake.
What we intend to add is a voice over of Jason to easily explain the narrative as this
was one of the problems people found watching our film.

8. Horror genre is significant as it differentiates from
other genre’s massively. It causes you to look
deeper, for example, questioning human existence.
This comes from the author Stephen Prince of the
book ‘The Horror Film’.
He says, “Here lies the special significance of
horror, the factors that truly differentiate it from the
other genres and that make it conform most deeply
with our contemporary sense of the world.”
We used this towards the characteristics of Jason
as he doesn’t act like a normal human being.

9. Lacey advices to include the ‘repertoire of elements’ when creating a film, to suggest that it
belongs to a particular genre.
The action, which was Jason attacking Annabel and Bryson, referred to Lacey’s idea of a
specific narrative device.
We developed our narrative through our characters, for example, a villain, damsel in
distress and a false hero.
Example: Generally in horror films, the villain is defeated. However, we added a plot twist where the villain was never really defeated.
Horror genres have a location, but it’s changed overtime. Our location being the forest.
Our product follows the iconography suggested by Lacey. It contains visual and audio, that
becomes instantly recognisable to the horror genre.
Example: Dark and gloomy colours with, sinister music. Diagonal camera angle to communicate something’s not right.