1. Q1. In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real
media products?

2. For our film opening, we decided to
do a horror. We researched the
different conventions and
connotations of horror film openings
so ours would be accurate. While
looking at other films, we noticed that
there is a common colour scheme of
black and red. This is most likely
because both black and red can
connote death and danger. Red can
also connote blood which is a
common sight in slasher horror movies.

3. We asked our audience what they expected in the
opening of horrors to see what they would expect to see in
ours. The main things were the killer, the victim(s) and the
setting. We made sure to use these in our opening.

4. We decided to have our killer murdering someone in front of the protagonist as
someone dying is seen in multiple horror openings like ‘Sinister’ and ‘The Ring’. In
‘Sinister’ the opening resembles a film reel leading us to believe that someone
would be watching these people die. The person watching could be the
protagonist but we don’t find out who is watching in the opening. ‘The Ring’ is a
bit different as you only see the victim and brief screenshots before she dies. For
our film, the victim doesn’t last long. Our opening is rather fast paced so no one
gets to know the victim at all.
Sinister
The Ring

5. Usually in horror films, you see a setting that is rather empty and deserted
with only a few people there. We decided to do this too. There are only
3 characters in the scene and the setting is rather empty. ‘Sinister’ is one
film we used for this convention as there is only 4 people in the entire
seen.
Only those about to die here.

6. For the credits we looked at 3 different types of openings of different
genres, overlapped, separate, and integrated. We wanted to do an
opening that was similar to the opening of ‘Paranormal Activity’. It’s an
overlapped opening. We decided that this would be a good way to
show the credits. We had a black screen at the beginning before turning
it into an overlapped opening. Black can connote death which is the
most common convention to see in a horror, so we thought that it was
an appropriate colour choice.
We also had our credits in the bottom corner to not cover up the
characters faces during the scene.

7. Using our research we have learned that most horror film openings will use the same
conventions. These normally are of the setting, someone dying, meeting the main
characters and/or killer, talking about the problems (killer and storyline) and
sometimes seeing the main weapon/method of killing, unless these conventions are
being challenged, which rarely happens.
In ‘The Shining’ we see the setting of a large building. It’s in the middle of pretty much
nowhere which is a common thing to see in horrors.
Here’s the building in ‘The Shining’.
We did our best to use these same
conventions without copying other movies too
and use our own idea of a storyline otherwise
it would be plagiarism. In our opening, we see
the antagonist (killer) and the protagonist who
are our main characters (with an extra who is
the victim); one of the settings we decided on
and we see the method of killing as the victim
is strangled to death.

8. Protagonist Victim (Extra)
Antagonist (Killer)
We’ve also noticed that horrors very rarely have bright sunshine in them. This is most
likely because horrors aren’t very happy (since people die) and sunshine can be linked
with happiness. Luckily for us, the weather wasn’t bright and sunny, it was dark (mainly
because the sun was starting to set) and cloudy, so we were able to copy this
convention for our film opening.

9. Priest(Protagonist)- He is shown walking rather up right down the middle of the
path showing that he has his life together. He is shown in mostly mid shots and
long shots which helps the audience see that he is alone. This can give a sense
of vulnerability as there isn’t anyone else around. While the victim is being killed,
he is unable to do much making him seem weaker than he did a few seconds
ago.
Killer(antagonist)- She is shown with very little emotion on her face giving the
impression that something isn’t right with her. This can lead to thoughts of her
being insane. Her murdering people is the most obvious way of telling something
isn’t right. At the end of our clip, she becomes distracted and stops going after
the priest showing that her brain thinks differently.
Victim- He isn’t there for very long as he is being killed before the camera is on
him. He shows panic and terror while being strangled which makes sense since
no one would be laughing whilst being strangled. (Unless something was wrong
with them.)