Question 1

2. By researching recent products before I began to think of film ideas, improved my understanding
of the forms and conventions of real media products in the psychological horror genre. However,
before my group and I agreed on a specific horror genre, we researched into the conventions of
the main sub- genres to see which one would be the most practical to produce in terms of
accessibility and knowledge and we agreed on Psychological. I looked specifically at 2 trailers;
‘The Strangers’ and ‘The Purge’ in order to help me improve my knowledge on the conventions of
this sub- genre and I looked at Mise en scene, camera shots, editing and sound within my
analysis. I briefly looked at the ‘You’re Next’ trailer, ‘May’, ‘The House of Wax’, ‘The Conjuring’
and ‘FridayThe 13th’ for further inspiration. From all my research, I have established the
conventions of a horror trailer include:
• Fast montage of shots
• Low key lighting
• Film title
• Release date
• Text in-between shots
• Todorov’s narrative order
• A ‘sting’
• Fade transitions
Throughout this evaluation question, I have stated where I have challenged and conformed to
these conventions and also referred to how I have represented our characters.

3. From my research into psychological horror conventions and existing products such as ‘The Purge’ and
‘The Strangers’ for the setting, I established that I wanted our setting to be in a house as this symbolic
convention suggests realism in the trailer enabling the audience to relate to the characters making them
feel tense as they may think it could happen in their own home. It is also iconic to the horror genre so
therefore helps the audience establishing the genre of the film. Also, due to problems last year, we
thought that if we were filming in a public environment it would be difficult to re film any shots if we
needed to as the setting may have changed. However we thought of a location before a narrative as we
needed to see how practical different locations would be as we may have had to change our ideas if it
wasn’t possible to film. We went to our initial idea location which was Kayleigh’s house to help us make a
decision and see how suitable it would be for us and we all agreed it was good as it had the correct
lighting, props, atmosphere and furniture etc. Also, as we used weapons in our trailer, we couldn’t have
filmed in a public environment as we could have been arrested.
We also based our location on what feedback we had in our focus group. My audience said they would
associate a house with a psychological horror film as they would find it more realistic but creepier if it
was old fashioned and we did film in an old fashioned house; therefore this helped us with our decision.
However, as we wanted to challenge other stereotypes such as character representations in this trailer
to be more creative, we kept the location stereotypical as we wanted the character representations to
stand out as we challenged these the most and if both of these aspects were challenged we may have
confused the audience and the film would not be a success.
Overall, the home location was successful, conformed to stereotypes, it was local, warm and we could
easily re film shots when we needed to. It provided me with many opportunities to meet and challenge
conventions and utilise my surroundings especially when I was filming mid shots in the kitchen, close up
shots of taking drugs (we used tick-tacks) and action shots as these are shots we couldn’t have done if
we were in a public environment.
Setting

4. Female Protagonist costume
For costumes, I used forms and conventions of real media texts as our protagonist Maddie,
is wearing tight but casual clothing throughout the trailer and her costume on both the
poster and magazine cover can be seen in the trailer to make them all link.
My aim for Maddie’s costume was to dress her in tight clothing throughout to make her look
feminine to conform to stereotypes. However, I have slightly challenged female stereotypes
as she isn’t wearing anything low cut to make her look ‘sexy’, just feminine and a lot of
horrors over sexualise women so we stayed clear of this as we didn’t want our trailer to be
predictable as this can be boring. Also, especially in these shots of Maddie in the trailer you
can see that the outfits represent her as innocent due to the light colours, however she also
comes across as very feminine as I dressed her in quite tight clothing to conform to female
representations which I think is a successful part of our trailer. I was inspired mainly by Julie
James from ‘What I did Last Summer’ as Maddie looks casual but nice like Julie, which
enables our audience to relate to her.
Costume

5. I decided on set before we began to film, to dress her in casual clothing for the equilibrium as
this shows a normal couple moving in together and I wanted to dress her in something that
female characters can automatically relate to so they are hooked from the start; therefore I
added a loose shirt over a tight black top, again, inspired by Julie from ‘What I did Last
Summer’.

6. Antagonist’s costume
Costume and makeup are also important to establish a films genre and this played a huge role
in our trailer especially for the antagonists to make it look like a horror film. For my
antagonist’s costume, I used forms and conventions of real media products as I was inspired
by ‘The Purge’ and ‘The Strangers’ trailers and we dressed our antagonists (cult) in casual
clothing. I also used masks to hide their identities and create mystery to achieve Roland
Barthes enigma codes in our trailer. Masks are part of the horror genres iconography and
therefore we included masks for the antagonists costume so the genre was identifiable and
based on audience feedback, the genre was.

7. Furthermore, for my female antagonist Delaney, I challenged forms and conventions of real
media texts as I dressed her in casual clothing so she looked like the rest of cult, but instead,
she wore a white low cut lace top as I wanted to challenge stereotypes and portray her as
sexual.This is because most antagonists wear black and dirty clothing or masks and are the
ugly villains such as in ‘Friday the 13th’ with Pamela Voorhees. I wanted to find something
similar to the white dresses worn in ‘The Purge’ trailer, but couldn’t so instead I dressed her
in a top which looked similar.
The fake blood on Delaney’s face portrays violence
in the film; however she still looks sexualised due to
the eye makeup and hair which is what we aimed to
do to appeal to our male audience.The blood was
inspired by mainly most media texts I had looked at
as this is an iconic convention of the horror genre so
therefore I used it.

8. From the start, I believed that challenging forms and conventions of real media products by
sexualising our female antagonist was going to be successful as it is unique. From our target
audience feedback, they said it was very creative when we asked them in our focus group so
this was a good decision to make. This representation was inspired by the film ‘May’ as the
antagonist character May was represented as innocent and pretty at the beginning and I
wanted to do the same for our trailer. In one short shot of our trailer I have dressed Delaney in
a tight dress (which is quite difficult to see), however this is to mislead the audience into
thinking she is a sex appeal when she is really a psycho like the character May.

9. Throughout my research and planning, I looked at real media texts such as ‘The Strangers’
trailer and ‘The Purge’ trailer. I used forms and conventions of real media texts and tried to
use inspiration from them to produce a range of camera shots to conform, challenge and
create different representations of my characters and also to create different moods.
Altogether I used a range of shots such as point of view shots, follow shots, hand held
camera shots, high angle shots, long shots and trunk shots and many more which followed
conventions of real media products.
Camera shots- technical convention

10. At the beginning, Maddie was the first character introduced to the audience through a high angle
shot to show that she is one of the most significant characters in the film as this is common in most
horror films. I also conformed to stereotypes of real media products by trying to achieve the male
gaze theory through the use of camera shots with Maddie as this was used at the beginning of ‘The
Strangers’ when the couple were being romantic and is often a theory used in horror films to
represent the female character as very feminine and this is what I wanted to achieve.This was
done to make our film appeal to a male audience and I did it by using a close up shot of Maddie
walking into the bath and dropping a towel to show her legs. I believe this was successful as it
complimented the close up shot of her actually in the bath further on in the trailer as well as appeal
to our male audience which I found out from my audience feedback.

11. Another shot I used to conform to stereotypes was a high angle point of view shot of Maddie
being pushed into a corner by an antagonist.We gave the camera to one of our antagonist
actors to use as a hand held camera to film with as this would give a more realistic
representation of the antagonist and the danger Maddie is in. We did this to represent
Maddie as a damsel in distress as she is helpless and vulnerable which the high angle shot
helps to achieve, suggesting to the audience she needs help.The damsel in distress
representation is often used in horror trailers such as in ‘Scream’ where Sidney is a beautiful
young woman who is in trouble being chased by an antagonist and she needs a hero to rescue
her.

12. I used a low angle shot of my antagonist walking down the stairs as from watching the trailer
for ‘Friday the 13th’, low angle shots help create a representation of power and authority, and
by representing our antagonist like this, it makes our audience wonder if the protagonists will
stand a chance against them, and therefore will encourage them to watch the film. However
this could also be seen as challenging stereotypes as a lot of the time, it is the protagonists
that are represented as the most dominant and powerful through the use of camera shots,
such as in the film ‘The Purge’. I also used a lot of close ups, extreme close ups and long shots
of our antagonists throughout the trailer as these shots were used a lot in ‘Friday the 13th’, for
example when he was shown chasing the female character when she was on the floor, and we
all thought it was very effective as they created a frightening representation. I thought these
shots we used were successful as the long shots also showed their costume and we wanted to
show this in our trailer as costume also adds to the fear factor as it shows that the characters
are normal people just with hidden identities as the masks cover their faces which make it
more frightening.

13. ‘The Strangers’ used a wide establishing shot of swings to create enigma as to who moved
them, and I created enigma though our long shot of an antagonist sat on them.The fact
they are made from rope and wood makes them look old fashioned and based on my focus
group from our initial idea, my audience said that old fashioned locations are creepier and
so I feel this is a successful part of my trailer.
This shot of Maddie being pulled down the stairs was inspired by one of the characters
being pulled along the floor in ‘The Purge’ as this made us jump and we wanted to do the
same. It also represents her as innocent and helpless which is what I was trying achieve for
her representation.

14. A very significant shot we included which conformed to forms and conventions of real
media texts and the horror genre was our ‘sting’ at the end. I included a close up shot of
one of our antagonists after the film title appeared to make the audience jump which it did
when our target audience watched it.This was inspired by ‘The Conjuring’ trailer as it left
me in fear of what is to come from the full film and I wanted to use 'a sting' at the end to
leave the audience remembering the trailer as a main purpose of a trailer is to make people
remember it so they watch the film. I originally wanted to use a shot of our antagonist
Delaney for the sting, however when we filmed it and put it together in the editing process
it didn’t look right as we felt the acting wasn’t fast enough and even when we sped it up it
didn’t give the same effect as this shot did.

15. Our montage was very successful in our trailer as it helped us conform to horror
trailer conventions,To include a montage, I was inspired mainly by the ‘You’re Next’
trailer however ‘The Purge’ gave me the initial idea of including one.The ‘You’re
Next’ trailer included a very fast paced montage with short shots and this is
something my group and I really liked and tried to recreate. However, in my opinion
if I was to do this again I would make it longer, but we added text into it which
made it creative as we haven’t seen a montage with text in before therefore here
we slightly challenged forms and conventions of real media texts but I feel as
though this is a successful part of our trailer as it is complimented well by the fast
paced non diegetic soundtrack and my audience said the montage was one of the
best parts of the trailer when they watched it.

16. For my film poster and magazine cover I have challenged and conformed to forms and
conventions of real media texts as I have used action shots which look like they are taken from
the film for the dominant image.
For my poster I have used a close up action shot of Maddie our antagonist and I have
challenged this convention because I found out from real media texts such as ‘The Purge’ and
‘The Conjuring’ poster, that their dominant image is usually a separate image from the film
such as a close up of a character on ‘The Purge’ poster for example. I wanted to challenge
these conventions as I wanted to produce something different to my audiences expectations
this may foreshadow a unique and creative film.
For my posters dominant image I have also used an action shot and it is of the antagonist
holding Maddie with a knife to her throat to show horror iconography. However, this time I
have conformed to forms and conventions of real media texts as most horror magazine covers
use photos from the actual film as the dominant image. For example ‘Fangoria’ for the film
Insidious has the shot at the end of the film as the dominant image and ‘Scream’ also does.

17. For the transitions, I also conformed to forms and conventions of real media
texts as I used fade to black transitions, in which I was inspired by ‘The Strangers’
trailer. In ‘The Strangers’ they were used to create tension and in my trailer I
mainly included these fade transitions at the beginning for the equilibrium as
they are there to show the calm mood but to also help with the build-up of
suspense.
Transitions- technical convention

18. Our media product uses forms and conventions of real media products as we used low
key lighting to create an eerie atmosphere and artificial lighting from torches to create
shadows.This type of lighting is typically found in horror trailers, particularly in ‘Friday
the 13th’ and ‘The Strangers’ which I looked at for inspiration. Throughout the trailer,
particularly in this shot, there is a sense of darkness as for the house settings we used
dim artificial lighting from lights to create a low key and scary mood.The darkness in
the trailer connotates a feeling of insecurity and mystery, which are all key conventions
of the horror genre and shows aspects of Roland Barthes Enigma Codes which is what I
wanted to achieve.We were inspired by real media texts such as ‘The purge’, and the
darkness in our trailer is used to create a semantic field of danger which is why it is
incorporated to add to the enigma, making the audience want to see more.
Lighting- symbolic convention

19. Whilst trying to create shadows during filming, we tried to create a shadow like this
from ‘Friday the 13th’ as it represents the antagonist as the dominant character. We
used the only equipment we had which was torches and dark rooms; however, we
found it difficult to recreate something similar but we managed to create shadows
around Maddie in the bath using artificial lighting from candles to represent and
foreshadow mystery and create an eerie mood instead.This is what we did:
The lighting used on my film poster and magazine cover conform to forms and
conventions of real media products as the majority of the products I was inspired by
used low key lighting.These influences came from media texts such as ‘The Purge’,
‘The Strangers’ and the ‘Insidious’ poster and also the ‘Fangoria’, ‘Scream’ and ‘Empire’
magazine. All these products used dark colour schemes and dimmed images to add to
the overall darkness of the product.The lighting I used was to foreshadow mystery in
the film and create a build-up of suspense.

20. Our media product uses the forms and conventions of real media products as we have
incorporated iconography of the horror genre by including a Final Girl into our film
narrative which is Maddie.You find many Final Girls in horror films such as in ‘The
Purge’, ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and ‘What Lies Beneath’ and we used this
convention of real media products by representing her as innocent, intelligent and
feminine through the use of camera shots and narrative as throughout the trailer, she
was represented as become weaker and more vulnerable but survives at the end. We
also slightly challenged the representation of the Final Girl as we didn’t oversexualise
her unlike in the ‘Scream’ films where the Final Girls are wearing limited clothing. If we
wanted to we could have filmed our Final Girl wearing limited clothing as our BBFC was
15 and sexual nudity is allowed, however it wouldn’t have been appropriate to film this.
Narrative and character
representations

21. Another stereotype we have challenged is that our Final Girl has ginger hair and from
looking at real life media products such as ‘Scream’, ‘The House of Wax’, ‘The Purge’ and
‘The Strangers’, they usually have blonde or brunette hair as this is stereotypically seen as
more sexual. Due to our actor having ginger hair, this worked to our advantage as it helped
us towards our representation of not over sexualising our female protagonist, however she
is still represented as beautiful and feminine.

22. Also, we originally planned to make part of the trailer a dream, however whilst editing we
realised that after putting it together in the order we wanted, that it was too short for the
dream to make sense to the audience so we didn’t include it. However we did stick to
Todorov’s narrative theory order as I found out from looking at real media texts such as
‘The Strangers’, ‘The Purge’, ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and ‘Friday the 13th’, that horror
trailers are shown in narrative order so the audience don’t get confused.
Finally we challenged stereotypes and used a female antagonist. Most films use a male
character as for the antagonist as they are seen as dominant, however only a few films
including ‘Friday the 13th’ with Pamela Voorhees use a female antagonist.We challenged
this stereotype not only by using a female character, but also sexualising her as they are
usually seen as very masculine.Throughout our trailer we wanted to be more creative than
A2 and challenge more stereotypes but ensure the trailer still made sense to the audience
therefore we decided to challenge character representations rather than setting, lighting or
sound etc. and these conventions could confuse the audience and therefore they may not
like the overall trailer and then not watch the film.

23. We used a few props in our trailer including the objects in the setting to show a sense of
realism in the trailer. We also used boxes and a TV which we put in the car to help with the
narrative of showing that the couple are moving into together.The most significant prop we
used which was to signify danger in the film, was the knife the antagonist was going to stab
Elliot with. From looking at existing texts such as ‘The Purge’ where shots of machetes are
shown and knives are used, I can say that this prop helped us to conform to forms and
conventions of real media texts as knives/weapons are not only seen the existing texts I
analysed, they are also an important element of horror iconography as when audiences see
knives in a film they automatically think of horror. However, when I researched in to the
different sub genres of horror, killer was the genre associated with weapons, therefore we
only did 2 shots of people using a knife as we didn’t want our audience thinking we had
produced a killer horror.
On the cover of my magazine cover I showed a knife which clearly shows the films and
magazines genre.This conforms to horror conventions as it foreshadows danger and death
in the film and this is the mood the horror genre wants to create for the audience.
Props

24. Sound is a major convention I conformed and we were inspired by the ‘You’re Next’ trailer
for this as we wanted a fast faced non-diegetic soundtrack to help build up the tension.We
aimed to have a really fast track by the time the montage began and here we layered
multiple soundtracks to achieve the desired sound that changed beat on each shot so it was
all in sync. We wanted to do this so it was professional and sleek as well as ensure it fit with
conventions of real media texts which it did as it is adrenaline rushing to build tension. We
originally planned to have a kind of electric sound like the ‘You’re Next’ trailer did for the
montage however it was difficult to find a soundtrack similar so we kept to the fast beat non
diegetic soundtrack and this was a very successful part of the trailer.
It was crucial that we included a lot of dialogue at the beginning of our trailer as this helped
us conform to conventions of real media texts as at the beginning of ‘The Purge, ‘The
Strangers’ and ‘The Conjuring’ there is a lot of dialogue.We did this to conform to the
conventions and to also give the audience clues as to what the film is about as dialogue
usually explains a lot about what is going on. Overall I felt this dialogue is effective,
especially in the shot where Elliot says ‘‘Maddie I don’t love you anymore’’ and Maddie says
‘’Well I hate you and I wish you were dead’’.This gets the gripped and audience asking
questions from the start which shows a successful trailer as this is one main purpose of a
trailer.
Sound

25. Across my ancillary tasks, the layouts of both conform to forms and conventions of
real media texts. For example, I used a dark colour scheme to represent mystery in the
film along with a small amount of red text for important information to suggest
danger.
From research, specifically into the ‘Fangoria Insidious’ film poster and magazine
cover, a symbolic link was a convention that I used to follow conventions in my own
products. ‘Insidious’ which is a product I looked specifically at, used its colour scheme
for the symbolic link; whereas I decided to use a quote which was ‘Apologies don’t
mean anything if you keep doing what you’re sorry for’. I felt as though this quote
makes the audience ask questions from the start before they have seen the trailer and
based on my audience research, one member said they found it very intriguing so I feel
as though this is one main success of my ancillary tasks.
Ancillary tasks

26. I have conformed to forms and conventions for my horror film poster as I have included
the main features of a poster including a film title, dark colour schemes, release date,
tag lines, actor’s names, websites/audience interactions, institution and a dominant
image.
I have conformed to conventions of real media texts with the positioning of the film
title as I found out from research after creating a mood board of a range of horror
posters including ‘The Others’ and ‘Hannibal’, that it doesn’t matter where the film
title is positioned as long as it is the dominant piece of text and in mine and my
audience’s opinion it is.
Poster

27. I have placed the strap line which is my
quote, at the top of the poster as it will be
first thing the audience read and so will
stay in their minds.This will also make
them think what the dominant image is all
about if they relate it to the quote. A lot of
horror posters including ‘The Conjuring’,
have their strapline at the top for the same
reason and it also spaces text out on the
page so it is clear to read.
I have also conformed to conventions by including the release date, a website and a hashtag
on the poster. I have positioned them at the bottom of the poster as these will be the last
things the audience read and I have deliberately placed them here as the audience will
remember them and then interact with the film before they have watched it.This will then
generate the two step flow theory and create a bigger audience.

28. I ensured I included the main features of a magazine cover to conform to conventions and
ensure it looks like a magazine cover. I did this by looking at existing products such as
‘Fangoria’, ‘Scream’ and ‘Empire’ to get inspiration for the layout. I included the main
features such as buzz words, strap lines, stickers, images, a masthead, the date and websites
etc.
I included a masthead for the name of my magazine at the top as this is one of the main
conventions of a magazine cover. As well as this, I took inspiration from the ‘Fangoria’
magazine cover for the use of the film tape across the bottom. I really liked this as it showed
pictures of what films feature in the magazine cover and also clearly showed that it is a film
magazine, therefore I used it for those reasons and thought it was really effective. However,
I included pictures of my own film in the tape as I thought it would create a bigger hype for
the film.
Magazine cover

29. The Buzz words and stickers I have included such as ‘Exclusive’ and ‘Giant fold out
poster inside’ are placed at the side so they don’t cover the dominant image.They are
in red so they stand out amongst the background as these are what encourage the
audience to buy the magazine. I was inspired by the ‘Fangoria’ magazine cover for the
colour red as when I first looked at it the red text such as ‘Blood for Dracula’, it stood
out to me.
Also, the black white and red colour scheme links with the poster and trailer and shows
I have conformed to colour forms and conventions as from looking at existing texts
such as ‘Fangoria’ for Insidious, its poster and magazine cover followed a similar colour
scheme. Furthermore, the colour scheme overall is dark which also follows
conventions of real media products as the other magazine covers I have analysed have
a dark colour scheme.