The document evaluates the conventions used in a student-created horror film. It analyzes how the film develops conventions in its editing, camera shots, sound, mise-en-scene, and location. Specifically, it does not show how the victim died, uses varied lighting, and has an uptempo scary soundtrack. It represents young people through clothes and relationships. The student concludes they should ask distribution companies Dimension Films, Blumhouse Pictures, or Universal Pictures to distribute the film since they have experience with successful horror films.
2. In our horror film we have developed typical horror film conventions.
What we have done to develop them is:
A man getting killed instead of the women as you can see in the far right.
As you can see scream 4 and psycho the woman dies in the opening scene
The killer is not shown in our opening scene for our one (far right) but in Hannibal, psycho
and scream they are shown.
We did this to bring variety and make it different from all the same conventions. By
developing the conventions we have made it far more interesting and unexpected to the
viewer making it more scary.
Q1: In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
3. Q1: In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
Editing:
In editing we broke the convention of not showing a weapon or how the person died.
Unlike Psycho. As you can see we don’t know how he has died.
We did this because we wanted to make it different and to create a sense of mystery
making it more scary for the audience.
Camera shots:
We used typical horror film conventions by showing a close up of the victims face. This
is also the same in Scream 4 and in Psycho. Thus us not developing the convention,
mainly because it creates more horror to the viewer. This is done by making the stillness
of the actors face creepy.
4. Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Sound:
The sound we used doesn’t challenge forms and conventions but we have
developed it by making it more up tempo and scary adding tension and fear
into the viewer.
This has been developed, as the others are also eerie. However different to
ours as they haven’t got the same pace and beat, making our sound more
scary then other horror films.
Mise-en-scene: clothes
The clothes our actors were wearing are typical young people clothes
comfterable but yet fashionable. Whereas in Psycho she wasn’t wearing any
clothes, however this was distributed 50 years ago. Whereas Scream 4 was
also aimed at the same target audience as us (young people) they have the
same clothes as what we had in ours. Thus our film not challenging nor
developing because we used a similar style of clothes.
Scream 4 Our film
5. Mise-en-scene: lighting
We used a mix of bright and dark light making it more scary and challenging conventions,
because in Psycho was just black and white, Hannibal was bright light. This suggests
that in horror film in the opening scene horror films just tend to have one type of
lighting throughout whereas we did a variety. Making it more different and scary
Mise-en-scene: Location
We used a typical location by using a living room in a house which is used in a lot of
horror films. E.g. Scream, Psycho etc. We did not develop this convention, because
we wanted it to seem like it can happen to anyone, making it more scary.
Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
6. Q2: How does your media product represent particular social
groups?
My media product represents particular social groups by having actors that are
of the same age and class status, working class. This is also used in horror
films such as Scream 4 where they had young people in the opening scene. We
represent this age group by the clothes the actors wear which are modern and
trendy; hat. Also comfterable such as a tracksuit bottoms and leggings. Again
also used in most to all horror films that feature young people in the opening
scene .
Our media product represents young women. The relationship with Lucy and Rose
highlight conventional stereotype of young women which are gossipy, want to have fun
and get frightened easily. The relationship with Lucy and Sam represent a typical
boyfriend girlfriend relationship which is fun, banter between the two but also the man
trying to protect his girlfriend from danger. This is how our media product represents
particular social groups.
7. Dimension Films:
Have distributed 146 films that include Piranha, all the Scary movies and Scream. They also
have distributed extreme horror films such as Hellraiser and Sin City.
Perfect candidates:
-They have been very successful in distributing horror films as they have made a lot
of money in the opening weekend of their films.
-They love producing horror films and have been very successful in doing so
-They have also distributed similar horror films to ours such as Scream, which was
very successful, meaning that there is a high possibility of ours been as
successful
- They have a lot of experience which means a lot in the film business. This is why
we will choose and ask them if they want to distribute our media product
Q3: What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and
why?(IMDB)
Piranha made over 1
million in its opening
weekend.
Scream made over 6
million in its opening
weekend.
Scary movie made
over 2 million it its
opening weekend
8. Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your
media product and why? (IMDB)
Blumhouse Pictures:
Although a small company they are expanding rapidly. They have distributed
films such as Paranormal Activity which made over $3 million in its opening
weekend and grossed over $107million. They have also distributed a lot of
horror films such as Dark skies and three other very successful Paranormal
Activity films. This conveys they are building fast and have distributed a lot of
horror films already, therefore experienced. I think if we don’t get the other
two companies then I will be more than happy to go with Blumhouse
Pictures as they love the horror genre and ours is perfect.
If you look at their budget from the first
Paranormal Activity in 2009 to
Paranormal Activity 4 it has increased
from $15,000-$5,000,000. Although
grossed less it has increased in sales on
the opening weekend.
9. Universal Pictures:
Universal are great candidates, because they have distributed an
incredible 5,591 films. They have distributed a wide variety of genres
from action, Wanted. Comedy, Bridget Jones diary to horror with
Jaws and The Mummy. They are perfect candidates a huge
conglomerate company that can easily promote our film and be very
successful in doing so. I believe Universal is exactly the media
institution we need to distribute our film; they have experience in
abundance, distributed a variety of horror films and other genres. I
would love Universal to distribute our horror film.
Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute
your media product and why? (IMDB)
They have been very successful
when they have distributed films
making hundreds of millions to
billions world wide. Conveying that
they really know how to distribute
films and be a huge success at it.
10. In conclusion, I will be happy with any of the three
distribution company:
-They all have experience
-Distributed over 20 films
-Made Millions of Dollars from all their films
-They all love horror films
However if I had the choice I would go with Universal, mainly
because they have distributed over 5,000 films and have
been very successful. They have a lot of experience and
knows what will be a success or a flop.
Q3: What kind of media institution
might distribute your media product
and why? (IMDB)