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

2. Our 'Media Product'
• We have created the opening two minutes of
a horror film set in modern day Surrey.
• In the creation of our film we have developed
the use of stock narritives and themes along
with stock characters and settings to
represent our horror film.

3. Stock Narratives
• The film begins straight into action, we see the
antagonist and the protagonist in a bad
situation then we flash back to where it all
began.
• The film begins with a ring of the phone, we
see the ‘dumb blonde’ stock character pick up
the phone and the antagonist is on the other
side of the call

4. Stock Narratives
• The film begins on what appears to be a normal
family doing every day activities like taking the kids
to school, the first 5-10 minutes do not have any hint
that something bad is about to happen. Then the
family’s problem suddenly appears.
• The film begins on a family recording themselves on
a video camera usually so they can keep memories of
a certain event. Upon reviewing the camera footage
the family find something that isn’t natural...

5. Stock Narritives and themes
• We wanted to use a narritive structure that is used
often in horror films.
• We wanted to make a film that gradually developed
into the actual genre, like we see in other films that we
have researched we wanted the opening to be similar.
We wanted to start the film like any other, using syd
fields study we needed to introduce the characters that
will be involved and we needed to get the audience’s
attention so that they would want to carry on watching
the film.

6. Stock characters
• The Innocent victim - although not
represented much in the first 2
minutes of our film, both our
characters Emily and Josh are
portrayed as the innocent victim.
They simply could not afford to
keep their child at a young age
and as punishment they are being
taunted by the ghost of their child
that ended up dying in a care
home.

7. The possesed girl
• In almost every horror film you
watch now there will in some
form be a possesed child.
wanted to develop this
character and use this in our
film.
• The possesed girl is often found
to be in a white dress or
dressing gown with long hair
covering her face and a teddy
bear in her hands.
• In our film the girl is the
antagonist as she is the one that
is going to cause severe harm to
Josh and Emily.

8. Stock settings
Usually stock settings include :
•Abandoned towns
•Abandoned houses
•Dark scary woods
•Isolated cottage surrounded
by nothing but silence.

9. Our Narritive
• We wanted to begin the film slightly hinting
that this wasn’t just a normal family, and
something else is happening to them.
• We wanted to combine the normal family
opening with a sense of mystery. By adding
this sense of mystery we were hoping to
attract the audience and have them wanting
to keep watching.

10. Our Setting
• In our film we have set it in an ordinary town and what looks
to be an ordinary house. In research of films like Insidious at
the start of the film we see a setting of a normal street. This
gives the audience a sense of realism and makes them think
that they can relate to the characters.

11. Cinema Verite
• Another convention that we also used
was the use of video cameras, we
wanted to shoot a low budget film and
wanted the audience to know that it
was low budget but not let this effect
how good or bad they thought it was.
With the use of video cameras in other
films we have studied we believed they
have given a sense of belief for the
person reviewing the film as they know
that they had shot it themselves, so it
gives the character a sense of realism
and increases the shock that this is
happening to them.

12. Cinema Verite
• Another convention that we also used
was the use of video cameras, we
wanted to shoot a low budget film and
wanted the audience to know that it
was low budget but not let this effect
how good or bad they thought it was.
With the use of video cameras in other
films we have studied we believed they
have given a sense of belief for the
person reviewing the film as they know
that they had shot it themselves, so it
gives the character a sense of realism
and increases the shock that this is
happening to them.
Paranormal Activity 4
Using this convention of using
video cameras both POV and pre-
set up. The audience can see
things that the characters can’t.
This is a great technique used as
sets the audience up as they are
preparing for the worse to happen
to the character.