The document discusses the film opening for the horror film "Scarlett" and how it uses and challenges conventions of the genre. It analyzed the slasher film "Chucky" to identify conventions like a haunted house, stormy weather, dark lighting, vulnerable children as victims, and scary doll characters. The opening for "Scarlett" aims to conform to these conventions by filming in a park at dusk, using unsettling music and sounds, and following the narrative structures of Todorov's and Propp's theories. It challenges some conventions by having strong female leads and not following stereotypes about the order of character deaths.

2. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
As a group we researched film openings to identify the convections of our media
product, which is horror with a sub genre of slasher. We looked into films, the
main ones being Scream, Unborn and Chucky, and did further . We invested the
most time analyzing Chucky as the plot of our film, Scarlett, was inspired by that
film.
The conventions we found from Chucky:
• Haunted house
• Pathetic fallacy of stormy weather
• Dark lighting
• Vulnerable child as a victim
• Weak females
• Chucky is in the colour red which has conations of blood and death
• Non-diegetic music to establish the genre
We tried to make our film, Scarlett, to conform to these conventions to develop and
challenge our film opening so that it was as believable and realistic to the actual film
industry.

3. THE LOCATION
We originally wanted to film in a wood, as this is a convention of horror
films as it is a isolated place. To slightly challenge this we decided to
film in a park, the contrast of a park being an innocent place for children
to play added to the creepy element of Scarlett and also fitted with the
plot of the film. The inspiration from the film Chucky is seen throughout
the use of children and youth. The large tree’s surrounding the park
gave the feeling of isolation which is a convention we wanted to
conform with. The shapes of the trees give our film, Scarlett, a creepy
and spooky effect.

4. SOUND
For the non-diegetic sound, we have used royalty free music called
‘Evening of chaos’, we chose this music as it is disturbing and is an
enigma code for the audience. For our diegetic sound we used all three
conventions of laughing, screaming and heavy breathing. The horror
conventions of sound is kept with screeching noises, playful child
laughs and nursery rhymes. The inspiration from the film Chucky is
seen throughout the use of children and youth. This is seen in many
horror film openings, so will instantly establish the genre of our film.

5. NARRATIVE
We used ‘Todorov’ and ‘Propp’ in our narrative.
Todorovs theory
• The equilibrium begins with the group of teenagers laughing, drinking and relaxing
in the park.
• The disequilibrium is flash forward to show the survivor being threatened by a
possessed doll and is shown to be scared and frightened. This will be revealed
later in the film.
• The new equilibrium will be shown towards the end of our film which will show the
survivor getting on with her life.
Propps theory
This is a convention in slasher horrors, some examples are.
• Protagonist survivor, which we have created as ‘Riley’.
• Villain or killer and in our film opening we have created a doll who is a killer called
‘Scarlett’.
‘Friday the 13th and Nightmare on elm street use this.

6. LIGHTING
Dark lighting is a convention Is horror films as it gives the connotation of
mystery. We tried to film from angles which made the park, which is the
area of action, look scary and dark, so we planned to start filming just
as it was getting dark. The sky is dull and you can see the shapes of the
trees towering over them creating a spooky effect. We also used night
vision on the digital video camera, this helps show the flash forward
and the dark lighting with a hint of green/yellow gives a disorientating
and scary style to our film. The lighting gives an evil and negative
atmosphere, which relates to the genre.

7. THE CHARACTERS
We created each character to be individual to present the different
stereotypes of teenagers. Although this isn’t a convention of horror
films, we challenged this as females are usually shown to be weak. Our
main character of the villain, Scarlett, is a female and also the
protagonist, Riley, is also a female. Also we challenged the convention
the ethnicity ‘Black’ normally is the first to be killed however we
challenged this and chose ou