The document discusses film conventions and how the media product uses, develops, and challenges conventions. It analyzes conventions for openings, genres, characters, locations, lighting, sound, editing, and more. For their horror film opening, it uses many conventions like logos, titles, music, and introducing characters, but also challenges conventions through lighting, props, and character archetypes to surprise the audience. The goal is keeping viewers engaged through a mix of conforming to and adapting expectations.

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

2. There are many types of film conventions and it depends on
your genre to which of these conventions apply to you.
However there are many film conventions which tend to apply
to the majority of film openings in all genre’s. There are a few
which are certain to apply to all film openings, such as:-
• Production company logo’s are certain to be within the
opening of all films, but can be changed to fit with the
tone/mood of the film.

3. Titles and credits: you don't see all the credits within the
opening as these tend to come at the end of the film;
however you normally see the more important credits and
titles such as the producer, director, main actors, the title of
the film, sound operators and production company’s within
the first few minutes.
The main actors/characters are usually introduced, with the
use of mise-en-scene.
The music and lighting helps to set the tone and mood of the
film, it usually has an establishing shot to set the
story, scene, date and location.
Normally there is enigma created within the opening to hook
the viewer to watch the remainder of the film.

4. Horror conventions tend to create lots of enigma, the lighting
is low-key, with certain types of music which may alter
suddenly.
The location which is associated with horrors' are ones such as
a woods, a haunted mansion or out on the moors which is
open countryside.
The time of day is normally night time as this helps set the
tone of the film better.

5. In the opening of a film characters are usually introduced, in a
horror these are stereotypically a vulnerable woman or young
child, with a 'bad' guy wearing dark clothing with a weapon of
sorts, or sometimes a supernatural being.
These are the typical horror conventions of the opening few
minutes, but there are more depending on the type of film.

6.  Props
Setting 
o Mise-en-Scene
o Editing – Costume
– Lighting
o Lighting
– Actors
o Camera Shots – Make-up
o Sound – Props
– Setting

7. We have used an establishing shot at the beginning of the film
opening, these are normally used in the majority of film
openings.
We introduced the main character within 30 seconds, and
spot the other many times within the opening.
We have used a production company logo.
The title is on a black background that fills the screen, this
tends to be typical in horrors.
Sound – The music is broody which fits the mood and tone.
Editing – The editing is quick in places
which is regularly used in horror films.
We created this using Photoshop, it
appears at the beginning of the two
minutes. 

8. We have used a flashback which is usually seen in horror
films, however we developed this by it not been the persons
memory.
Location – We developed this from an ordinary cellar, to a pub
cellar.
Characters – The ghost is casual which is not a convention of
ghosts in horror movies, yet she is still a ghost which are.
 This is what appears on the
screen just before the ‘flashback’
takes place.

9. For the flash-back we used a white ‘flash’ which tend to be for
happy memory's, this however was not a happy memory.
Costume – The ghosts costume is normal clothing, this is not
usual for horrors or ghosts in general.
Actors – We made the men vulnerable ones which is not
stereotypical for any genre of film. The females in the opening
are not represented in a certain way, this makes the audience
think about their characters, so you don’t find out what
they're like until later on, this creates enigma.
White flashback flash but for a scary
memory instead of happy, this lures the
audience to a flash sense of safety. 

10. When in the planning stage of our film we watched many horror’s to
get ideas on who to base our characters on. We got the main idea for
the ghost from the girl out of ‘Let Me In’ who is a vampire, we thought
that the “bad guy” being female would challenge stereotypes.
Another film of which we acquired a suggestion for our characters was
from ‘The Roommate’.

11. Whilst getting idea’s for the location of our film we came across
the typical woods and haunted houses, however we wasn’t keen
on these idea’s. We kept looking at different types of films from
different times/years and came across ‘The Burbs’ and ‘The Beast
in the Cellar’ which were both set in a cellar.
We quite liked this idea but decided to develop it further by
making it into a pub cellar instead of one in a house.

12. We decided to use fast editing in places, we decided to use this convention as
many of the horror films we analysed had quick editing which was effective.
However we decided to develop this by using some slower editing in places, we
did this so the audience were able to keep up with the storyline. We also
decided to use slow editing in places with random fast flashes of the ghost, this
made the film more ‘jumpy’ and helped create tension.
Ghosting is an effect which we used to make the ghost have a ‘fuzzy’ effect, this
makes the ghost look more ghostly.
Our title.

13. We didn’t use the typical
lighting for the scary bits of
the horror, this would surprise
the viewers more. 
For the lighting we didn’t use the convention of low key lighting all the
way through the film, instead we challenged this and used the natural
lighting for the outside scenes and dim artificial lighting for the inside
scenes.
By doing this we were able to make certain parts of our opening stand out
against the rest. It also makes the audience more relaxed until the sudden
black-outs which then shocks the audience.
We decided to do this throughout the film as it means that it’s hard to tell
when something sudden is about to happen making the film more jumpy.

14.  We didn’t use the
typical props within the
opening, as we challenged
this convention.
When watching different horror movies there was a great number of
different props used, such as chainsaws and hammers. We didn’t want to
use these types of props as we didn’t think they fitted the tone of our
film very well.
Instead we decided to make the props casual day to day things which you
normally see laying around, such as bottles, a basket and flowers. We did
also use barrels and crates as props, we used these props as they fit with
the setting well and were needed in the storyline in the opening and later
on in the film.

15. Whilst watching horror films we noticed that many of them have
handheld shots or shaky shots somewhere within them, we thought
that this would work well in our film as it helps create tension
throughout the film. We use quite a few handheld shots which is also
seen in films such as ‘paranormal activity’.
In places we used POV shots, mainly in the graveyard as it made the scene seem more
emotional than it would have done with out the POV of the grave, for the POV we made
the camera wobble abit to make it look as though the person was cracking from all the
emotion. However in certain places we decided to use very still shots which made the
shakier shots look more impressive.

16. In conclusion I feel that we have used the majority of
conventions, however we have also developed and
challenged a fair amount. We decided to have a mixture of
using, developing and challenging as we thought it would
benefit the film most as it would be a good way to create a
lot of enigma to keep the audience hooked to watch the
rest of the film.