1) The media product challenges some conventions of horror films by setting most of the story in a family household rather than run-down or dark locations, and by having the main threat be an innocent-looking doll rather than a human villain. 2) It follows some conventions through its use of suspenseful music, quick cuts, and fade transitions in editing, as well as special effects like extreme close-ups and opacity that create an unsettling atmosphere. 3) Some unique aspects include using only one nursery rhyme music track throughout, intentionally making the video quality seem degraded with static effects, and ending with an additional teaser clip rather than showing the title.

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

2. Conventions the film followed
Most of the main conventions in a horror film
have been implemented into our horror
trailer, as the concepts of suspense, jumpiness
and darkness in clips are what makes a film fit
in the horror genre. The horror genre as a
whole is wide, as we found in our
research, and we chose not to go down the
route of gore or psychological horrors. Due to
this, shots that would shock or disturb viewers
in those categories have not been followed.

3. The title of the film
Other than insidious, all of the titles we researched either gave
an indication as to what the film was about or provided
anchorage over what genre the film was. ​We researched many
types of 'eroded' and 'spooky' fonts which we thought were
similar to ones seen in our researched film titles. However we
had decided that our posters were going to be composed in a
periodic style, a strong bold and simplistic font like the 'Sinister'
title would be more appropriate and in keeping with the
effects. A problem occurred when attempting to insert the
texts displayed on the left hand side of this page from 'Dafont'.
Therefore we decided to use Times New Yorker and Agency FB.
We also decided to use chiller for our magazine front cover as
we were attracted to the 'spooky' fonts but thought it displayed
better on the magazine than the poster.

4. Setting/location
The setting of our trailer is one of the main things
that breaks typical horror conventions as most
settings tend to be rundown, dark and grungy
whereas our main location for scenes was an
average family household, with the twist that the
doll house was our ‘haunted’ location. This breaks
the convention of one location for the entire film as
seen in several horror films, especially
psychological. A way our trailer stays with horror
conventions is that there is a typical horror location
as opposed to contradictory light hearted locations
for all of the film.

5. Costumes and props
Our costumes and props in the film break
conventions in the colour scheme of the main
character as she is wearing white, a typically
innocent colour. Furthermore, the dolls used
in our trailer aren’t in a poor condition or
holding a dark demeanour; the horror comes
from inside the doll house and as the tagline
says: ‘murder blinded by innocence’. It does
however follow conventions of a house that
looks normal on the outside but holds dark
secrets on the inside.

6. Camerawork and editing
Our main use of camera angles came from a
zoom, a low to high shot and then effects on all
shots that have occurred from the doll house. This
follows conventions of power, but the idea of the
powerful character in the trailer being a tiny doll
breaks the convention, with the camerawork
helping to maintain normality. The editing is also
conventional with quick cuts and fade to black, but
the static transitions break the conventions as they
represent a bad quality which is what most films try
and avoid, with some static even being used not for
a transition.

7. Story and how the trailer sets it up
The story is of a young girl who finds a dolls house in
the attic and asks her mother whether she can keep it.
Unknown to her, the dolls represent members of her
family, with the cursed girl representing her and she is
forced to kill them one by one. The cursed girl craves
attention and ‘play with her’, making more members
needed for her dolls house. The film ends with the
family in the dolls house and the cursed girl still
unsatisfied with the deaths. The trailer sets this up
through establishing shots of the dolls house, a brief
dialogue and the starting of the killings. It does not
however give away the full brunt of the story or all the
deaths.

8. Special effects
The special effects used in our trailer are
static, extreme close-ups and opacity with fade over
scenes with two things going on at the same time
as seen in the first shot and with the girl appearing
and disappearing. These are not unknown to
existing horrors and thus follow
conventions, although it could be argued it is hard
to break conventions without much more
professional software and hardware. They do
however follow the connotations of horror films.
Static provides a feeling of things being broken or
not right, with fade over shots and close-ups
making a ‘ghost’ type feeling.

9. How does your trailer challenge the
conventions of existing media
products?
The ways in which our trailer challenges
conventions of media products, other than in the
sub-sections provided earlier, are through the use
of one music track playing through the majority of
the trailer, along with the fact it is a nursery rhyme.
Also, the static being used to effectively make the
video quality worse is challenging conventions of
trying to make the highest video quality available.
Finally, our trailer ends not with the title but with
another clip, which gives the recipient a ‘what
happens next’ type feeling.