The document analyzes how the media product, a horror film trailer, uses and challenges conventions of the horror genre. It follows some conventions like using suspense, jump scares and dark imagery. However, it challenges conventions by having the threatening entity be a doll instead of a human or ghost. The setting of a normal family home also breaks the convention of isolated, rundown locations. Camerawork maintains normality but uses static transitions atypical of films. The story is set up through clips of a dollhouse and dialogue rather than revealing all details. Special effects like static and fades create an eerie feeling rather than high production quality.

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.