1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
Dale Martin
Our movie opening both conformed to and subverted the various conventions
associated with movie openings. We have previously looked at movie openings for
movies of various genres’, including horror, and discovered some of the different
conventions. The conventions involve things like opening credits at the beginning of
the movie, colours used and the title appearing. The title sequence is meant to
introduce the movie, establish tone and genre as well as create expectations within the
audience. Film makers can use different techniques and have done in the different
openings that we looked at. The opening credits in the romantic comedy Legally
Blonde are written in a pink font which is very girly and feminine while the opening
credits in the horror movie The Cabin in the Woods are written in a very dark red font
which simulates blood and death. Film makers can do this with other codes and
conventions of movie openings as well to create their desired effect, the codes and
conventions being different for different genres
Because my movie opening is in the horror genre it is similar to the second movie
opening previously mentioned, The Cabin in the Woods. In terms of the credits we
used they conformed to the stereotypical credits used in horror movies. Like most
movie credits we ordered the names in the order of importance, the director being first
in the credits followed by the two actors and then by the title of the movie. The credits
were written in red, as in horror films red is the colour associated with blood and
danger which are two things that are present in our opening. The location we used
also conforms to other locations that we have seen in horror movie openings. In
Scream 4 the opening takes place in a normal suburban house and although we see it
as a safe location at first it then becomes very dark and isolated from the rest of
society when Ghostface phones. Isolation is a key factor in horror films and many of
the most used locations, haunted house etc…, are isolated and separated from the rest
of the society to symbolize how alone and helpless the characters in the movie are and
plays on our basic fears. The location in our movie is a forest which seems quite safe
and normal at first, especially with the brightness effect on it, but soon becomes a
place of danger when the killer appears. A bright location does not conform to the
expectation and Mise-en-scene of traditional horror movies. We decided to use the
bright location despite this to show that the killer could strike at any time instead of
being limited to appearing at night.
Despite conforming to some of the stereotypes of movie openings we actually
subverted a lot of them in our movie opening, specifically ones associated with the
horror genre. The main one that we subverted is that the first victim killed in the
movie is a boy instead of a girl. Girls are usually killed first in the movie and usually
the girl is shown to be very pretty and, stereotypically, quite weak and helpless. Our
main character had quite a bulky physique and appeared to be quite strong because of
that yet when he is attacked by the killer he does not fight back and instead runs,
subverting the stereotype of boys and men being very tough and “macho” in horror
movies and movies in general. The killer’s physique is also something that subverts
stereotypes as the killer is usually quite muscly and strong yet the one in our movie
opening is very skinny. We based our killer on Ghostface, who is never really shown
to be very muscly but because of his long black cloak you never really get a good look
at his physique until the killer is revealed towards the end of the movie. We thought it
would be a good idea to show the killers physique as it makes him look quite creepy

2. and makes him very mysterious. Masks are a common prop used in horror movies and
many other well-known horror movie characters wear masks (Ghostface in Scream,
Jason in Friday the 13th). Masks are scary for the audience as it means they cannot
identify the killer because they cannot see his face meaning the killer could be anyone
and that the killer could be anywhere and the audience would not know it. Characters
like Ghostface wear masks which are visually quite scary to look at and have features
that make them seem inhuman such as the large black eyes and white skin. For our
masked killer some of the facial features were easy to see through the mask but the
green “skin” looks very different from the usual masks worn in horror movies and
looks very “Alien”.
We did not use a wide variety of camera shots or angles in our movie opening. It is
much harder to identify camera shots and angles in terms of the codes and
conventions of horror movies. One convention that is present in some horror movies
involves camera angles being used in order to show the balance of power. This would
mean that the killer, the more powerful person, would be shot with a low angle to
make them look very large and strong while the victim would be shot with a high
angle to make them look very weak and vulnerable. We did not really use camera
angles very much in our movie opening but there is one point in it where the victim is
shown running through the forest from a high angle to make him look very weak
compared to the killer and compared to the forest itself. The editing we used cut very
quickly between shots when the action got very intense and exciting, another
convention of horror movies. We also used a fade to black when the killer reaches
towards the victim to simulate the victim closing his eyes in the embrace of death and
make the audience feel as if they were looking through the eyes of the victim. This is
something that is not a common convention of horror movies but is still used
sometimes.
Overall we subverted more stereotypes than we conformed to in our movie opening,
subverting quite a few of the usual stereotypes that are associated with movies of the
horror genre.