This document discusses the ways in which a media project challenges or conforms to conventions of the horror genre. It features an all-female cast which challenges the typical male-dominated casts but fails to include ethnic diversity due to casting issues. While it includes some common horror elements like eerie music, it avoids a romantic subplot. The intended audience is both male and female due to the female protagonists. Distribution could occur at independent film festivals. In creating the project, the filmmakers learned skills with equipment, editing software, and the importance of continuity.

1. Main task: Evaluation
By Emma Weeks

2. Media conventions
In what way does your media product, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real products.
• Our media piece challenges the media conventions of media
through a number of ways such as the employment of an all female
cast.
• The use of an all female cast is relevant to the conventions of
horror due to the fact that films of the horror genre generally have
a predominately male cast due to the fact that the have a male
audience.
• As a result of the predominately male audience many of the
female characters used are subjected to the male gaze and are
therefore very dull and poorly executed characters.

3. Example of the male gaze in horror genre.
Netflix: SCREAM
A horror drama series.

4. Media conventions: continued
• We have not challenged media conventions of race due to our entirely
Caucasian European cast.
• This was due to casting issues and actress availability however and was
not our original intention.
• We have challenged the genre conversions of horror by not focusing on
romance in the film where a large number of horror films have a romantic
subplot.
• We have not directly challenged conventions of sexuality as on screen
characters tend to be hetero-sexual in the horror genre however in the
opening credits the sexuality of our characters is not specified.
• Our media piece also conforms to conventions of music due to its eerie
notes which work to add suspense and create a sense of fear and dread in
the audience for the characters.

5. Example of romance in the horror genre
The house at the end of the street.
A psychological thriller/psychological horror.

6. Social groups
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• As previously mentioned our media project features stereotypically
male roles fulfilled by women which should make it appeal to a
female audience.
• We were unfortunately unable to secure a ethnically diverse group
of actors due to actor scheduling and casting issues.

7. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product
and why?
• Our project would likely be distributed at an independent film
festival such as “Sundance Film Festival” or “BFI” (The British Film
Institute) due to it’s low budget in which the majority of our
budget was taken up by the Artex solution for the special effects.
• Due to the fact that this is a British Independent film it could also
be distributed by the BBC whom have been involved with other
horror productions such as the woman in black.
• Horror films are some of the more common types of low budget
film and due to the proven success of low budget horror would
mean that more companies would be willing to invest in our work.
Institutions

8. Audience
Who would be the audience for your media product?
• Gender- Our media product should appeal to both a male and
female audience due to the fact films of the horror genre are
generally consumed by a male audience however due to the
female cast the film should secure a wider female audience.
• Ethnicity- Our film should be accessible to any nationality
providing that they speak English to avoid issues involving the
language barrier.
• Age- 18 and over due to the BBFC age rating although some
younger audience members may consume this media product.
• Region/Nationality- Our media product is unlikely to have a
culturally diverse audience due to our predominately Caucasian
and European cast as a result of casting.
• Socio-Economic- C1 bracket to E bracket as students fit into the E
bracket.

9. Audience continued
How did you attract/address your audience?
• Our audience was addressed heavily through the inclusion of an all
female cast in the hopes of broadening our target audience.
• Our film would be marketing using a social media campaign in
order to make sure that our desired audience are reached.
• Our work could be promoted at an independent film festival in
order to help it gain a larger audience.

10. Technologies
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
• In our preliminary task we used a low quality video camera
however we decided to use a Nikon D5300 to film our final film
opening in order to improve quality.
• I discovered a number of issues when using the Nikon D5300 due to
the fact that the camera had an automatic ISO, Aperture and F-
stop.
• The automatic settings combined with the Tungsten lights of our
location led to very dark shots.
• Due to the dark shots we had to re-shoot portions of the footage
with the automatic settings turned off.

11. Technologies continued
• We have expanded the range of editing tools used in Premier Pro
by implementing effects such as “vignette”, “luma curve”, “fast
colour corrector”, “three way colour corrector”, “default
transitions” and “key frames”.
• We also experimented with different text and fonts in order to
help our piece conform to the horror genre.
• Some of our props were also created digitally using Photohop CC
2014 such as the polaroid images for the memento board.
• When creating these images we inserted a polaroud template over
a transparent background and layered a head shot of the actress
over the image.
• The image was then edited using dodge and burn as well as
saturation, brightness and contrast to help the images blend
together.

12. Learning process
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have
learnt in the progression from it towards the final product of the main
task.
• Over the course of creating our main task we have learnt from our
previous mistakes such as continuity errors which were frequent in
our preliminary task.
• We have learnt that it is better sometimes to add zoom shots to
existing footage when editing as this helps to reduce camera
shakes and creates a smoother shot than manually zooming.
• We have experimented with tripod usage to enable us to create a
range of versatile shots.
• Also our knowledge of editing technology (photoshop and premier
pro) has improved which has improved the quality of our final
product.