This document discusses how the media product challenges and develops conventions of horror films. It presents several conventions that were challenged, such as killing a male character instead of the usual female victim. It also challenged revealing the killer's identity to generate suspense. Some conventions were followed, like using ominous music, fast-paced editing, and a variety of shots to set the scene and keep the audience engaged. Overall, the goal was to empower young female viewers while still capturing elements typical of the horror genre.

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products.
 My opening sequence develops horror movie conventions up
to an expend. This is because a large majority of scary
movies presents a female actor that will die at one point in.
We have challenged this idea as in our opening sequence
we decided that a male should be killed instead. This is
because the usual target audience for this horror films
specifically is young males, therefore we choose to create a
film in which the lead character is a female, thus empowering
young female viewers and widening our target audience to a
larger variety of young people.

3.  In Scream and other well know horror movies,
the murder is presented to the viewer; even
though they might not see their face (a mask
might caver the killers face); the viewer can still
engage with the killer as they are able to see
them in action. We decided to challenge this
point by not revealing the killer to the audience
so spectators can use their own imagination to
create a character for the murder. In addition to
that we thought that it will be more interesting
because the audience might want to watch the
rest to discover how the killer might be.

4.  Also, some horror opening sequences tend to have dark
lightening and shadowing. We decided to film with the lights
on because a better view of the scenes can be achieved.
Before sticking to this decision we filmed a couple of scenes
with very little lighting and soon after we decided to remain to
our initial idea of having the lights on though out the opening
sequence.
 As presented in Scream the female actor that was getting
killed attempted to escape from the killer. Our actors wore in
the living room long enough for the audience to notice that
they didn’t have the option of running anywhere. In a way
this followed the horror convention because our main
character was trapped in a room, creating a suspense and
tension filled atmosphere, usually observed in horror films.

5.  Another convention we decided to follow was
presented through our creative use of sound.
In the opening scene we used sinister non-
diegetic sound to set the atmosphere. This
sound amplified and made the audience
aware of the fact that the actor was not killed
straight away and it was leading to the kill
through Lucy’s conversation with the killer.
 This followed the convention of sound used
in horror films because many horror movies
start with this type of atmospheric music to
not only set the tone, but make the audience
aware of the genre.

6.  When editing the only fades we used was in the
beginning and end of our opening sequence. In
between, one fade transition was used to create
an effect when the male character was being
killed, however the rest of the sequence consisted
of sharp cuts. In most horror films this type of
sharp, fast-paced editing is common, as it keeps
the audience engaged with the action on screen.
Once again, it also reflects the genre, as horror
films are intended to scare the audience, and this
editing style portrays this as it is quite
spontaneous.

7.  We used a combination of long shots and close ups
to compliment this spontaneous, fast paced editing
convention. One shot we found crucial to the
opening sequence was the establishing shot. This is
because many of the horror films we analysed, for
example scream, set the scene with a shot to reveal
the location. Therefore, this made our film feel more
professional. Also, we realised that a mixture of the
establishing shot, sound and editing gave our
sequence a strong opening.
 Horror films often use different camera angles and
shots to reflect the storyline. We followed this
convention by using many wide shots. This is
because it makes the audience feel as though the
main character is being watched, which is the case.
Thus, through this they connect with the character
because they empathise with her.