The document discusses the evaluation of a media studies project creating a horror film opening scene. It summarizes how the group effectively used conventions of the horror genre including narrative, setting, camera work, sound, and social representations. The narrative and genre were horror and followed conventions like filming in dark locations and including scary elements. Mise-en-scene incorporated props like a knife and mask and filming in an abandoned house at night. Camera angles, pans, tilts and zooms built tension. Loud non-diegetic music aimed to startle viewers. Characters represented careless teenagers seeking thrills.

1. Media Studies
Evaluation
By Art Noble

2. How does your product use or
challenge conventions and how does
it represent social groups or
issues?

3. Have We Matched the Genre that We Chose?
▪ During the production process there were many conventions that
needed consideration. Such as the Narrative, Genre, Mise-En-Scene,
CameraWork & Sound Editing.
▪ The narrative that we chose we made sure it made sense throughout all
of the opening scene, so that it was easy to show that it is a horror film.
We needed to stick to the narrative and make sure we didn’t drift off
course, also making sure we made the narrative simple and clear by
showing it through our opening scene. For example we have the
moment of walking up to the house and moments in the house and
where the characters see the clown, we have this at the beginning of
the film then we have a scene saying “12 Hours Earlier” where we then
go back to the moments before visiting the house.

4. Genre
▪ Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to, or has the capacity to
frighten, scare, disgust, or startle its readers or viewers by including feelings
of horror and terror.The oldest and strongest human emotion is fear.
▪ Our final product follows the horror genre in the way that myself and the
other group members have tried to include the horror and terror within the
opening scene. During our research of the horror genre we discovered that
people found true stories to be the scariest, so within our final product we
decided to add some news articles that we found that were based on the
horror and terror of a clown, which was our main focus, making sure that
the clown idea itself would frighten the audience. Making sure we stayed in
touch with the horror genre we followed the common stereotypes that are
included within a horror film, such as, filming in the dark, dark and sombre
atmospheres.Traditionally horror films include gore and violence into the
plot, we went into filming with the similar idea but only knowing we had to
film 2 minutes and make sure we got the genre of horror across to the
audience as quickly as we could.

5. Mise-En-Scene
▪ Mise-En-Scene is about the arrangement of the scenery, props, etc. on the stage of
a theatrical production or on the set of a film. Including the location and
surroundings.
▪ Integrating the horror and the conventions that go with it into the Mise-En-Scene
myself and the other group members found relatively easy as we were all horror
movie goers, so we knew what was needed and where we needed to film, etc.
▪ Props wise we included a knife, clown mask and a singular torch which was aimed
to give less light with the hope of adding to the scary and eerie effect of the
opening scene.
▪ With the location we made sure where we were filming was a suitable location
because there's no point filming a horror film in a park, in broad day light, so we
decided to go with the abandoned house idea where there was no power and very
little light could get through, hence why we filmed during the night because we
wanted to make sure our final product fitted with the common conventions of a
horror film.

6. Camera Work
▪ When looking at camera work before filming a scene we needed to consider the
following things.
▪ Angle – with the angles unfortunately the tri-pod given to use was dodgy and slanted the camera a
little more than we had hoped.We always made sure that we were creating an angle that would please
the audience and after research of watching horror movies the moment before the climax is the usually
the most scary as we (the audience) are then aware of something scary.We used several high and low
angled shots to enhance the filming and although some of the footage was not used it was good to have
the different angles there if we wanted to change things a little during the editing.
▪ Movement – When looking at the movement of the camera we looked at different types of
movement such as Pan,Tracking,Tilt and Crab. We used a lot of panning shots as we saw those were
most common among horror films.A single tilt shot was included at the beginning of the final product
where the clown was located within the house and standing in the window, we tilted the camera up and
then zoomed into the characters mask, which would build the tension and eeriness of a horror film that
we were aiming for.
▪ Position/Framing – For the positioning we made sure when we were filming that we could see the
subject and followed the convention of making sure that everything we wanted to get across to the
audience was located within the camera frame and was included in the end product.

7. Sound
▪ Audio is key when editing as we learnt we used the following, exaggerated
themes which we used with the aim to create tension within our final
product.
▪ Fast and loud non-diegetic sound which is usually used to try and make the
audience jump and feel scared, i.e. the music theme from Pyscho in the
shower scene has the same effect where it makes the audience jump and
feel scared.We wanted to gain the same effect following this convention in
our own final product, using Royalty Free music allowed us to this.
▪ I also experimented a bit by using the Garage Band software available on
Mac and created a horror theme on that and posted it on my blog and
showed the other group members. It was never used in the final product
but it was good to experiment ourselves and get a touch of creating
suspensful, horror music.

8. Social Groups
▪ Going down the road of Social Groups and focusing on teenagers we
didn't really focus too much on that although we still took it into
consideration and we focused more on the careless stereotype
teenager that's always looking for trouble and always looking for
something to do, those that jump out at any sign of socializing they
can get, hence why we built the three characters around that as they
go wandering into a house, thinking it would be a good idea and a
good party but turns out to be an abandoned house and something
more sinister.