Our media product uses and challenges some conventions of horror films. It uses a child character like in films like Insidious and The Omen to create a scary vibe. However, it does not include typical horror elements like strange figures in mirrors or forests at night. It also challenges conventions by using Asian actors instead of the typical white actors seen in most horror films. The target audience provided feedback that it fits with the horror genre but is not a typical horror film. It would be suitable for 15 certificate viewers and attract teenagers and adults who enjoy mystery and psychological thrillers in addition to horror fans. Extra effort was put into camera work and editing to improve the sequence over previous work.

1. AS Media Evaluation Amanpreet Nagra Tanisha Heer

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Our sequence looks like other films within the horror genre – It keeps the audience guessing, for example the girl is sleeping at one point in her bedroom, and then suddenly shows her in a park in a dream. The child is seen to be a spiritual figure, such as films like insidious, the boy was in a coma and his spirit wondered. In the rest of our film we could have made that the child is of a demon spirit, similar to the omen, the orphan and case 39. We used a child in our film because in our research we realised that majority of horror films use children and therefore give scarier vibe, as from our questionnaires they all answered and said that the film was scary and sinister. We also use a child in our film that is of the same age which is similar to the film The Omen and Case 39. Night mare on Elm Street as the film is all based on dreams as that is how the victim come to their deaths, and in our film it starts off with a young women’s dream, which highlights the importance of the idea of a dream, which is again similar to this film as they also start the film off with a young man having a dream. But we had made it obvious that she is having as we show her lying in bed before, and also we changed the contrast of the scenes to make it obvious that the woman was dreaming, to emphasise. Also in our questionnaire we asked whether they understood the opening sequence and they all said that they did. Our sequence is different to them – Paranormal events are not used such as in paranormal activity. Give example of a scene in paranormal activity. Saw as that is a more gruesome horror film which is filled with gore which gives the audience a more of a disgusted factor rather than a freaked out feeling- eg of scene Used asian actors insted of white actors which most films use.

3. Why I have kept the conventions of form? We wanted to keep the conventions so when the audience watched the film they would realise the genre of the film which is horror, and therefore be able to relate to it easier. We have included opening tittles similar to professional films. In our questionnaire all but one said that the opening fits in with a horror genre Why Challenged conventions? We did not want to create a film with the typical clichés of horror films such as having a strange figure in the reflection of the mirror such as the unborn, the omen and many others. When the camera is on a mirror you automatically prepare yourself for a frightening scene, this doesn’t keep the audience on their toes, and they do not know what to expect. Typical settings of a horror film include forests such as Blair witch project and Friday the 13th which is set in the woods. Also it is seen to have a more sinister effect if filmed in the dark whereas we have used broad daylight. Asian actors to represent ethnicity diversification. Questionnaire said we challenge conventions as wasn’t seen as a typical horror movie

4. How does your media product represent particular social groups? What gender is represented? Female for the parent of the child, as this creates a more intimate relationship between mother and child. Compared to having a father and child relationship shown. Women are stereotyped as emotional and more caring than males. In our film she doesn’t want her son to go and gets upset. The young child in our film represents a ‘typical’ happy child having fun, laughing and smiling away. Close to the mother as he is shown waving to her, calling her to play with him, and then at the end of the sequence he tells her he loves her. Ethnicity – Most horror films tend to always use white American actors in their films, whereas we have used British Asians actors in our sequence. This is because this was available to us at the time also used this to our advantage of challenging conventions by representing a different ethnic group.

5. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? international cinema, as when we asked from our questionnaires the target audience whether they would pay money to watch hour a film and a majority said that they would, so we feel confident that it would be successful if it was distributed in this way, and after he cinema release it would then be converted on to DVD distributed internationally as i feel people also within America would relate to our film and enjoy it

6. 4) Target audience Questionnaires said it would best suit 15 certificate when watching the film at the cinema , so it would be targeted for teenagers to adults. And feel that we have attracted the right target audience as they all said they would watch the rest at the cinema. Our film would not be classified as an 18, this is because there is no sexual, violent, or drug based scenes and will not be if produced into a full length film. Thus our film will only be aimed at over fifteen year olds. Everyone who answered the questionnaire they all said that they would watch the rest of the film, and this was a mixture of men and female, so overall the film could be targeted to both females and males. Recently films like paranormal activity have become very popular within the genre of horror, and we feel that, we have a created an opening sequence which relates to the mysterious and unknown scenes within paranormal activity, and so feel that our film would also become popular. Our film is also targeted for both males and females, and for horror genre fans; in our film there is no other type of genre introduced such as romance or comedy. This would mean people with other tastes, who only enjoy action movies for example, may not enjoy our film as it would not appeal to them. However our secondary audience could be people who would also like to watch similar genres such as psychological, thriller films. As with our opening sequence, even though we have created a horror atmosphere, we also feel that the film could also target to people who like psychological and thrillers.

7. 5 Attracting the audience Mise en secne- as we have set the dream within a deserted park it gives a feel of loneliness , and vulnerability to the woman and so the audience may be able to relate to the way she is feeling, and so feel the emotions which she is going through. Also as we have used a young child within our opening sequence this would then have the audience asking themselves questions about the child, for example who he is? And where did he come from? this then draws in the attention from the audience and makes them want to watch more to see what would happen in further events From our feedback they were all engaged as they said that they were intrigued when watching the film and understood the opening sequence When planning our narrative within the opening sequence we felt they we should use least amount of dialogue as we wanted to focus on the actions of what the young child was doing

8. 6) Our editing and camera work have been improved, as when filming I was able to use a wide range of shots , and able to plan in my head what these shots would look like so it would fit in within our storyline, to make our opening sequence look more interesting to watch. Editing – in the past I movies has either lost pieces of our work and so I have tried to learn to overcome these problem by past experiences. At the last scenes I would have like to change the scenes so it would become longer as we felt that the scenes had jumped shot to shot a bit too quickly and felt that it had looked rushed, and so there was a lot happening all at once.

9. 7) Preliminary task- the interview task Planning and preparation had all been carried out before shooting both products, which helped us organise our shots and angles etc. In both the preliminary task and the film we used tripods, a variety of different shots. We filmed several good takes in different positions to add variety. With our film whilst we were editing we added a soundtracks to our film to add effect, and built tension. We used nightmare on elm street theme tune to add a sinister effect. This could be seen as an intertexual reference to the film.