The media product uses, develops, and challenges conventions of horror films in the following ways: 1) It uses typical horror character conventions - featuring innocent blonde girl, mysterious hooded boys, and costumes that highlight innocence and danger. 2) It develops conventions through its plot of adventurous teens exploring a creepy abandoned house and sound design that builds suspense and startles the audience. 3) It challenges conventions with its typography that flickers like candle light at the end, linking to the film's theme of summoning in an unconventional way.

1. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
Question 1

2. Character

In our production we had 3 main
characters. We had two teenage boys
and a little girl.

We decided from our research that a
blonde little girl would be very good for
our production as they would meet a lot
of the typical conventions of horror.

For costume we decided to dress the
two boys in black with hoods to create
a sense of mystery and danger. We
decided teenagers would make good
protagonists as they are often
adventurous and daring.

The girl was dressed in a white dress
to highlight her innocence and youth.

3. Costume Inspiration

We took inspiration for our
production from a number of
different sources. One of our
biggest inspirations was House at
the End of the Street (Tonderai,
2012) which featured the girl
shown on the right.

For the boys we decided that black
clothing would be best suited for
our production. Black has many
negative connotations and is often
linked with death and decay which
links very well to our idea of
summoning a dead girl.
I can do make-up

4. Plot & Location

Our plot for the opening sequence
itself follows many of the expected
conventions of horror. For example
we had 2 very adventurous boys
venture off into a spooky and dark
house.

Our location was a stock location as
it is an old abandoned shack just
outside of a small town. The house is
very old and creepy which fits our
storyline well

5. Sound

Sound in our production conformed
greatly to typical conventions of horror.
For example when Callum slashed his
hand with the knife there was a
distinctive knife sound which
highlighted the pain endured.

Throughout the opening credits there
was a quiet tune playing which built
suspense like lots of big horror films.

Our final shot was a medium shot of
Millie screaming towards the camera.
This was recognised as a very effective
shot by our audience feedback and the
scream is so loud and piercing that it
actually scared a lot of people.

6. Typography

We looked at various different fonts that we
thought would be appropriate to use for our
films titles.

To gain a better idea of what is commonly
used for our chosen sub-genre of horror,
paranormal, we each did an analysis of a title
sequence from a film of the same genre.

This gave us a far better understanding of the
importance of colour, positioning, font, size
and animation.

We took inspiration from Insidious (Wan,
2010) for the animation of our main title and
have decided that we will make it flicker at the
end like candle light as this links with our
production and has connotations of
summoning.

After taking inspiration from The Conjuring
(Wan, 2013), we have also decided that the
font will be white on a black screen as this is
clear to read and the darkness connotes fear
and mystery which is appropriate to this genre.

7. Typography

We looked at various different fonts that we
thought would be appropriate to use for our
films titles.

To gain a better idea of what is commonly
used for our chosen sub-genre of horror,
paranormal, we each did an analysis of a title
sequence from a film of the same genre.

This gave us a far better understanding of the
importance of colour, positioning, font, size
and animation.

We took inspiration from Insidious (Wan,
2010) for the animation of our main title and
have decided that we will make it flicker at the
end like candle light as this links with our
production and has connotations of
summoning.

After taking inspiration from The Conjuring
(Wan, 2013), we have also decided that the
font will be white on a black screen as this is
clear to read and the darkness connotes fear
and mystery which is appropriate to this genre.