The document discusses how the media product uses and develops conventions from real horror and thriller films. It uses common horror conventions like blood and a mysterious figure to signify the genre. It also uses symbols of death like a noose. The titles were inspired by the film Se7en and aim to create an unsettling atmosphere. While including conventions from genres like horror and thriller, it also challenges conventions by keeping the narrative unclear through the use of books at the beginning. Overall, the media product aims to be a hybrid of horror and thriller genres through both conforming to and challenging genre conventions.

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

2. Generic Conventions… Blood
Blood can be used as a clear generic
convention for horror films. Seeing
this clearly shows the audience that
they’re viewing a horror as it
connotes gore and death. We used
blood to help the genre come across
as a slightly gory for the film. Our
narrative is intentionally complicated
and unclear, so the blood helps to
simplify things in terms of genre as
it’s one of the most obvious choices
of generic conventions used in all
horror films.

3. Mysterious Figure
The ‘mysterious figure’ is a typical generic convention
for a thriller film. This helps balance the Hybrid as
horror/thriller genre. The figure usually appears in all
thriller films such as ‘The Woman in Black’. These
thriller films (including the ‘mysterious figure’) tend
to be popular at the box office, and therefore we
wanted to include it to create a tense and ghostly feel
for our opening to then lead into our actual film.

4. Connotations of death (mise)
The most obvious thing to happen in horror/thriller films
are deaths. These films show different ways of portraying
death depending on their genre. Here, the ‘noose’ we
used connotes hanging which is a horrible way to die. This
suggests that there will be horrible and maybe gruesome
scenes involved within the film. The sightings of the
‘noose’ can make people feel uncomfortable and
contrasts with the books.

5. Titles…
Our titles were inspired by ‘Se7en’. We liked the childlike text
that they showed in their opening and so therefore we used this
to create our own childlike text. Most horror and thriller films
use children as victims or possessed characters. This creates an
eerie atmosphere and helps with the confusing narrative which
we wanted. The style of the text makes it look quick and
unintentional as if its just happened which connotes that things
are just about to happen.

6. Developments and challenges with
conventions…
In our opening, we didn’t want the narrative be too clear, so
the use of the books in the opening aren’t obvious as to why
they are there. The books aren’t exactly a generic conventions
of any horrors or thrillers, maybe for a drama, or romance
film so it creates an interesting contrast. This is also useful as
it makes the audience question more and wonder what’s
going on, therefore wanting to carry on watching the film to
get answers.

7. Sub-genre or Hybrid?
Our film was created as a Hybrid. It’s a cross between a horror and a
thriller. The include both the conventions of horror (blood, noose) and
thriller (mysterious figure, shadows, darkness). These generic
conventions are helpful to discover the genre of our film from our
opening as blood connotes gore and death, whereas the figure,
shadows, darkness all connote a gothic, ghostly thriller which helps
keep it slightly simple over a complicated narrative.

8. Influences… Se7en
Se7en was a clear influence for us. We liked the fast past editing, the
hidden narrative, the structure and the lack of characters and human
interaction in the opening so the audience questions and therefore
wants to watch the film for answers. Se7en also matches the genre that
we wanted to create, so it was very helpful to have Se7en as a guideline
so we can see what they’ve done and whether it would work in our
circumstance. We used Se7en’s opening as an inspiration to ours
including the editing, type of camera shots, angles and lighting.

9. The lighting is the same used in
Se7en. We still wanted that dark cold
feel to make it slightly ghostly. On the
left are the images from our film
opening, and on the right are the
images of Se7en’s film opening. There
is a clear similarity involved as we
wanted to use Se7en as guidance.
Se7en was a big hit so we knew if we
stuck to their ideas our would
hopefully be successful too.