1) The document discusses how the media product, a horror film called Obsidian, uses and develops conventions of the horror genre from real media products. 2) Some conventions it follows include having the killer wear dark dull-colored clothing, themes of death and paranoia, using stereotypical vulnerable female characters where one dies first, an isolated dark setting at night, visual techniques like low lighting and POV shots, and building tension with creepy music. 3) However, it also challenges some conventions by not building up tension in the expected places with the music composition.

1. Question One
In what ways does your media product use, develop and
challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
We, as a group, believe that weused variousconventionsof horror
genres within our finalpiece as a result of incorporatingideas from
real life media within the horror genre and interpretingit in our own
way.
My Group’schosen genre of film is horror. One convention of horror
is the use of dullcoloured costumes – which can be generally covered
in blood. Within our film, the actor who plays the killer wears a black
leather jacket with black jeans and a black t-shirt. This follows
conventionsas it consists of dullcolours. By using the colour black, it
connotes death.
The connotation of death given by the costumes also follows the
conventionalthemes: death and paranoia. Within ‘Obsidian’ the two
themes previously mentioned arecommon within the horror genre.
For instance in ‘SCREAM’, the most identifiable themes are death and
horror as the killer dressed in a scream mask kills everyonein his
path. From this, we developed the idea of scream and used the killing
theme and included itat the scene of two females walkingto a party.
By usingtwo female lead roles, ‘Obsidian’ follows conventionswith
stereotypical characters. This is because women are seen to be
stereotypically morevulnerablethan men. Wealso followed
conventionswith characters as in the openingsequenceof Obsidian,
the blondefemale character dies first. This followsconventionsof
most horror films, as it is believed that blondehaired women are
generally less intelligent (stereotypically).
My group’sproductcontinued to follow conventionsinvolvingthe
setting of Obsidian as it was conventionally set in an isolated area at
night. This helps create a tense and scary atmosphereas it portrays
the majority of our audience’sbeliefs that at night, everyoneismore
vulnerableand everythingis more intimidating. We developed this
convention by using a dead end street as the setting in the winter

2. when it is very dark at 7pm. This is effective as the scene is very dark
which emphasizesthe intimidatingfeeling for the audience.
Another way which obsidian followed conventionsof horrorsis the
visualstyle. This is because within Obsidian, we used severalPOV
shots along sidelow lighting and shadowingwithin the frames. This
is conventionalfor horror filmsto give an eerie atmosphere to the
film. We developed this idea from The Conjuringand Insidious.
Finally, we followed conventions in the musicside of our film in ways
such as buildingtension. This is conventionalas in the title sequence
of Obsidian, it buildstension with creepy music. However, our music
composition breaks conventionsby notbuildingup tension in the
right places in the sameway other horrorsdo.