Evaluation: Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media prodcuts:

In the making of our final piece we both challenged and conformed to a number of media conventions. To be able to do this we had to first research what these forms and conventions are, and I did this by watching a number of films in our chosen genre of Horror (and also some that werent) and noted any common similarities between the film.
The first Media convention that we noticed and decided to conform to was the standard order credits displayed in a title sequence.
In almost every film we watched the titles were as follows:

The production company
The maker of the film (e.g a Steven Spielberg film)
Main Actors
Title of film
More actors
Casting
Music composer
Costume designer
Cinematographer
Editor
Production designer
Executive Producers
Producer
Screen play writer
Director

This order can be seen here in the opening titles of the film 'Catch Me if You Can'.



Our original idea was to produce a stalker/ slasher film, similar in style to Scream or Fatal attraction. However on researching the current climate of popular horror films we noticed that the number of films in this style has decreased, possibly suggesting a lack of interest. On the other hand, we found that films with a supernatural/ paranormal edge are enjoying a surge of popularity at the moment. This can be seen in the critical and public praise of the film 'Paranormal Activity', an also in the anticipation surrounding the release of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010' both films dealing with supernatural themes.
As such, we decided to conform to the current trends in the media world and opt for a supernatural horror rather than a stalker film.

in terms of film-making conventions we stuck fairly rigidly to the normal conventions. An example of this is how we stuck to the 180 degree rule.
However, in some instances we broke certain rules in order to create a sense of unease in the viewer. One example of this is that we often didnt frame an item directly in the centre of the screen, this is not the normal method of framing but I believe it works in the case of a horror film.

In conclusion, researching and understanding the forms and conventions of horror films allowed us to adhere to the norm, but also effectively deviate from it.