DF - Evaluation (1)

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

At the planning stage of this project we researched a multitude of horror film openings and noted the conventions of style, form, narrative, typography, genre, technique, mise-en-scene, soundtrack, etc. that we found. Later on we found in our audience research that many of these things were to be expected by the target audience and so we constructed our film accordingly.

One of the most standout conventions of horror film opening sequences was the typography. The font of the titles and effect of the font is very important and can indicate everything from the genre to the setting. We noticed that many horror opening sequences use somewhat archaic or decrepit-looking fonts that enter and exit the screen subtly, in contrast to thriller film openings which have very bold, masculine fonts that draw the focus. Keeping this in mind, we designed our title screens to break up the action in order to create enigma, similar to the way in which '30 Days of Night' (Slade, 2007) brings up titles alongside enigmatic images and montages. Similarly, we chose our font based on conventional horror typography, as mentioned previously, as decrepit-looking to enhance the mood.

Also conventional of horror is dark lighting and dull colour. We achieved this by a combination of choosing the time of day we filmed at carefully and adjusting the saturation, contrast, brightness and hue of our shots both on the camera and in post-production in Adobe Premier. The mood this creates was complimented by our choice of locations; a graveyard and the local woods. These locations are both typical of horror films (as can be seen in films such as 'The Blair Witch Project' (1999, Myrick & Sanchez)) and  and our audience research showed them to be the most popular. On that note, our costume was also planned with the genre in mind. Our protagonist wore plain, dark clothes and our antagonist wore dark clothes also and a coat that, alongside these other points, can have sinister connotations. In addition, the non-verbal language of the characters can also add to the character's overall aura - shown in the following picture by the protagonist's vulnerable non-verbal language and the protagonist's controlling stance. The following image shows all these ideas in use:

In terms on camera techniques and editing, we created continuity by adhering to the 180 degree rule and ensuring that our actors wore the same clothes and were in the same position as the previous shot. We tried to use a variety of shots and angles, including some point-of-view shots alongside stable shots and we also implemented pull focuses in order to draw the audience to a specific part of the shot. Point-of-view shots are typically associated with horror sequences because it puts the audience into the character's position while at the same time creating a dramatic, chaotic effect.

Furthermore, the soundtrack was used to anchor certain key points in the film, such as towards the end when the antagonist takes the protagonist.