IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

EVALUATION Q1

• I believe our media product strongly represents the conventions often found within the horror genre. In evaluating the research we did in preparation for our product, we were able to attempt to link across genuine media products and our own. The research revealed important criteria that helped us to create a successful horror trailer.

• I feel as though our media product strongly represents the conventions often found within the horror genre. In evaluating the research we did in preparation for our product, we were able to attempt to link across genuine media products and our own. The research revealed important criteria that helped us to create a successful horror trailer. Our trailer idea was developed in several sections, overall we knew between our group that we wanted our trailer to convey the appearance and ideas of an artistic, independent film. This provoked us to look into adapting a more atypical genre within horror. We liked the idea of recreating early horror films, as we learnt from our research that the horror genre was becoming increasingly popular around the 60’s, which we attempted to take concepts and ideas from in order to stylise our trailer. We then wanted to create a compelling yet horrifying storyline,we realised from our analysation of articles we found that the most frightening monster within horror films is one that is amongst us in our society, a human being. Therefore, we thought the the idea of malicious cannibal housewife could be an effective horror convention. Due to the antique theme of our trailer, in it’s use of black and white and stylisation, I feel as though it relates to the likes of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and several other early horrors, for example Misery (Rob Reiner 1990).

• Although we attempted to include recurrent horror conventions, there are ways in which our product also challenges them is in terms of the themes and representations it presents. Although the idea of a female monster is not uncommon, it is the fact that our lead female is a cannibal. Usually we find that the female monster in horror films have been possessed as in The Devil inside (William Brent Bell 2012), The Possession (Ole Bornedal 2012) and The Last Exorcism (Daniel Stamm 2010) . However, unlike such other horrors, our cannibal housewife in some way, puts a feminist twist on the story in that the woman is the monster herself and doesn’t require another being’s control for her to become so monstrous. We were pleased with the way in which our product and story highlighted the lack of genuine female villains within horror stories and the feminine point it presented us from, we didn’t feel as though it was necessarily a good thing to create a female monster, but we did feel it put a slightly interesting perspective on our product as it’s not often seen. However after learning more about Clover’s final girl theory, we thought it was important to include some very typical features of horror in our trailer. To do this we kept the final girl running through our story, in order to relate it back to common horror films. We did so by allowing our last female character-(Billie)-to battle it out against the ‘monster’. Again we stuck to the conventions of this theory by giving her a unisex name because we noticed this also appears to be a recurrent theme.

Billie

• Almost everything in our trailer was decided as a group, however the were points in which certain people would create there own ideas that were then incorporated into the product. The rough concept for the teaser shot was originally my idea. We wanted to include something incredibly cliched in our trailer in order to maintain some reality of a regular horror product. Because mirror shots have somewhat become an iconic feature and are so often used in horror films, specifically trailers, we felt that the mirror shot was very effective for us. I thought we should use this as our teaser shot, i.e. when the trailer appears to be over yet another shot is revealed after-in our case the title sequence. However unlike many horror films we didn’t have access to a closing mirror cabinet which is regularly used, in this case my idea to have ‘Wendy’ rising from washing her hands became apparent and the group were very satisfied with the outcome. By including the mirror shot our trailer became similar to others such as, ‘Mirrors’ and ‘Candyman’.

• The mirror shot took several attempts to get right, as as is shown from the planning on the blog. It was extremely difficult to get the actors to move fast enough and not look odd. We wanted the clip to be speedy, as it was a teaser shot at the end of the trailer and for that reason it needs to be snappy. We had some trouble with the positing and movement of our character Billie in the mirror, this was because we felt when she was stood still, the lack of movement came across slightly ghostly, which is not the impression we were trying to give off. I think, a large factor that really helped to create that shot was the overbearing sound effect, we included a strong build up of screechy noises into a load echoey breath noise. We also found this was a recurrent convention in a lot of horror trailers, particularly for the teaser shot.

Leaning forward

Stood still

• One of the toughest and most stressful parts of the trailer was including the music. The first song played in the beginning of the trailer (In the Still of the Night-Fred Parris and The Satins) was the easiest choice for us. This was simply because we chose it in order to create a relevant title for our film. We wanted to make a lot of references to the 50’s theme of our film, we did this firstly by using an original 50’s hit song playing in the beginning of the trailer (the first pan of the kitchen). We also liked the eeriness of the implications of that title when put in the context of a horror film, we felt it suggested that something horrifying can happen in the night when no one else is around. When the song first starts, we thought it would be interesting to allow it to begin in the first pan, when in the corner of the camera you can see the radio. We thought this would be effective as the beginning of the track is introduced as it could be on the radio.

• The next song was a challenge, in fact it was one of the very last features we included in our trailer. We struggled in finding a song that was creepy and fast paced but still fit with the 50’s theme. We went through several options until finally coming across (Inside (this Heart of Mine)- Fats Waller).

AS IN TOM AND JERRY

During the filming of our trailer we included a shot of feet passing by from a POV shot from under a table. I though this was quite interesting in term of the 50’s theme. The fact we could only see the bottom of the

‘Wendy’s’ legs and feet, could possibly relate to the cartoons at the time. Often in cartoons the audience only sees that part of the woman.

• Overall, I think our trailer managed to use, develop and challenge typical conventions of real horror products. We wanted to make sure our trailer appeared similar to other existing trailers, so we didn’t stray too far from the obvious conventions, such as music, sound effects and jump cuts. However, we did adapt features in order to appeal to our market and fit with our story and themes. If our media product was to be produced, I think it would be able to sell, however I also understand that by creating a slightly independent attempt at a horror film it would be a very niche market we would be appealing to.