Question 1 - In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Using Conventions:
1) Our location is conventional as we used an isolated, wooded area. This is fairly common with horror trailers that focus on either an isolated area or a creepy wooded area. This causes conventional suspense because there is no one around to hear/help victims, also there is no escape because the killer is normally well educated in the location. An example of a trailer that is located in an isolated, wooded area is the Blair Witch Project (1999).
2) Another conventional feature of our trailer is the use of fast paced shots. This is common in trailers because it creates tension that makes the audience aware that something is going to happen and braces them for the 'final scare' and the revealing of the title. It also allows us to give a taster of our horror without giving away our entire plot.
3) Our final scene is conventional as it is our 'final scare'. This is done by the actual shot not being expected as it is after the title, it is also a fast paced shot which reveals the killers face, who is crying blood, which is frightening to the audience. This is similar to the final scare in the Conjuring (2013) as it also has a face jumping out with similar make up as we have used.
4) We used a blonde, vulnerable female victim in our trailer. This is common within horror trailers and using this convention allows us to portray the typical blonde girls are the first to die because they're dumb and vulnerable. An example of this is used in Scream (1996).
5)We used blood and gore in our trailer which is conventional for most horror trailers because that is what is appealing to the audience. We use shots of hearts being ripped apart with bare hands and eaten to show that our killer is savage and it suggests that the killer is a cannibal without giving away the story.
Developing Conventions:
1) It is not always common for female killers to be used in horror films unless they are based on the psychological or paranormal genre. When a female character is used in the role of the killer, they have similar features such as long dark hair. Examples of trailers that use dark haired, female killers are The Grudge (2004) and The Ring (2002). However, long, dark haired, female killers tend to belong only to paranormal and psychological horrors and are rarely seen in gory films, we have developed this by using an image of a character that already exists and taking it into a new sub-genre of horror.
2) The use of effects in our trailer develops conventions because normally you would see very realistic effects so that the audience is more scared. We use effects like vignette, cold steel, day into night and cross hatch to make the shots more eery. This links to our horror because cannibalism is not exactly realistic in modern day and therefore we can emphasis a more creepy and gory sense through the use of effects.
Challenging Conventions:
1)Rather than having a typical narrator telling the story of a horror in brief as a voice-over in a trailer, we decided to challenge this and instead made up a rhyme to use as a voice-over. We used a sinister whispering to present our twisted rhyme about the cannibal and this makes the audience aware of what sub-genre of horror this is without the story being given away.
2)We use really obvious motion backgrounds against our titles. This can be seen as challenging the convention of having titles appear on a eery motion background, instead we used the motion background of meat being sliced up in slow motion because it links in with our horror.
3)We also use what could be a final scare at the beginning of our trailer, this could be seen as challenging the convention because final scares are used at the end of the trailer, although we have used another scare for the end of our trailer, we used a scare that reveals both the killer and the victim in the same shot which is unlikely to be shown at the start of a trailer.
Production
1)In our production company we used a conventional colour scheme of black, red and white. This colour scheme tends to be conventional for horror production companies as black and white contrasts red which is normally the main focus as it is the colour of blood.
2)We used a basic font so that it would be simplistic and would not distract from the main focus of the production company which is the blood splatter and smoke. The use of 'productions' being in red is conventional because it blends with the colour of the blood from the splatter and contrasts from the focus on 'Savage' as that is the name of our production company.
3)We used a smoke motion background because it is relatable to horror and we also used a blood splatter that blends with part of the title, it also contrasts against the background and the text. The use of smoke and the blood splatter is conventional in a production company used in horrors as they tend to use things that can relate to the genre, for example Ghost House productions uses a skull and Twisted Pictures uses a thorn and barbed wire which can be seen as conventions for horror.
Distribution
1)We used a common horror distributor (Lionsgate) which also uses a similar smoke effect like our production company does, reinforcing that conventions of horror are commonly used in distribution and production companies that are used in horror films.
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Poster
1) Our poster uses gore to an extent, it shows a blooded heart with a knife which is also blooded. This is conventional of a horror poster as they normally show gore to an extent in order to appeal to the audience. It also uses our main horror convention (the heart) that is used in the trailer.
2) The use of the red heart and blood along with the red titles contrasts against the white background. This is again the use of a conventional horror colour scheme as the red is contrasted and emphasised.
3) 'She'll eat you alive' is our tagline. This is conventional because most taglines are ironic and obvious, for example The Woman In Black (2012) with the tagline 'Do you believe in ghosts?' and The Last Exorcism (2010) with the tagline 'Believe in him'.
Magazine
1)We used the main character (the killer) as the image on the magazine front cover. This is conventional because it is commonly done on front covers as they focus on the actress/actor as they portray and are the identity for that character.
2)We used a yellow text for 'devour' in order to make it stand out against the rest of the magazine. This is conventional because the use of contrasting colours is common because the name of the horror is going to be the main focus so we want all of the attention drawn to it.
4)The layout for our front cover is conventional as it uses the features that are normally seen on a cover as well as the typical layout.
5)We are developing conventions by using social media on the front cover. This is because social media is a new phenomenon that is used by the majority and this will publicise our trailer on those apps as well as through the magazine.
6)We challenge the convention of a solid background as a magazine cover and use a background that has a pattern on it as it links in with the theme of woods in our trailer.