In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms

and conventions of real media products.

Forms and Conventions are the things or signifiers that a person expects
to see when they watch films or TV. These conventions help provide
anchorage of the genre but they are not genre specific. Many of the
conventions of horror are the same as comedy or sci-fi.
By looking at film opening from horror as well as other genres it is easy to
note down a few of the things that are common. Here are some of the
ones that I think are important general conventions:
- At the very beginning of the film are the idents. They are normally
accompanied by music. These don’t reflect the genre of the film
most times although some companies (such as Warner Brothers)
change the colour of their ident to fit with
the film they are producing.
- Titles appear after the idents before film in many older film but no they
are now they are more likely to be placed into the first few minutes of
opening, these then fade out which signifies the end of the opening . What
is common in the comedy genre is to have them actually place into the
shot by props for example in the film ‘Napoleon Dynamite’

- The opening shot- this is normally the extreme long shot/ establishing
shot. This provides anchorage or the location and time period but the film
is still very much polysemic at this point.

- There is always a whole load of shot variation in films especially high

budget cinema released films- these can include but are not limited to
jump cuts, fades, shot-reverse-shot.

- It is normal for the main character to be the first person shown in the
opening. This signifies that we are following their story and we are either
going to sympathise with them or hate them (usually we sympathise).

- The mise-en-scene and the way the set designers dress the set play very
important part. We get a lot of the exposition from the setting and
everything has to fit with each other (in context) Verisimilitude is
something else to note, making sure nothing inside the world we see on
screen shouldn’t be there, this relates to the location and time period.
Having a film set in the 50s but have a band new Audi wouldn’t be right.

- Music is played throughout the opening, both diegetic and non-diegetic.

Typically a soundtrack or just a few notes are played through the first
shots eg the establishing shot.

- The openings of many films follow Todorovs Theory of Narrative- by

showing the equilibrium then a brief part of the dis-equilibrium (something
that disrupts the equilibrium). After this has been shown the opening is
 over, the audience have met their main character/s, know they time
period and have an idea of the setting and the genre.

How our text compares to the general film conventions.

Convention Out Text

Idents- Having the appear right at the Both the idents of our production
start of the film accompanied by music. company and distribution appear at the
beginning of our film opening. These
aren’t as good as the ones we looked
at but that is expected as we are
amateurs and we don’t have the same
high tech equipment as them.

Titles- Having them either appear Our titles appear within the first minute
before the opening or during. of the opening. We did this because we
wanted to follow the convention of
what we saw when watching other
openings, which was having the appear
laid over the opening. We chose to
have them in white writing so they
stood out but didn’t draw attention
away from the film.

Opening Shot- Normally extreme long The opening shot of our film is an
shot/ establishing. establishing shot of the salon we used.
This stays on screen for 3 seconds, we
feel this is long enough for the
audience to understand this is the
setting. We didn’t want it to be on
screen for too long.

Shot Variation. We feel we did have shot variation. We

had close up, extreme close ups, jump
cuts. We could have had more shot
variation but then again so could most
films.

Main Character- Protagonist/ The first character you see is George-

Antagonist. the male suspected killer- we chose to
have him seen first because we want
the audience to follow the preferred
reading and to think he is the killer.

Mise-en-scene- Props We used props for example we used

scissors to build up tension and to
imply a killing is going to take place.
We also tried to make sure we had
some interesting shots where some
 objects were just into the shot to draw
the attention. We also wanted to make
sure our character wore clothes that
represented the time period which is
the current day. By choosing to make
the film in the current day this made it
easier for us to use our location
because we didn’t need to change the
design of the salon. Just add in the
things we wanted such as changing the
place of the sofa.

Sound- Soundtrack, Diegetic and non- We chose not to have a soundtrack

diegetic playing throughout the opening but
instead we went for instruments and
notes that will build up tension and
create the sound we wanted.

Todorovs Theory of Equilibrium We followed Todorovs theory by

starting off with a normal day at a
typical salon in a middle class town. We
placed subtle signifiers into the text to
signify to the audience that violence/ a
killing was going to take place. The dis-
equilibruim is when Katie (the salon
owner) kills Colette (the female client)
we did this right at the end of the
opening as in most films.

Conventions of Horror Openings and how our text compares

The titles in horror are usually in a red In our text we used a white coloured
colour or they fade to red. Also the font font and had the titles laid over the
is ‘Serif ’. Although this is more footage. We also used a sans serif font
common with the traditional horror because we thought it would look
films. They also normally appear on a better. We thought a serif font wouldn’t
plain black background. really fit with our preferred reading.

The setting is very important in horror Our film isn’t a typical horror film in
films. Usually the location is this way. We used a salon on a busy
somewhere isolated without many road in the centre of a town as our
people around. Places like woods or location, partly because we wanted the
lakes are commonly used because they killing to come as a surprise and shock
are deserted and not many people live our audience and also because of our
there. The setting helps to create time and the possible choices we had.
tension it also makes it unlikely for the
victim to get away.
Having a male killer is typical in horror We
films. Having female victims is also
very common.

decided to go for a female killer to go

against the typical stereotype. We used
low angle shot to signify katies power
as well as when she says ‘Times up
bitch’, this gives Katie more power . We
wanted to put a feminist spin on the
typical horror. We had a male as a
suspected killer to ‘trick’ the audience.
There have been other stereotypes for
example in television series ‘dark angel
‘ featuring Jessica Alba who plays a
hero who has to kill to defend herself.

Hiding the killers face. Many films such We chose to hide our killers face until
as ‘Halloween’ where the killers face is the very end, this helps to create
hidden. This helps to create suspense suspense. Another reason for us to
as well as making it seem more choose to hide her face is to keep the
realistic because the audience can’t focus on George as the killer.
see the facial features of the killer. It
means that it more scary for the
audience because in their minds the
killer could be anyone.

Using strings for high pitched noise and We used high strings during the
keys for low pitched noise is something beginning of our opening so that the
we noticed as common. The low audience would suspect George as a
pitched long notes help to create suspicious character. We also had very
tension as well as slowing down the low notes to create an eerie feeling.
heartbeat of the audience so that they
become more scared when quick notes
are used.

Stereotype of blonde ‘scream queen’. We wanted to have a scream queen in

This is a blonde with moderately large our opening to follow this convention.
breast, a slim figure and who is Our female victim is blonde and pretty.
attractive and stupid. This character is This is so men will be attracted to her
always one of the first to get killed off. and want to watch the film. She gets
This character is only in the film for the killed by our killer Katie. She is a
‘Male Gaze’. This is the idea that countertype of the scream queen, she
women are only on camera for the does have large breast but we couldn’t
purpose of attracting men and having really do anything about that other
men ogle at them. then dress her in something that didn’t
show them off which is what we did.
She has brown hair and isn’t stupid
seeing as she runs her own salon.