EVALUATION Q1: In what ways does your media production use, develop or challenge forms & conventions of real media products? (Nhung Pham)

As a group, we explored different genres and conventions in horror. Each of us did a textual analysis for our planning and research where we analysed real media products such as posters, trailers and magazines in depth to gain a factual understanding of them. By doing so, it inspires us to take different aspects of horror ideas forward and incorporate these ideas as our own. We thought of lighting, mise-en-scene, techniques and costume for our trailer and how it could be interpreted in terms of conventions and forms of horror.

There are a wide range of Sub-Genres in horror and the forms and conventions that are attached to it. Conventions are used to help our audience recognise what type of horror genre our film would belong to and whether they are interested and would want to watch it or not. Conventions come in a format that we recognise like a list of ingredients which are almost as seen as a set of rules in the industry which should be followed by. Therefore when releasing our products these form and conventions should be taken into consideration as it generate a buzz before its release giving the audience a little taste of what is about to head their way.

As we began planning towards our products in September we had to work as a group to figure and understand what type of horror we were going to do. We started researching and analysing horror trailers such as Scream, Halloween and others which all shares the typical conventions of Slasher horror. We wanted our trailer to be unique so we also try to find ways to challenge the conventions. By doing so, we took inspiration from the ‘Grave Encounter (2011)’ trailer where we intend to use a handheld camera as the characters are filming their project. This challenges the convention as we usually see the killer approaching the victims whereas the victims are now seen through the eyes of the killer, who is holding the camera.

The antagonist wears a mask or has a mutated face to protect their identity. We wanted our antagonist to have that gory, realistic effect as the antagonist is usually a person who has suffered or is traumatised by some sort of abuse. An example is Freddie Cougar in ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ who is a disfigured dream stalker and wears a glove armed with razors which the audience will be able to identify him as the Slasher in Nightmare on Elm Street. Therefore we searched through Halloween makeup tutorials via YouTube and found what we thought most intrigued us and gave off a sinister feeling.

A convention we also included was a red herring where there is a clue or piece of information which is intended to be misleading. We included this in the final scene, where there are four students in a group but however only three is seen being captured in the end with one person still filming. Red herring are seen in teaser trailers such as Scream to create tension and provoke the audience to want to find out.

(Red Herring used in Scream 4 trailer)