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IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS? As a group we researched film openings to identify the convections of our media

product, which is horror with a sub genre of slasher. We looked into films, the main ones being Scream, Unborn and Chucky, and did further research into the conventions of horror films through the internet and various books. We invested the most time analyzing Chucky as the plot of our film, Scarlett, was inspired by that film.

The conventions we found from Chucky:

• Haunted house, an isolated setting

• Pathetic fallacy of stormy weather

• Dark lighting

• Vulnerable child as a victim

• Weak females

• Chucky is in the colour red which has conations of blood and death

• Non-diegetic music to establish the genre

We tried to make our film, Scarlett, to conform to these conventions and challenge them slightly making our film opening realistic and be successful in the film industry.

THE LOCATION We originally wanted to film in a wood, as this an isolated place

is a convention of horror films, such as Blair Witch Project and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. To slightly challenge this we decided to film in a park, the contrast of a park being an innocent place for children to play added to the creepy element of Scarlett and also fitted with the plot of the film. The inspiration from the film Chucky is seen with the use of children and youth. The large tree’s surrounding the park gave the feeling of isolation which is a convention we wanted to conform with. The shapes of the trees give our film, Scarlett, a creepy and spooky effect.

Blair Witch Project

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Our location we chose for Scarlett

SOUND

For the non-diegetic sound, we have used royalty free music called ‘Evening of chaos’, we chose this music as it is disturbing and creates an enigma. For our diegetic sound we used all three conventions of laughing, screaming and heavy breathing. The horror conventions of sound is kept with screeching noises, playful child laughs and nursery rhymes. This is seen in many horror film openings, so will instantly establish the genre of our film.

This is Scarlett laughing in our film.

NARRATIVE

We used ‘Todorov’ and ‘Propp’ in our narrative.

Todorovs theory

• The equilibrium begins with the group of teenagers laughing, drinking and relaxing in the park.

• The disequilibrium is flash forward to show the survivor being threatened by a possessed doll and is shown to be scared and frightened. This will be revealed later in the film.

• The new equilibrium will be shown towards the end of our film which will show the survivor getting on with her life.

Propps theory

This is a convention in slasher horrors, some examples are.

• Protagonist survivor, which we have created as ‘Riley’.

• Villain or killer and in our film opening we have created a doll who is a killer called ‘Scarlett’.

Friday the 13th and Nightmare on elm street use this.

LIGHTING Dark lighting is a convention in horror films as it gives the

connotation of mystery. We tried to film from angles which made the park, which is the area of action, look scary and dark, so we planned to start filming around four o’clock when it was beginning to get dark. The sky is dull and you can see the shapes of the trees towering over them creating a spooky effect. We also used night vision on the digital video camera, this helps show the flash forward and the dark lighting with a hint of green/yellow gives a disorientating and scary style to our film. The lighting helped us, as the directors and producers, to show the evil and negative atmosphere, which relates to the genre.

The doll of Scarlett in our film using night vision.

The doll of Chucky.

THE CHARACTERS We created each character to be individual to show the different

stereotypes of teenagers. Although this isn’t a convention of horror films, we challenged this as females are usually shown to be weak and black people are usually the first to be killed. Our main character of the villain, Scarlett, is a female and also the protagonist, Riley, is also a female and black. This made our horror film-opening stand out from other horror openings created. Scarlett, our main character in the film was based on the main character of Chucky, they are both children's toys and have an innocence about them. Scarlett outfit is very innocent which is a dress with high knee socks and her hair in two bunchies, we then contrasted this with her make up of big bold scary eyes and scars, to show threat and establish her as the villain. We also made her to be very mysterious and making her actions and laugh to be very haunting.

These are the characters in our film Scarlett

These are the characters in Chucky.

PATHETIC FALLACY This is a convention in horror films where the weather acts as a

human emotion for example raining and storms occur. This will establish the setting to create the atmosphere, we therefore used rainy and windy weather for our film. The rain and wind helps to establish the genre of our film and also keeps our film in the main conventions of horror films. Many films use the weather to set the eerie atmosphere as we saw from our research into other film openings for horror films, for example, Chucky. Here we see the

use of the umbrella as the weather conditions were rain and wind. Following the main conventions of horror films.

THEMES

Good v Evil

We showed this through the characters as the teenagers showed the good in their vulnerability and the evil was shown through Scarlett as she is threatening and intimidating. This challenges the convention of females being the victim as here in our film they are shown as strong and intimidating. Chucky, the main idea behind our film, had this theme as well as they had the young girl as the good and the Chucky as the evil.