IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR MEDIA

PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP,OR

CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS IN

REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS

In the opening of the first scene, my short film replicates the works of Polanski to establish conventions of horror. Rosemary’s Baby opens with a panning establishing shot showing the apartment block, where the film is set and Best Friends opens with this same shot, this helps to anchor the key location of the film, an abandoned park also encoding the idea of isolation.

My media product was called Best Friends, a short film that used the codes and conventions of the psychological horror genre. My influences came from Roman Polanski (1968) Rosemary’s Baby through an exploration of the binary opposition themes of life and death and fantasy versus reality.

My short film uses the mise-en-scene to subvert from the conventions of horror. The protagonist Rochelle and the predominant male character Mr Malicious are both dressed in black. Many connotations of black are usually mysterious, evil, negativity and death. This colour feature of mise-en-scene was encoded to create ambiguity, and to create the idea that both Rochelle and Mr Malicious could be the villain. The mise-en-scene of the colour black alongside the actions of Mr Malicious creates an emblem of death. The audience can decode that Mr Malicious is not a living character.

Mise-en-scene was also used to conventions of horror. In the scene of ‘Limbo/the middle world’ heavy white lighting was used to replicate the effect of a middle world and a heaven location. This is very similar to the works of Peter Jackson in The Lovely Bones (2009). This was encoded to represent the character Mr Malicious as originating from a paranormal domicile.

I have re-enforced the theory of ‘repetition and difference’ identified by Steve Neale, the non-diegetic sound was used to challenge the conventions of real media products. The use of a voice over narrating throughout the film is not a typical convention of the genre horror, although it is a useful device. It is used to convey additional information such as the thoughts and feelings of characters. My short film evidenced this through a voice over of the protagonist Rochelle.