Leisha Burnett Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

During the process of creating our film opening, we ensured that we developed and challenged the conventions of film form and genre. For example we found that films often try to contain elements of ‘realism’, ‘atmosphere’ and ‘symbolism’. For this reason, we planned our opening so it would also create a sense of gritty realism.

We used props such as tables and chairs in a classroom. These types of props would usually create a sense of normality as they represent a typical everyday location. However, we turned on their backs to signify the abandonment of the place, which is not uncommon in the horror genre. By doing this we felt that the audience would feel the intensity of the horror, as most people are familiar with such a location, and therefore are more readily able to imagine themselves there, but the differences in normality (i.e. the upturned furniture) would create an eerie, sinister feel.

In one of our scenes we witness our female character filming a zombie on her phone; she is using the latest Apple iPhone technology to capture footage of the zombie. This was intended to create a sense of realism as the behaviour is typical of what certain teenagers would do in this situation, and signifies the attitudes and values common within youth culture these days. The iPhone is a modern mainstream product, and the video camera function allowed us to highlight (and reinforce) the stereotype that youths are fascinated with recording moments that are either offensive, distasteful or immoral. This would allow our target audience to connect to it, as they would either accept that the behaviour is symptomatic of their own attitudes and values, or it would stimulate indignation for it being an unfair portrayal. As an audience the viewers will know the danger and threat of the zombie and their for filming the zombie creates more of a build-up towards the action this fits in with the horror genre as this is typical of most horror films.

Facial expressions are also important when expressing the realism of a scene. As a result, we made our characters display a shocked expression with horrified emotions. We found that if our characters did not behave in this way it would create a disconnection with the audience as our acting would look false their fore the film opening would lose its seriousness and intensity. We also used another character who showed more interest than horror and wanted to find out more. We used two different reactions from teenagers so that the audience can link to one of the characters and think what they would do placed in the same

Leisha Burnett Question 1

situation. We felt to as a group that this is realistic view of how people may react. We also decided to challenge stereotypes, instead of a brave masculine male we decided to make him into a scared character and classed him as ‘the religious one’ we did this by making our character pray and make religious comments and used a female character to be the braver character out of the two, we also came up with the idea to make our character say ‘oh my God’ which showed the differences between the two.

In the beginning our scene we also blacked out all of the windows in the room to create a dark setting and used strobe lights to create a confused daunting atmosphere. Here we used a sense of originality which refers to the Steven Neale theory. Steven Neale celebrates the idea of the ‘differences’ within genres; while the repetition of elements is important, he highlights that the subtle changes within form and style allows films to advance, and prevent them from becoming dated or unoriginal.