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

In this scene, the main protagonist runs through a series of dark rooms. The shot is filmed as a POV in an attempt to help the audience engage with the character. The only light comes from a flashlight, the light is eventually shone on the antagonists face. The reason I have chosen this scene is the use of light to elevate fear within the scene.

In this scene a close up/longshot of the window frame and grounds is used in an attempt to help the audience see the setting. Both shots use focus to keep the shots interesting and create a sence of ambiguity in the audience.

In this scene the main antagonist is standing in a longshot. The reason I like this scene is that you cannot really properly make out the features of the antagonist due to the lighting and the use of a dark costume. Despite this it is clear that it is the main antagonist. In the trailer the antagonist is jump cut around the room, creating quite a disorientating effect.

I chose this scene because I often see the use of high angle shots of stairs within horror movies, the concept of looking down up a character running up stairs seems to work well in creating tension.

Both of these shots are very quick, and work as one of the few oppotunities that the audience have to have a look at the antagonist. I think little sneak peaks like this work well in keeping the audience interested.

This is the first shot in our trailer and works as an establishing shot for our setting. I think that our establishing shot helps to show the audience that our setting is a creepy building and the big metal gates are quite a classic convention in horror.

In both these scenes close ups are used to help reveal story line. At this point in our trailer it is not clear who the main protagonist is and I think shots like this help to create that sence of mystery.

While these two shots are not completely similar, they are both close up shots. Having close up shots of the antagonist is a classic  horror convention and is essential in simply making the trailer scary. I've seen that these close ups are normally very quick and used as a scare tactic.

I think scenes with doors in horror is quite are classic ones. The concept of opening a door and not knowing what is behind it could be considered a horror convention in itself and is definetly useful for creating tension and for following up with jumpy moments!

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Within our trailer we used a combination of short quick shots and longer, tension building shots in order to keep the audience interested, I think this fits into the forms and conventions of horror well, as in most horrors there are parts which build tension followed by a ‘jumpy’ moment. We tried to make our horror trailer fit the conventions by keeping it at a pace where you could understand what was going on but allowed tension to be slowly built throughout the trailer. There are a number of these moments within our trailer, some examples of which would be when the chair moves in the empty room, and the build up to it, another example would be at the end of the trailer when the protagonist is running through the rooms in the dark and the flashlight settles on the antagonists face.

The whole setting for our trailer was directly affected by our research on horror movies. The place we filmed in was an old naval mental hospital and this seemed very appropriate for a horror movie. I think that this setting worked really well and some of the shots of the setting work really well with the narrative. The opening shot of the massive metal gates opening is a good example of us trying to use something which has direct ties to classic horror conventions. I think the final scene with the POV shot running through the rooms works really well too,  having an empty building with nothing in it really helped in making this scene effective.

Some of the scenes within the trailer are shot with a slight canted angle, we done this in an attempt to make the audience feel slightly disorientated and on edge, some of the canted angles are not immediately obvious but I think that it still has an effect on how you interpret the trailer. We also used low angles which also gives a slightly disorientating effect on how the trailer is viewed. Another type of shot that we have used that I think has really worked well is POV shots, we have quite a few shots which are taken as POV’s, and multiple shots which could be interpreted as being POV’s. I think that in nearly all of these they are used very effectively and definitely give that creepy ‘being watched’ feeling that is present in so many horror films.

Within the trailer we wanted to include key themes such as isolation, ambiguity and loneliness, all 3 being key conventions of horror. I feel that the way we constructed the trailer, along with the way we determined how edited the light on most scenes contributed greatly to this. I think the music and sound also works well in creating a mysterious feeling throughout the trailer.

We also aimed to create ambiguity in the way the antagonist and protagonist are revealed. Especially within the case of the antagonist, their identity is never truly revealed which seems to leave the trailer with an open ending and leaves the audience in the position to want more. The identity of the protagonist is slowly revealed throughout the trailer and having the last scene as a POV was an attempt to let the audience identify with the character.