Tuesday 23 February 2010

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

I feel that my trailer utilises some of the conventions of horror movies. One in particular is the use of point-of-view shots to put the audience in place of either the monster or the main protagonist. In the case of my trailer, the audience is put in the places of both protagonists at least once. We used the protagonist's point of view to put the audience watching the creature coming out from the cupboard, we also then used the point of view of the monster when watching the girl take the necklace from the grave and hiding amongst the trees.



I also noted the use of different levels within the buildings as a place of hiding and fear, I used this in the shot of the girl being dragged into a dark basement. Other films use different levels in buildings as places to hide secrets, for example in "Haunting in Connecticut" with the autopsy room being in the basement. The use of mirrors and windows is an interesting convention in the mise-en-scene of many trailers, they are useful items when it comes to camera angles and jumpy moments. For example, in my trailer i used a mirror to cast the reflection of the demonic girl standing in the corner whilst the other girl was writing on the mirror, I believe a similar effect was used in "Unborn" with the little boy in the mirror.
Windows wasn't a hard thing to choose for the trailer. We used a reference from "The Hills have Eyes" with a boy jumping at the window of the caravan. It was simple to replicate and add more fear into it by adding darkness. The use of light was extremely difficult during the production of the trailer, however, we utilised brighter light for silhouettes to cast horrific shadows, such as the cloaked demon in the corridor, whereby the sillhouette hid the face adding mystery and uncertainty.


I believe this is also used in "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" with the demonic silhouette against some dim light. One very interesting light technique we used which is used in many horror movies is torch-light or candle light, both are used in the trailer, more signoficantly, the torch light was used to show one of the demonic girls standing by a tree and then disappearing. This is a way of showing the audience's focus. Candle light is a good eery light to cast interesting shadows and effects around a shot. Camera angles are used effectively in a majority of horror movies, such as canted angles, low angles and high angles. each of them with their own connotation of the position of the characters on screen. In my trailer, I have tried to use as many canted and low angles as possible to show the demons and monsters in dominance, which, in most films, is the case. One example of a low angle would be when the demon is walking down the corridor, the camera angle is low which is also to put the audience in place of the main protagonist and show that the demon is the superior figure within this shot. Another example of low angles is the shot of a girl walking down a wooded path carrying a shovel, which I thought was an interesting concept to showing the girl as intimidating. One aspect about my trailer does follow a convention of the teaser trailers is the length. A typical teaser trailer canvary from a minute to 1.5 minutes, my trailer lasts for one minute and it doesn't reveal too much of the narrative in that time, leaving many questions to be answered upon watching the film if there was to be one. However, one of the conventions of teaser trailers is to have a climactic soundtrack nearer the end, my trailer has a fairly dream-like sound-track throughout with some added booms, however, I have added a heartbeat to the soundtrack which speeds up as the trailer progresses, whether or not it makes any difference I shall leave to the audience.These factors all contribute greatly to horror and I feel that my trailer utilises these conventions effectively to create horror at its best.

1 comment:

  1. This is fairly good but deals exclusively with horror conventions. You also need to consider the conventions of the products AS A TEASER TRAILER; eg what elements of the narrative are revealed and what concealed, do you encourage audience identification with a main protagonist, how do you generate a sense of build up and a desire to see the film?

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