AS Media Studies: Foundation Portfolio Evaluation Question 2 by Conor

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

The conventions of a psychological horror are that it is generally an unknown threat, something that cannot be explained, (e.g a ghost), a vulnerable character, commonly a woman, a lot of dramatic, tense music and in Paranormal Activity for example, point of view camera shots.

We decided that we wanted point of view camera shots to be used in our film, as they created a tense atmosphere and suspense, as the audience feels like they are actually in the movie and watching the drama unfold first hand - we saw how this happened in Paranormal Activity and how effective it was

This is an example of us trying to emulate the likes of "Paranormal Activity" who like to intimidate their audience by using shots like this (Point of view) which make it seem as though the viewer is actually in the situation, they feel what it is like to be in the characters shoes and therefore feel the same emotion and vulnerability which the character may display.

Another convention which we stuck to was the use of a female actress. This choice is often made due to the ideological thought that women are more vulnerable than males, this makes the storyline more believeable and also enduces more sympathy from viewers as the female victim could theoretically do less to defend themselves and therefore, there is more t feel sorry the the character about. 

This is our actress who we feel fits the stereotype of a young woman who would be more susceptible to attack! I feel as though this was the right way to go and compared to the thought of a male playing her role, we feel that this is significantly the better option.

This is Paris Hilton in "the house of wax" who fits perfectly into the stereotype and is who in a way we shaped our character on.

Also, we aimed to build the same amount of tension and mystery through sound which other similar films do! We looked at again the likes of "paranormal activity" who use both shocking sounds as well as more creepy, eerie sounds. We have examples of both of these:

 We had this shot of the door slamming behind our charcter as she entered the building, this is a prime example of the type of effect used in paranormal activity...

This is the scene which we indented to in a way replicate. We wanted to vary this iconic scene in which the bedroom door slams out of the blue causing massive shock to any viewers! This is what we hope to have achieved in our attempt which we feel should cause some jumps from the audience!

As i mentioned, aswell as the shock factor of sound...we also wanted to introduce creepy types of sound which would add to the tensity and mystery of its respective scene. We use whispers which we created ourselves on GarageBand using our own voices throughout the film, i personally see this as a massive positive in our film, i believe that it adds a significant amount of threat whilst visibly causing our character discomfort.

Equally, we wanted to optimise the use of editing in our film in order to increase its effect.

Myself being the main editor of the film itself, i intended to keep to two general rules.
1) when the film is calm and quiet, i wanted to use as few shot cuts as possible keeping the calm atmosphere alive and at the same time luring the audience into a false sense of security before the action begins.

2) when the film becomes tense and loud i wanted to include as many cuts as possible building tensity and making the viewers more alert to everything, this would hopefully keep the viewers on the dge of their seats, anticipating what may be around the corner.

These two a usually kept to in well known horror films like again paranormal activity which goes to the extreme of only using one shot until the action begins.

They have the one standard shot of the bedroom which if honest begins to bore the audience and therefore make the shock of for instance a door slamming all the more alarming! We did not go to that extreme but have attempted to keep a certain amount of its effect in what we have done.

Other things which i feel come from conventions of typical physcological horrors come thick and fast during our film, another example of that of the image at the top of this post which i will post again below:

This shot is typical of similar horrors of the same genre. It is a closed door, nothing special, but accompanied by fast paced music, whispers and everything else which this scene combines in our film, it becomes a mystery filled shot which should enduce intrigue and interest in what lies behind...but of course in our film you never find out what lies behind the door which is ANOTHER convention of physchological horrors...that of leaving the audience on a cliffhanger.

 

 

In conclusion i feel that we stuck to the conventions in general and did it well.