Main Task - Evaluation Q1

Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Horror films are generally a popular genre for the cinematic experience; they explore themes of fear and disgust. The basis behind using this genre to create our media product was to thrill the audience, and entice them to watch our movie. Also, there are many different types of horror, there are slasher movies, supernatural and phenomena, monster and alien, vampire and legend based horror films. There is something for everyone to enjoy, which is why we felt, that combining something supernatural with an opening where the girl is slashed to death, would enhance the sense of vulnerability for the viewer. The audience are lulled into thinking that this is a straight forward slasher mystery, but instead there is a supernatural theme that becomes more apparent in the storyline.

In regards to more conventional genres, there are romance movies, period dramas, comedy’s, however not everyone is stimulated by these themes; although fear is something that grips all of us. Hence the reason for choosing this theme.

For our opening film sequence, in Paranoia, we felt there was little need for dialogue. It was important that we draw the audience’s attention by the use of action, but with an opening scene where there was a clear sense of danger. Not a sense of foreboding, or something ominous to happen, as with most horror movies, from the outset the audience anticipate the actual horror part of the film. We decided to start with the horror straight away. Similarly to the Sixth Sense, where Bruce Willis is shot or Blade, where we see the protagonist kill the hoard of vampires in an underground raving party.

The movie was shot simply; to create the visual aspect of the Mise en Scene in our opening, we wanted to shoot on a cloudy day, and we were lucky in achieving this. However, if we could not, there are methods of editing and creating this affect, by dulling the tone of the film by using the editing software. Our composition was to remain fairly basic; we angled the camera to shoot from a low angle, with a sort of mid shot angle, but from the ground up, this would then develop into a long shot of the victim running away. We wanted to give the viewer an idea of where the setting is, the sort of landscape of dead leaves and to enhance a sense of barrenness in her surroundings. This also creates a claustrophobic feel, although she is out in the open, the shot is deliberately confined and they are only able to see the ground and a decrepit iron railing fence in this frame, her means of escape from whatever she is running away from are limited.

If for example we look at common movies like ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ the seventies version and the recent post 2000 remake, there are scenes in which the characters are out in the open, yet the shot of some of the frames where they are filmed close-up gives a sense of confinement, and this builds the tension for the audience. Or in the movie The Others, we see the family clearly surrounded by open fields, and a large house, yet again there is a sense of confinement. As we often see little else, we never see them leave the house or the grounds. In my opinion this builds genuine sense of imprisonment for the viewer themselves, in other words, what the characters are feeling is projected onto those observing the scene.

Overall, our main aim was to excite and stimulate the viewing experience from the offset of the film, we did not wish to film a chronological order of events, where the excitement builds later on in the movie. But rather from the beginning, to create a sense of insecurity and a sense of the unexpected as most horror movies are deemed to do so. There are movies that require a chronological storyline, like The Descent, where the story begins with six women getting together for a caving expedition, and then are faced mid way though the movie with monstrous, carnivorous creatures. The movie that I would personally liken ours to is the Sixth Sense, where one initial story also links with another separate story to make one complete tense picture for the audience.