Evaluation Question 1

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

Conventions used
A typical convention of Horror films for all audiences is turning normally secure and safe places or people into a threat, such as in the film the Woman in Black (click here for full post) for full and  The Children (click here for full post)

We used this convention in order to make the audience feel uncomfortable and shocked, which is why we had the main villian (according to Propps characters) as a seemly innocent female child, as this stark contrast between the normal perception of children and the shock of her makeup and threatening actiosn withing teh opening help to vastly build the audiences tension and fear.

Another very stereotypical convention we use was the 'haunted house' as seen not only in films such as the Woman in Black (click here), but also gothic novels such as Frankenstein (click here), which also helped portray our Gothic theme

(click here for full post on final location)

We wanted to use this convention in order to obviously signify the genre to the audience and also because there are no other houses around it it gives the audience the impressions she is isolated and alone, linking to our title. The fact that is derelict and abandoned, as well as signifying danger also gives the impression that she has been abandoned to the audience and the broken gates and glass create a feeling of foreboding, as it foreshadows violence.

Another convention we used was that horror usually contains pathetic fallacy, which normally means storms and violent weather. such as Wind Chill.

Although we could not control the weather, as it was windy during production we added strong wind sound effects to convey the tension and danger in the opening, and also the loud noise makes the audience feel uncomfortable so they are tense for when the girl appears.

Another convention which we used is the female protagonist, as in films such as I Spit on your Grave the 'hero' (according to Propp's character theory) is always a young female, as they are considered as vulnerable and allow the audience to sympathise more and therefore become more involved with the story.

We thought this would help the audience to distinguish our genre and also help them become more gripped by the story and encourage them to keep watching.

A particularly specific convention of the gothic sub-genre which we wanted to include was candlelight, and more specifically, antique (or old fashioned looking, Victorian) candelabras. We noticed this used in Gothic films such as Sweeney Todd in which most scenes are lit by candles or lamps. (click here for props research)

We used only candlelight apart from a spotlight on the main actress's face to create a feeling fo the unknown and also used a candlebra on the mantelpiece of the fireplace to emphasise the victorian influence and the gothic sub-genre

One convention which we challenged is that most modern films aimed at young audience are in colour. We were inspired by some of the first horror films such as Nosferatu (click here for full post on gothic films) which although at the time they were filmed had no choice between colur and black and white created a convention in their own right which has been lost over the years as younger audiences become more impatient and more keen on visual spectacle than on the storyline

 

We chose to challenge the modern convention of full colour always being used for films aimed at young audiences, as we wanted ot have a unique selling point and also felt it would help create a gothic atmosphere and enable us to intertextual reference within the rest of the film (had we made it) to the original horror's to create a sense of a time gone by, with connotations of things that are gone or dead, adding to the spiritual aspects of the little girl.

For the titles we decided to use a convention of gothic, and as it is often linked with Victorian times, the Gothic genre is often represented using serif fonts, as they look more traditional and old fashioned, which we also noticed in our research into other Gothic media

We chose to use a simple serif font to highlight the gothic theme and also to make a link with Victorian times (click here for post on the Victorian era) which is when the little girl is from.

Overall, we conformed to most of the conventions of Horror as we wanted to make the genre immediately clear to the audience, and we felt challenging too many conventions would confuse the audience, and make the opening less dramatic.