EVALUATION Q1

EVALUATION 1

Conventions of our media product

Our product in some ways replicates any other typical horror movie opening sequence if you fail to acknowledge the subtleties in which we have utilised to create our unique idea. Despite this, the majority of our research into psychological-horror films was into the typical and famous films such as Insidious and Blair Witch Project. We gathered inspiration from these films' conventions such as the music and the lighting, as well as costume and setting. All factors were considered and acknowledged throughout our research. Once completing all of our research and re-evaluating our initial opening sequence idea we set out to ask ourselves how we could make our film different from the films we have gathered inspiration from, such as Insidious and The Blair Witch Project. We knew we had to challenge the conventions to create a never-been-done-before idea that would be credible to our research also. 

Within our research towards the Final Girl Theory, our opening sequence challenges this as the main character, who reflects the 'final girl', isn't at all the hero or the strong independent female who saves everyone, but she is in fact the twisted evil one who kills nurses at every hospital she goes to, due to a grudge she holds from her childhood. despite this, the audience will feel conflicted as we learn a lot about her abusive childhood which makes them like her as well as fear her; this is why our opening sequence challenges typical horror movies.

The conventions of a Horror film typically consist of the generic creepy soundtrack as well as a female character who appears to be insane of deceased. Despite other factors of our opening sequence being unique, these two famous conventions are utilised in our final product. We use the soundtrack from ‘Candy man’ in our opening sequence as well as our main character being a female whose appearance is frightening and also is mentally insane. The lighting inspiration was not really from a specific film, as when you think of the lighting in a typical horror film you do immediately think of darkness and low-key lighting, which is why we predominantly use a darkly saturated filter for the majority of our final product. We also use a 60’s inspired filter for the scenes shot in the ‘hospital’ which we took inspiration from ‘Girl, Interrupted’.

The costume was actually again our way of sticking to the traditions of a typical ‘dead girl’ outfit, with dark eye make-up, messy hair, a long hospital gown. We used this ‘typical look’ as our main character wore a white hospital gown which we dishevelled for the outdoor scenes to make look more realistic and over-worn. She also had messy hair and pale skin to appear as if she was ill and malnourished. Many of the close up shots showed her with dark and ‘hollow’ looking eyes which is also a convention of a horror film.  We knew that we could maintain the most common conventions of horror films whilst also twisting the features of the opening sequence subtly to make the audience confused further. We have challenged the fact that in most opening sequences in horror films they wouldn’t reveal that much in the opening sequence, however we have chosen to reveal a lot about the main character’s life: the audience will believe that all has been revealed however I know that if our film was to continue they would be confused and find the plot difficult to understand due to its complexity in order to reflect the main character’s psychological trauma. 

Additionally, most horror films wouldn’t reveal its actually a horror film until the title sequence is over and the film has actually begun. We challenge this as in our opening sequence, from its onset we make it clear to the audience that it is a horror. Also, the structure of our opening sequence also challenges typical horrors. Usually we see horror films with flowing plots which just pan out and lead to a final climax, however ours never really has a beginning, middle or end, yet a complete mixture of past and present throughout, so the audience will struggle to know what is happening and when.