AH: Question 1

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

• The opening sequence we have completed is titled ‘Inside’, it is based on a teenage boy who comes home to find the house empty and a note from his parents saying they are out for the evening. As he is settling down for the night the audience realise he is not alone. Later the boy gets suspicious of something on the other side of the house, as he investigates his room he realises he isn’t alone, with the TV on and window wide open he goes to call for help. The phone isn’t working. The sequence ends with a sudden shot of the antagonist in the house.
• Throughout the opening there are examples of enigma both conventional to horror and unconventional. The first is when the boy enters the house as there is a point of view – long shot of what seems to be someone watching him enter the house. This is conventional of horror openings as it injects initial fear and suspense; these types of shots set the foundations for the rest of the film.
• Another example of enigma within our opening is when the boy is seen within the house (on the phone) in another point of view shot. But now the shot is accompanied by the antagonist breathing, this shot has now built upon the initial POV, creating a theme. Following straight from this shot the audience are introduced to the antagonist in a mid-shot then panning downwards. This shot allows the audience to create a character exposition, which they have already done with the teenage boy.
• Finally the last example of enigma is near the end when the boy comes to investigate the suspicious noises to find his TV and window wide open. This is very conventional of horror openings, an example of this is in the opening of ‘The Ring’ (Verbinski,) when the women comes into the living room to find the TV on.
• As for our font and title screens we did a lot of research into this as we felt it really was a fundamental part of our opening. The results of the research were that we going to break the sequence up by black background titles, this was to help build tension.
• The font we originally went for was called ‘X-files’. This ended up not working as we just feel as if it conveyed the message we were hoping too. Finally we ended up putting our titles on top of three shots (no black background). The reason for this was not only because our sequence was a bit too long, but also that we felt the overlaid titles help reinforce the plot we had created.
• The final title is at the very end of our sequence, however this final title (title of our film ‘Inside’) did have a black background and wasn’t overlaid upon shots. We did this because we felt the actual title of the film is a huge factor in creating a representation to later be upheld in the film.
• Continuity editing is a huge factor in determining whether the piece will look amateur or not. In our sequence we display continuity editing mostly in the front part of the sequence. This is when the boy is arriving, on bike, to his house. The audience see a range of different shots in a short space of time, all portraying the same thing (him riding the bike up to the house).
• Also the mise-en-scene of the production is very conventional of horrors, the antagonist is in a gas mask and his identity isn’t revealed (further example of enigma). An example of another horror where the antagonist is in a mask is in all of the 'Scream’s. In this horror the antagonist has a mask, which the film made from scratch and looks like a ghost screaming.
• Following on from mise-en-scene the props we used were used to full effect I believe. For example the gas mask was crucial in injecting fear and suspense into the audience. Also the bike played a big role in introducing the teenage boy and setting the scene.
• The setting of our sequence was in a small village called Blackham, the house is all one level and has windows that cover the whole wall in the majority of the house. This desolate and remote location was perfect and is a strong convention of horrors. This house and location is much like that in the film ‘When a stranger calls’ (West, 06).
• Referring back to mise-en-scene, the costumes included in our opening are the teenage boys outfit and the antagonists. The teenage boys clothes were that of a typical teenage boy and conventional of horrors, this is because the costume on the victim shouldn’t take audiences attention away from the film.
• Whereas the antagonists costume was thought out a lot more, we had to get a completely black outfit and a gas mask. The whole point of the antagonists costume is to inject fear and build tension.
• The first 30 seconds when the boy is cycling up to house is a great example of diagetic sound and has no soundtrack in the background, so the diagetic sound adds to the realism of the opening. Further examples where diagetic sound is present is when the boy turns the kettle on, the sound is loud and is the first of all the shots when the boy has realised he’s home alone. A great inspiration in the use of diagetic sound for us was 'Harry Brown' (Barber, 09), the beginning of the film has huge amounts of diagetiv sound.
• The soundtrack we used suits our opening and was imperative to get right as all horror films have brilliant soundtracks to reinforce the storyline. The soundtrack we picked was very ambient, which is conventional of horrors. Our soundtrack is a lot like that included in ‘Shutter Island’ (Scorsese, 10) as it builds and becomes loud and then shrinks and is quiet, it does this almost on repeat until something major happens and it prolongs the loud high pitched noise.