AS Coursework Reflection: Using Conventions from Real Media Texts

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

We wanted to conform to conventions of the horror genre toe ensure the audience relates and enjoys it. To conform to conventions, we had a female character as the victim. The character conformed to conventions where she is completely oblivious to her surroundings, making her vulnerable. Our use of music throughout and little dialogue is also conventional as it ensures increased tensions due to the minor key in which it is in. We also conformed to conventions through the use of special effects makeup and overall story of the killer.

However, we challenged conventions by having a murder within the first opening scene of the film. This is unusual as you don't get much insight into the characters lives beforehand and so don't have much information on why they get killed. The school setting is also unusual as only teenagers can really relate to it, leaving a somewhat smaller target audience of current and recent students. These are some things we might consider changing or emphasising in future projects.

Is your work generic or experimental, or both?

Our work is quite conventional and generic of the horror genre as we wanted to attract a typical audience to watch it. Using elements such as typical, spooky music and little dialogue helped us to increase tensions and make our film more conventional and generic of the horror genre. Some elements, such as the unusual setting and murder at the beginning are quite experimental as they're quite unconventional of the genre - meaning it could have been a bad idea or a good idea. 

Have you developed a style? Have you been influenced by the work of specific directors etc.?

I don't believe we have developed much of a style as our film was quite generic and very similar to other horror films. We made our film quite generic as it meant we could use conventions to make our film more realistic and more enjoyable to a typical target audience. We didn't have much influence from specific directors, however we looked at quite a few horror films, such as 'Scream', to get an idea of the types of things we wanted to include in our film.