In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

Use of mask

• Use of a mask on antagonist- We researched various slasher horrors for example Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Strangers, Saw and Scream.

• I found that the use of a mask is effective as it provides a mysteriousness, adds to the horror element as it is a conventional horror element .

• Our mask however is different to conventional horror masks, it is a monkey mask, as we wanted to challenge the convention. I feel that our mask was effective as it distances the antagonist due

Use of young girl as main protagonist

• We chose to use a young girl because we saw that in films such as 'Lovely Bones' and 'Hide and Seek' that it is an effective character.

• Due to the fact that that the audience will feel sympathy most for a young girl. Also young girls are most vulnerable which shows a convention of characters in horror films.

• Our main protagonist is also the last girl which is a conventional character in horror films.

Use of man as main antagonist

• We chose to use a man as our main antagonist as we felt that it would be an appropriate antagonist due to the fact that our protagonist is a little girl. On top of this the conventions of the way men are presented in horror films is that they are more aggressive and tend to cause trouble.

• Films we used as a reference point to the idea of using a man as the antagonist are 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre', 'Lovely Bones' 'The Shining', even though these films are throughout different genres, we felt that they showed that a male antagonist is effective.

Use of teen stock characters

• We decided to use stock characters that were teens. These were the wanderer, popular girl, popular boys. We chose these characters from our research of Scream as we thought they were effective especially as our target audience is also teens of the same age as the actors.

Themes• Teen orientated- We decided to use teen stock characters in our trailer, who lead a

typical teenage lifestyle, i.e. drinking, having fun and to a certain extent going on a camping trip. Films that we have got our inspiration from are Scream and Jeepers Creepers.

• Violence/ Death- A main theme in our horror trailer, which is prominent in the whole horror movie genre for example in classic slasher horrors such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday 13th, is violence leading to death. We represented these themes by the fact that our main antagonist is a sadistic killer. An example of this in our trailer is the fact that he is chasing the protagonists with a knife.

• Captivity- Throughout our trailer the theme of the antagonist capturing the protagonists is prominent. We felt that this is an effective theme used in the horror movie genre as it is a sudden effect that creates fear. Films that we used as inspiration to use this were The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Devils Rejects

• Trip gone wrong- Our film was based on a camping trip where our main protagonists went on a trip to a deserted location. We used this as we felt that it was a conventional narrative throughout the horror genre. See locations research.

Magazine Cover• Our magazine front cover has many elements that are conventional to

magazine covers for example; masthead, information about what is inside the magazine, images of some of the inside content, taglines, give aways that come with the magazine.

• These all lead to what, in my opinion is an effective magazine cover as the use of all of these conventions, on top of the conventional horror colours of red and black, create a creepy, scary feel to the magazine which is what you are looking for when creating a horror magazine front cover.

• The font also stands out from the background as it is bold and also because of the colours used.

• The mode of address is also effective as it relates to our target audience which is older teens to young adults.

Film Poster

• Our film poster sticks to conventions as it has:The title of the filmA main image that the audience will focus onProduction creditsTaglineWithin horror conventions it has:Dark lighting and use of dark coloursA scary imageBold font which is then lit up so that it stands out from the dark

backgroundUse of shadow on the main image