AS Evaluation- Question 1

AS Evaluation
Antonia Georgiou




1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

 A real horror movie has the following conventions:

• Ghosts.
• Blood/Gore.
• Home alone.
• Monsters and Ghouls.
• Haunted house.
• Possession.
• Darkness.
• Scary noises.
• Dolls.
• Deserted areas.
• Devil.

Above are some of the few conventions of horror movies and now I am going to explain and show how our media product "The Playhouse" uses, develops and challenges and uses conventions of a real media product.

At the start of my opening, we used a real convention of horror where I was speaking on the phone. This is a very popular convention to use as it causes a worry for the audience of who is on the phone. We know this is a convention of horror as this is used in many films such as the "Scream" films.

As you can see from the two screenshots to the left we have used one of the conventions of horror from Scream which is speaking on the phone. Even though this doesn't sound scary it gives the audience a sense of confusion.

 Another convention of horror we have used in our media product which is used in real media products is an establishing shot to open the scene but the establishing shot is a dark scene and is scary. This is also a very popular convention of horror.


Here is a screenshot from our media product compared to a real horror movie which is a convention or horror.

 The first screenshot is taken from "Scream" 1 and below is a screenshot of also an establishing shot from my own media product. As you can see they are both conventions of horror as the shot is dark and has trees and bushes around to make it scary which will creep the audience out.










Another real convention of horror is darkness and we have used this convention of horror in our own media product as well a real movies. Darkness is a convention of horror as it makes the audience feel tense and worried for anything that could pop out.

As you can see from the screenshots from a real media product and my own media product, darkness is a very effective media convention as it is so simple but yet so effective as it scares the audience as when people see darkness they  always relate it back to horror. 

We also used close ups of facial expressions in our media product and this is also used in real media products a lot. Close ups of facial express show how the characters feel and in  horror films it is usually emotions such as Scared, worried and confused.

As you can see from the screenshots above from my own media product and scream, close ups are used in real media films too and are very effective. Without close ups we wouldn't be able to tell how the character's are feeling. The emotion the character is feeling will most likely also attach to the audience as for example, if the main character in a horror film is feeling scared as she feels someone is in her house the audience would also feel scared as they would be scared for what is going to happen.

 

Overall, I would say that my media product has many conventions of horror and has very similar conventions to real media products. I have proved this by going through my media product and real media product and pointing out the similarities and conventions used in both my media product and a real media product.