Evaluation 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
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In our media production we developed and challenged forms and conventions. We developed them as it makes it easier for our audience to denote it as a horror genre and challenged them to make it a more individual product and stand out from other horror films however, it is difficult to make the product individual as living in a post modern society ideas are mostly re-used and recycled.

I researched the horror genre by using sources such as IMDB, wikipedia and google. I also watched the trailers on Youtube. I found out from my research that the horror genre uses many stereotypes such as a 'blonde scream queen bimbo' and an 'intelligent final girl brunette'. Also, the killer is predominatly a masculine tall male. After deciding the narrative for our trailer we chose to challenge the codes and conventions by having a female brunette killer. I noticed from my research how important music on the trailer was as it helps set and change the mood for the audience between different scenes. The mood throughout most horror films is a dull dark mood which is created from the music and also through colour. The most common colours are red, black and white which are specifically chosen. In the majority of horror films the weather is dull and rainy which is used to put the audience in a sad mood. This is seen in Gothika Mathieu Kassovitz 2003 trailer. However, in the Donkey Punch trailer it is set on a holiday island and the weather is sunny which the audience will associate with being happy. This may have been used to trick the audience into thinking it wasn't a horror film.

From our research we found that most horror films have a final girl such as Laurie Strode in John Carpenters Halloween. We decided to portray our protagonist as a final girl type by having a brunette actress and in the bar scenes she comes across shy and un-interested in the conversation. However, un aware to the audience, she is actually the killer in the film. We could have developed this stereotype by making her seem innocent, but we decided to portray her as a 'slut' which is shown by her coming onto the male character as this sets up a motive for the killings. In the first few shots the protagonist is seen applying make up and is wearing a low cut red dress which creates links in the audiences mind to her being a sexually active character. This goes against the codes and conventions as the final girl is typically a non sexually active character.
We used a binary opposition which is commonly used between the protagonist, who is a brunette and the 3 blonde characters as when they are all sat in the bar the blonde girls dominant the shots and there is a juxtaposition to the one brunette girl with the hair colours.
Also, when the protagonist and her friend, Sophie enter the bar Sophie recieves the attention from the group especially the male while Lucy goes virtually un-noticed. We did this to make the audience feel sorry for her and throw them off the track that she is the killer.
I feel we have challenged codes and conventions by having a female killer as this is an uncommon trait in horrors. Although, in the Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino 2003 and 2004) films they have developed this even further by having a blonde female killer. I think this is what most horror films are going to do now as the audience are starting to guess the character types to easily and therefore uncover the plot. So the audience may be more inclinded to what a horror film where there is more suspense as they are unsure until the end who the killer is.

For our male character, we used a typical 'jock' popular male (similar to the character Jake in 'Not another teen movie' ) which is shown by how at ease Theo is when he's sat flirting with 3 attractive girls in the bar while most boys would feel intimidated in this situation. This convention is shown in films such as Hell night and Scream. We used 3 attractive blondes to fit in with the ‘scream queen’ busty blonde type to bring in the ‘male gaze theory’. Although there are now many critics who argue that this theory is too simplistic therefore we also need to consider an equivalent ‘female gaze’ which the male character Theo may fit this character type. However, we could have emphasised this factor more by having a variety of attractive boys other than one but this was hard to portray in a trailer as you don’t want to confuse the audience with to many characters.
Theos character is also similar to Clay Miller from Friday the 13th (Marcus Nispel 2009) as he is a tall dark haired character who remains alive until the end of the film. Although Theo appears as a 'player' in the bar scenes by flirting with 3 attractive blondes, when he turns down the protagonist he says 'i like someone else' which shows that he does have loyalties to another girl and isnt as shallow as he is initially portrayed to be. This could make the audience think that he may not die after he has said that comment as in most horror films the victims are seen to 'deserve' to die and this comment makes Theo seem like he is a nice person therefore not worthy of being killed. On the other hand, the 3 girls in the bar are portrayed as flirty and sexually active so following the codes and conventions of horror films, they do deserve to die.

We used a brunette female killer as dark colours signify death, evil and wrong-doing which this character then goes on to be the murderer in the trailer. Female audiences especially feminists may like the brunette female as she has a strong character and is in control of the situations which she is seen in in the trailer. A false sense of security is created around the protagonist as the audience wont initially suspect her, resulting in when the killers face is revealed it surprises the audience and could lead them to doubt people in future situations.

We challenged a common code in horror by having a female killer as stereotypically the killer is a male character who is portrayed to be intimidating by being tall, strong and dark haired such as Thomas Hewitt in the Texas Chain saw Massacre. Our female character is similar to Megan Fox who stars in Jennifers body.

The killer in Horror films faces are often hidden either by a mask or have some sort of deformity which is used to add to the scariness of the character. In our production, the killers face is shown although the audience is un-aware that she is the murderer as during the murders you can't see her face apart from in the second killing when you can see a small part of the back of her head. Furthermore, the audience will be suspecting the male character to be the killer as they will have that expectation in there head prior to watching our film due to other horror films. At the end of the film when the audience find out that the killer is the brunette character this will surprise them as they wouldn't expect it to be her as she is portrayed as a 'final' girl type.
Our second killing occurs in the shower which is an intertextual reference to Dressed to kill and Psycho as both of these films feature a killing in the shower. Both Janet Leighs character from Psycho and Fran from our trailer are both attractive blonde females which creates more of a link between the 2 characters as they look similar which the audience could relate too. We decided to use this location as the character is in a vulnerable position. Also, the majority of our audience will be male teenagers and having a female appear naked in the shower, the sexual aspect will appear to them and entice them to go watch our film after seeing the trailer.

In our trailer there is no authority figure which is a common code and convention of horror as they have featured in films such as Last house on the left (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl2lmFPBGN8) , Prom night (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_7JKWRWnkU) and Halloween (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I0YbRxoWlU) as the form of parents or police.

Using an authority figure may widen our target audience as an older audience have characters to relate too.
The legacy of blood by Jim Harper controversially argues that the virgin as a final girl and sexually active female as the scream queen has been abandoned in horror films for some time. There are a minority of films Candyman, Blair witch project and Paranormal activity which do not have a final girl and in Candyman and Blair witch project all of the characters die which is unusual. Although Paranormal activity can be seen as an expectation as it is an extremely low budget production and only has 4 characters (2 males and 2 females) there is neither a final girl type or a scream queen in this production.
However, the majority of horror films, including classics such as Halloween and Donkey Punch, include a final girl as this means there is scope for a sequel and so the final girl can reveal indirectly to the audience by telling her family or the police about what happened and who the killer is.

All of the characters in our trailer have Yorkshire accents, we are aware that this may limit our appeal to a wider audience such as a Southern England audience and an American audience as Americans associate the southern England representation with English people as a whole so our Yorkshire characters may confuse them. We didnt purposely choice to have our characters speak in a Yorkshire accent, it was the only availablilty of characters to us. Also, there are some films such as 'The full Monty' and 'This is England' which have been successful and feature Northern characters. If we had a bigger budget than we could have used professional actors who wouldnt have as strong Yorkshire accents as our current cast do.
We decided to have lots of clips in our trailer to establish the plot and communicate the genre to the audience, similar to Donkey Punch (Oliver Blackburn 2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6kxswnHn3c Valentine (Jamie Blanks 2001) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA-koJi7wVU
Unlike films such as The Unborn (David S Goyer 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc3Cba0qOco whose trailers give less of the narrative away.

My research showed me how vital music is too the trailer as if used properly it can create great suspense to the audience. In our trailer the music comes in once the protagonist puts a CD into the CD player. This is similar to the Scream trailer as there isnt music on the first few shots and it also reflects our youthful target audience.
The voice over that is featured on our trailer is a males voice which is a common code and convention of horror. We could have challenged this by using a females voice which may have fitted in more with our trailer as it is a predominantly female cast although we thought a males voice seems more stereotypically scarier as it is deeper than a females. We used the voice over to give exposition of the narrative but we didn’t want to give too much away.
We also ended our film with a shock image which is a code and convention of horror films.