Evaluation - forms and conventions

My media product uses forms and conventions of real media products; I believe I stuck to generic conventions, which gives the opening a genuine feel.  The storyline, misenscene and range of shots are vital to ensuring my media product shares the forms and conventions of a real media product.

The storyline is a typical teen horror film storyline, which briefly consists of four rebellious teenagers who steal a bottle of vodka and a tent and explore deep into a creepy forest drunk encountering an evil threat who attacks them, but the antagonist (Bradley) saves the girl and restores normality by killing the villain. I decided to go for a typical storyline as I believe subverting the conventions might have been difficult to convey in a two minute opening and would only confuse the audience, also some of the audience might not enjoy a subverted storyline because it might appear to be unrealistic and unconventional, its not what audiences are use to. By subverting the storyline I essentially mean reversing the key conventions, for example: the girl is the hero and saves the boy. This isn’t typical of a teen horror film.  Drunken teens are typical in teenage horror films, we see it time and time again, it’s purely because by being drunk they’re vulnerable and signifies to the audience they are likely to be killed. Therefore the bottle of vodka is a symbol of danger.

A typical teen/horror film setting is a gloomy woodland area, so I decided on choosing my film to be set in the woods. The setting to the film is very important as it contributes to the misenscene, so a scary setting will set the scary tone for the film. Showing its importance I named my film on the setting:”The Woodland Massacre,”  sticking to conventions and to give it that real media product feel I got my inspiration to name my film this from researching successful films, such as: Texas chainsaw massacre, and nightmare on elm street. Both of these films give away the setting from the title.

I used typical shots used in horror films, such as the point of view. which I used twice, Shows a view from the subject's perspective, because I edited in such a way it makes the shot look blurry and strongly suggests to the audience it’s a POV of the threat as the POV is chasing the distressed girl, I believe this is an effective shot because it creates great excitement for the audience as it makes them feel a part of the film, they get to view the action from the subjects perspective.

However, I also believe I developed forms and conventions, as in a typical horror film opening the audience are usually exposed to some action or form of danger to entice them intro watching the rest of the film. I have done this but I have shown quick snippets of exciting footage which the audience will later see again. Some people might argue it could give away the storyline but I myself and lots of people I surveyed in my year (the target audience) believes it attracts them even more because by showing them clips of footage which will happen later on in the film, not only do they start to build am understanding of the characters but also they are left asking questions like why is the girl running? Who is she running from?  These are enigma codes and they attract the audience to watch the rest of the film to answer their questions.