1. Evaluation
Part 1

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

3. Section A: How did your horror film fit the
genre?
The word ‘genre’ means type or category its an easy way in which we fit things in
and find them easily to remember. Different types of genre of horror film would be
action horror, psychological or thriller. The genre of horror film we decided to use
came from our love of different horror films. Not anything too scary which we went
down the route of having a trailer which is full of action and suspense but also with
added in psychological horror which gives in that sense of suspense and unknown
and really makes you want to get into the characters heads. Thomas Schatz is the
critic behind this “genre theory” (which he expressed through his book Hollywood
genres 1981) generic conventions sell the films to the audience because they
generally are things that attract people to that genre of film this means that they
look for films that follow these conventions this allows you to focus on conventions
that you know are going to interest people allowing a larger audience.

4. Section A:
The most common convention in our trailer is the use of the “final girl”
we see this throughout because we see this blonde girl fighting the
killer. This is also going against conventions because usually the blonde
girl is the victim. As seen in Psycho(1960) and that Marion Crane is the
blonde female victim but we do also see the use of the reverse
Conventions such as in Dawn of the Dead (2004). The use of the final
girl has came more predominant within modern horror films as this is
approached to a wider audience.

5. Real life horror films which are psychological/
action horror films.
The purge: 28 weeks later:

6. Section B: How does your trailer fit the conventions of horror
trailers:
The importance of conventions in horror films is to help you understand what type
of film you are watching. The different conventions need to work together such as
the different uses of pacing. If you were making an action horror film you need a lot
of quick pacing of car chases but if you were making a psychological horror film you
would need more slow pacing this would help the audience get into the head of the
character and cause this messing with your head. But also even the mix of two
paces in order to create jump scares this is the use of collision cuts so from going
slow to quick. This is a convention we used a lot within our trailer to cause the
feeling of panic and suspense. The key to having a good horror trailer is the
conventions and getting the balance right between it. This is something we had to
take into consideration so by taking out shots so the scenes didn’t drag out and to
get straight into the jump scare. For instance the slow running down the alley way
to the scream of the girl. This causes a jump because you have the correct slow to
quick ratio. Also to have the intertitles on for the correct duration so enough
reading time but not too much screen time. The music is the key to the trailer we
had our music fitted and designed for our trailer so it fitted perfectly the use of the
heart beat when she has a knife to her face causes that suspense and panic feeling.

7. Films that we looked at in order to make our
trailer:
Insidious 3: Mama:

8. Section c: what auteur influence did you bring
into your trailer? What makes it distinctive?
Despite our horror trailer being based on psychological events such as getting into
the mind of some messed up murderer. There is a very strong belief of this ‘blonde
fetish’ that the murderer has. This is very like some of the things that Alfred
Hitchcock brings to his films. “Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that
shows up the bloody footprints.” — Alfred Hitchcock
We had our murderer have this love for blonde hair and its later events which
triggered his girlfriends discovery to this bizarre fetish that he had. We took most
influence from his films because he had a good way in which he brought victims
and suspense into his films. The use of suspense can be seen his film The
birds(1963) you can also see in this film his love for using
a blonde female victim. He is the auteur that we used
for the plot of our trailer.

9. Section c: what auteur influence did you bring
into your trailer? What makes it distinctive?
Andrew Sarris is the main critic behind this idea of “auteur theory” and this is a theory that I think
you need to stick by in order to make a fantastic film. Auteur theory shows how well a director can
show there creative side when making a film to make it your own. Like before mentioned with
Alfred Hitchcock and his love for blonde women this is something you see throughout his films and
it means that you recognise it as being his work. Making a film work is like a piece of art an in order
to make our trailer like a piece of art we had someone create our music specifically for our trailer. I
think this works well because each clip and each different type of music or effect fits perfectly and
this is like a piece of art. The use of music is effective in the scene when Carrie turns down Tommy
in Carrie(2013) music here big up this Tommy the teenage boy who every girl seems to fancy and
makes him seem really cool and its controversial to music in other horror films which is used to add
suspense but I feel that music here is used to add effect to the scene and to the characters.