1. Question 1:
In what way does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products

2. A conventional antagonist found in
many horror movies is a supernatural
entity. In our Horror film we used a
form of demonic possession to turn a
seemingly innocent character into an
unforgiving killer. The technique of
turning a character into an
unrecognisable villain has been used in
some big horror movies of the last few
centuries perhaps most recently in the
paranormal activity series where the
initial protagonist, Katie is discovered
to be being possessed by an entity we
had seen disturbing the happy life she
was leading with her boyfriend.
In The Hellion we decided to give the initial perception that
there is a purely human villain at work and that this person
is responsible for Willow’s disappearance (the reason the
others enter into the woods in the first place). But then as
the story gradually unfolds the truth becomes apparent and
it becomes a race for survival. This is takes a conventional
storyline and alters the beginning before retuning to the
stereotypical horror roots.

3. LIONSGATE:
This is a company quite heavily associated
with some of the big, modern horror films
and franchises such as The haunting in
Connecticut and both the Saw and Hostel
series. If you can be associated with a
reputable company that has horror films to
its name then you instantly have a fan base
who could associate the institution and
subsequently your film with some of the
BAD ROBOT: greats in the genre.
One of our biggest inspirations for our
film was the another hand help camera
style film, Clover field. We therefore
decided that we wanted to draw further
connections with a movie in the same
style as our own, so we chose Bad Robot
as one of the institutions that supports
The Hellion.
We Furthered the effects of the logos and instantly allowed the audience to draw a
connection to the upcoming trailer and the horror genre through a mysterious growl
and a distorted transaction between the two logos.

4. Once the audience feedback on our
initial poster had been collected, it had
been implied that the typeface needed
changing so we looked through all of
the fonts and chose an archaic looking
one. We then specifically asked people
what connotations this font and they
immediately associated it with a horror
and old feel. This is because the old,
gothic texts were written in a similar
font and it draws on the darker side of
the old texts that are still with us today.
Any connection available needs to be
made to a horror film. And the
conventions of trailers and promotion
packs is to keep a recurring font/title
so the audience can draw clear
connections between them. We
continued this theme within our
work.

5. One of the typical conventions of any movie trailer is to
feature the green screen before the trailer actually
begins, this reassures the audience that the trailer is
legit and it’s contents have been verified as being
suitable to be viewed in a cinema showing of a certain
certificate.]

6. One of the most conventional settings for a
horror movie is the woods. Some of the
horror films that we were inspired by are
set in the woods, Cabin Fever and most
prominently, The Blair Witch Project.
The reason we decided to follow this
convention is because the woods can act as
a perfect place for people to hide behind
things and for mysterious noises to occur. It
begins to play tricks in the audience’s and
characters minds because they begin
questioning whether they are hearing
things, whether they are hearing nature
(i.e. Animals) or whether there really is
something supernatural at hand.
The woods we chose we deep and thick so
that there is no clear exit points or places
that they can see where they can feel safe.
Its unforgiving and foreboding.

7. One of the crucial things Myself and Jess had to work at
was the development of the characters. The
conventional characters for horror movies is to have a
group of young, attractive friends who each have
different personalities, sometimes having different
social cliques.
• Olivia – the pretty blonde who becomes the prime
scream queen
•Jack – The Macho-man who takes charge of the
situation and leads the others to safety
•Grace – The Goth who initially refuses to show her fear
about the whole situation
•Willow – The seemingly innocent one who becomes
the films biggest victim

8. Challenging the genre conventions of the characters: Charlie
It is unusual to have a stereotypical, camp, gay character within the horror films but
we decided to break these conventions by featuring amore modern, scream queen.
We gave him a cardigan (a more feminine form of clothing) to where and featured
him as one of the first to be killed. By doing this we allowed him to conform to the
typical character a young blonde girl might have.

9. Light:
We wanted the light to
shine over Willow so that
it could potentially
obscure Graces’ vision,
providing a further
obstacle for her.
We chose the thick
tree for willow to stand
behind so that it could
hint that Grace feels
safe as she has some
form of shield between
her and the antagonist
but at the same time it
shows there isn’t a big
distance between the
two characters Pan:
We used a conventional shot of panning around a tree from the
antagonist to the protagonist so that it slowly builds the mystery
of the shot. Building the suspense as to who will be around the
corner.

10. The addition of the wall means that Olivia can hide behind it, once again feeling safe an
but she still cannot see behind the wall it therefore adds an extra message to the trailer
that we are trying to convey, the idea that you do not know what’s around the corner.
We chose to have
Willow as the centre
of the shot. The
character holding the
camera is looking at
her and acting as the
eyes for the
audience. Having
Olivia at the side of
the action and
looking at Willow in a
similar angle to the
audience means that
the audience is
feeling the same
emotions as Olivia. The tree’s are there to obscure the vision, it adds a
greater sense of uncertainty tot he scene as you are
looking at the scene through leaves. The addition of
the trees behind Willow also suggest that there is
nowhere for Olivia to run to.

11. You can see that it is
getting darker as there
is a dimmer look to
the shot but we can
see the light coming
from through the
trees. The light
shining on Olivia is
almost angelic giving
hints that she has
passed away and is
potentially in a more
heavenly place,
contradicting the
darkness of the theme
of the film.
Camera Angle:
We chose to have the camera at a tainted angle as it adds a sense of uncertainty for the
audience. It could also signify that Olivia has dropped the camera and is now in
trouble, which we can see in this shot. To achieve this angle we had to use varying
objects to prop the camera up and ask the actress to lye flat on the ground.

12. We attempted to create the sense that something was leering over the character by
using the technique found in many movies of manipulating the shadow looming
over him. The area is well lit but he is in a shadowy surrounding which could also
represent the darkness and secrets the character is hiding.
High Angle Shot:
We used a high angle shot
which is a conventional
method of making it look
as though you’re looking
at someone from another
characters perspective.
Conventionally in horror
movies it would be from
the villain’s perspective
which is what we’re trying
to achieve here.
We tapped into the conventional look of horror movies by making the landscape look
abandoned and dangerous. We put the character into this desolate place as it highlights
the character and the danger he’s in. In horror movies such as The Blair Witch Project
the woods create a sense of feeling tapped and everything feels a lot scarier than it
actually is.

13. A typical convention of any movie is too create an extreme close up on a certain factor of
a characters body. This conveys emotion to the audience in the clearest way. We chose to
zoom in on her eyes as it represented that she was always looking over the other
characters and building the anticipation as too what she will do next.
We used make up and
post production
editing techniques to
make the character of
Willow paler so that
she did have that
conventional
haunted, ghostly look
to her image. This
creates a depth of
coldness in her
character that we
wanted to achieve.
We challenged the conventions of the normal extreme close up shot of a paranormal
being’s eyes, and chose not to manipulate the look of her eyes, by making them red or
demonic looking. You can see by the look on her face alone that she is up to something
but we wanted to remind the audience that she is still the best friend of the group of
protagonists.

14. After watching some horror movies like Clover field we decided to do a scene where the
characters we running away from something although you could not see what it was they
were running away from. This always works well as it builds the tension and builds more
anticipation as the audience now wants to see the antagonist
The unsteadiness that is
achieved through the
use of a hand held
camera is a technique
that Jessica and Myself
wanted to achieve. We
watched some films
that used the technique
and decided that it was
one of the best ways of
creating a relationship
between the audience
and the characters they
are seeing on screen.
This technique also allows the shots to look out of focus or for the shots to be unsteady, it all
just adds tot he characters story and how their feeling as the camera acts as a third camera for
the audience.

15. The use of a low angles shot is conventional within horror movies as creates the feeling
that something is leering over protagonists and allows you to look directly at the
character but often without giving too much away about what they look like. There is a
good example in this when one of the characters looks up at the alien in the movie,
Cloverfield. It takes a moment for the audience to process what they’re seeing and gain
focus on the situation as it becomes an unexpected
occurrence. We also wanted
to create this feeling for the
audience as the shot itself is
meant to be a reaction shot
as the first time the characters
and the audiences see the
demonic Willow.
We broke the conventional
way that a horror movie
gives the first shot of their
antagonist and set the shot
in the daytime . As I have
mentioned before this is key to allowing the audience to react to the characters
reactions as this is the key to building the crucial audience character relationship.

16. We wanted the audience to feel like their hero was being dragged away from them so that
they didn’t feel as safe by having Jack drop the camera and leave it behind (as the
audiences only way of seeing their hero. . Stereotypically the alpha male either doesn't die
or lasts to the end so we wanted to challenge this and show him falling a cropper to his
female nemesis.
We wanted to create a
stereotypical
viewpoint of an
antagonist and have
something obscuring
Jack and the
audiences viewpoint
of her however unlike
a typical horror movie
we have used
lightness rather than
darkness (as fond in
Quarantine) to do
this.
One of the reasons the woods is a conventional setting for horror location because there is
nothing in a woods that the characters can use to properly protect them and this shot proves
that there is nothing Jack can get a grip on to try and stop Willow from pulling him towards
her.

17. One of the techniques many editors of teaser trailers use is too create titles that describe
previous works of the director, producers or actors as this entices people to come and see
their movie. By connecting ourselves to another movie of a similar, highly popular movie,
audiences are immediately attracted to the style of the movie as they think that if they
made a masterpiece once they can do it again.
We decided to keep
the same style of title
for all of our titles
although we did
experiment with the
more stereotypical
approach of creating
titles that describe
previous works in the
same style of those
works famous titles.
We decided that we
wanted to build a
brand for our film
and have something
audiences can
connect throughout
all of our projects.

18. The image takes up Masthead that makes a direct
The colour red is
most of the front cover reference to the main subject focus of
used because it is
and covers some of the the magazine so audiences can see it
eye-popping and
masthead. relates to their interests
connoted horror
Date of issue’s It isn’t conventional for a
publication mainstream film magazine to
focus purely on one genre of
Buzz Words to entice film as it may put off some
the audience and build readers but wanted to highlight
excitement the genre of the film.
We didn’t include the
The image on the front cover is
strap line of an
of the main character is the
indicator of the article
feature film of the magazine,
info as we felt the title
often this image would be of a
was the strongest hint
famous actor or a significant
at the style of the film.
image from the film
Title of main film featured
Unlike some magazines we featured only in magazine so the audience
three colours, black whit and red to stick Barcode know what the feature
to the horror conventions rather than article will be about
those of some magazine front covers.

19. We have The colour we have used is red, a
A convention for horror
conventionally colour that connotes blood and
film posters is to use the
created a strap danger and is featured in many
location (which is often
line to adverts and promotion for horror
key to the story) as the
accompany our movies
main image for the
film . poster
Stereotypically the films’
Unlike most
title is the main feature of
conventional film
the film poster and is in an
posters we have
eye-popping red to make
manipulated the main
it stand out from the rest
image , the audience
of the poster.
will not see an shot like
this in the film, but
Unlike many film posters normal woodlands.
we have split the strap line
to add emphasis on the play
on words and horror genre Film Certification
indicates to the
A convention for almost any film poster is too feature the audience over what
credits at the bottom which will tell the audience the age audience
producer, director and the actors of the main characters. members are allowed
It also features our self - designed production company, into see this film