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

Trailers are very important in marketing. It is the closest insight the audience will get with the film. The narrative doesn't give too much away. Our piece was meant to create tension and suspense to interest the audience. Trailers are very short but give the audience enough information about the film. We followed many conventions to make the genre of our trailer clear so the audience would recognise it as a horror. Trailers are published online and on TVs or at the cinema.

Generic Conventions of Horror Trailers:

Mise-en-scene
Mis en scene is important to horror conventions for many reasons. These conventions of the genre usually consist of low key lighting, darkness that causes uneasiness and frighten the audience when things cannot be seen clearly. We had to use ambient lighting due to our lack of professional technology which would have allowed us a darker tone to the filming images. Colours that are conventional to the horror genre are mainly black and red. Red connotes blood, fear, rage and danger. We have used the colouring of this to present our titles in our trailer. The colour black connotes death and evil, both main themes in horrors. Whereas, we have also used the colour of white to show the purity of the child at the beginning. We have used settings such as the church and graveyards. These are both conventional places with the horror genre. The church is somewhere sacred so when trouble begins there, it causes even more distress for the audience. Graveyards are typical places too as it is the place of the dead.

Characters
The conventional character in a horror trailer usually consist of the main villain and the hero. A lot of the time, a male character is used so we decided to push this idea and use females as both the villain and hero. We also show the death of a male character, showing female dominance. Our protagonist is the Final Girl in the trailer. We also have the children at the beginning that show the ‘innocent child’ character convention.

Iconography
There are iconic elements in all films that the audience will recognise. In horrors they use iconic weapons such as knives and chainsaws. We have stuck with the convention of the excessive use of blood in some scenes and murder. However, we have used our originality to make weapons fitting to our religious theme of our trailer. Therefore, the beads are an iconic element for our trailer.

Camera work
We have used conventional higher and lower angles for our horror trailer that show the superiority of the villain looking down on the hero. We also use a high angle at the beginning with the child which makes her look weaker and smaller. We use mid shots such as the bath tub scene, to make the surroundings feel more enclosed and cause a suffocating effect for the audience that they cannot escape the danger. Point Of View is conventionally used to create suspense in horror trailers as the audience can only see to a certain extent and become uneasy. Handheld cameras are also conventional as they create a shaken effect with portrays the panic within the scene.

Sound
Sound is used conventionally in horror trailers to cause suspense. Stings are the most common to scare the audience. Loud music shocks them when it is unexpected. Narration is used well to tell the story of the trailer. A lot of our dialogue directs about ‘the church’, the main plot of our piece. Sounds are used to create emotion to the trailer. We have used a more peaceful tone of music at the beginning to make it more dramatic when real events begin to happen. This is similar to that of the trailer 'Orphan'. The peaceful tone adds mystery as though the audience know it'll go badly. It makes the characters seem more innocent at the beginning in comparison to how the story will turn out for them, making it more horrific. We use voice overs in our trailer to give more information about the background of the story at the beginning. This is mixed over the top with the peaceful tone of music to create an even creepier atmosphere. We had to be sure that lines of dialogue and music did not drain one another out and become inaudible. This is similar to the 'The Devil's Hand' trailer, in which the voice over gives a clear indication of the plot as it mixes with relevant shots. We added in stings that would cause a 'jump scare' at the end of our trailer. This leaves a lasting impact for the audience and becomes very memorable.

I believe our trailer is edited together to have a professional result. Our use of shots do not sway the audience as put in a chronological order that they can understand. The dialogue steers a lot of the plot and we have used a vast range of imagery to show the theme of our piece, through props and settings. I think we have stuck to the conventions of horror in many ways, as previous mentioned. Our idea is very original due to its religious aspects. I think its originality and use of female dominance will draw in our target audience well.