HOW DOES YOUR OPENING SEQUENCE USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
When creating our OTS it was important that we constructed a simple plan to follow in order to start making our official horror opening sequence. This lead to us taking several senarios and ideas from relitavely new and old existing horror movies- such as; The Reservoir dogs, SAW, The Conjuring and Paranormal activity. By including these different types of senarios revolving around torture and death in our OTS would be effective because nail biting scenes keep the audience interested.
how we conformed to media conventions
Within the creation process of our OTS we tried to maintain all aspects of horror throughout, therefore we had to include typical horror conventions, for example, we chose an isolated location as it is recongisable to the audience and can help them identify the horror genre, giving them the opportunity to predict senarios which could potentially take place.
The shots we decided to include within our OTS also contributed to the audience's experience, additionally we used varied shots and angles with the intention of creating tension and suspense to those watching. Consequently, an extreme close up (ECU) was used of the victims abused and blood shot eye in order to portray fear but also to make the unsettling tension build up even more terrorfying as not being physically able to see the threat makes it easier for the audience to relate to the victims emotions and present state.
The use of lighting was another convention which was responsible for making our OTS as scary as possible due to it being expressive. The type of lighting we intended to use most was low- key lighting because it helped to produce dark shaddows and unfamiliar shapes in the blackness. Furthermore low-key lighting is a dramatic technique which is full of mystery which is typically used to isolate a subject.
Another media convention we applied was the colour of clothing which seperated good from evil. The victim was presented in white due to it's connotations of purity, innocense and goodness where as the villain was associated with the black as it has negative connotations of death, mystery and fear. This makes it easier to seperate the character and their intentions.
Women in horror films are often portrayed as weak and timid characters, usually stereotyped as sex symbols that aren't smart enough to survive until the end of a horror movie. Carol Clover's theory of the final girl was applied to our OTS eventhough our final girl hasn't yet been introduced as we didn't want to overcomplicate our initial idea of only using one victim- as it keeps the audience stimulating questions like 'who's next to die? and 'will the killer be caught?'. According to the final girl theory, the weakest and most vulnerable girls who don't survive are normally the most feminine and girly (with long hair and lots of makeup) where as the girl who manages to survive is seen to be less self obsessed and more masculine. Therefore our OTS supports this theory as our first victim has long blonde hair and is very vulnerable. The early death of our first victim was inspired by the opening of The Grudge 2009, this was because the victim is faced with her killer early on during the opening credits.
The shots we decided to include within our OTS also contributed to the audience's experience, additionally we used varied shots and angles with the intention of creating tension and suspense to those watching. Consequently, an extreme close up (ECU) was used of the victims abused and blood shot eye in order to portray fear but also to make the unsettling tension build up even more terrorfying as not being physically able to see the threat makes it easier for the audience to relate to the victims emotions and present state.
The use of lighting was another convention which was responsible for making our OTS as scary as possible due to it being expressive. The type of lighting we intended to use most was low- key lighting because it helped to produce dark shaddows and unfamiliar shapes in the blackness. Furthermore low-key lighting is a dramatic technique which is full of mystery which is typically used to isolate a subject.
Another media convention we applied was the colour of clothing which seperated good from evil. The victim was presented in white due to it's connotations of purity, innocense and goodness where as the villain was associated with the black as it has negative connotations of death, mystery and fear. This makes it easier to seperate the character and their intentions.
Women in horror films are often portrayed as weak and timid characters, usually stereotyped as sex symbols that aren't smart enough to survive until the end of a horror movie. Carol Clover's theory of the final girl was applied to our OTS eventhough our final girl hasn't yet been introduced as we didn't want to overcomplicate our initial idea of only using one victim- as it keeps the audience stimulating questions like 'who's next to die? and 'will the killer be caught?'. According to the final girl theory, the weakest and most vulnerable girls who don't survive are normally the most feminine and girly (with long hair and lots of makeup) where as the girl who manages to survive is seen to be less self obsessed and more masculine. Therefore our OTS supports this theory as our first victim has long blonde hair and is very vulnerable. The early death of our first victim was inspired by the opening of The Grudge 2009, this was because the victim is faced with her killer early on during the opening credits.
challenging conventions of media:
Although we took inspirtaion from several horror movies and conformed many horror conventions, we did also challenge the way some horror films are made. Instead of basing our OTS in a safe location we went staright into the torture scene which commenced in an isolated basement. Scream and The Grudge for example are based in relitavely safe places, both using a female victim wondering nervously around a house. As a result of not revealing how the victim got captured eliminates any potential suspects to the audience, which build further tension, confusion and hype.