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

To achieve a well-produced effective teaser trailer of the supernatural horror sub-genre, we had to consider successful existing productions as sources of inspiration in order to decide how we should approach supernatural horror conventions.

Initially, we went through several supernatural horror genre film openings, highlighting the forms and conventions of each. We both decided to specifically look at the film Se7en for inspiration for our teaser trailer, however making it our own. Linking to the seven deadly sins aspect and a serial killer, we modified Se7en's narrative, by making our serial killer a demonic Priest in the role of the protagonist, and the sinners as the antagonists. We also added the supernatural aspect to our teaser trailer, challenging the convention, but taking aspects of the original film that we liked. Below is a YouTube video of the original Se7en trailer:


We then looked at the conventions of supernatural horrors. Below shows how we developed, challenged and conformed to the forms of real media product conventions:

Locations
Main conventional locations within Supernatural Horror films include the main protagonists house, seen in Sinister and Annabelle, or locations that are meaningful within the characters life. This convention is used to create an un-ease for the audience, watching the characters being attacked and terrified in locations where they would normally feel comfortable and safe.

In our teaser trailer, locations that we used were all meaningful places concerning each individual character. The trailer started off in a dark setting of the demonic Priests abode where he is getting dressed and ready to go and target his sinning victims. Changing to the only random place used, a public area full of shops, all the characters can be seen together in one place, linking them together. Then, each shot after that is very meaningful and signifying to the audience about each individual sinner. The lust couple, for example, can be seen in bed and cuddled on a sofa, representing a sense of intimacy and sexual intention. Regarding locations, our trailer conforms to the conventions of real media products in the ways explained.

Storyline's

A conventional plot line for supernatural horrors is when something happens to the main character in the film that forces a spirit/ curse to come to them, this takes place in the supernatural horror Drag Me to Hell.

Again, this plot line is similar to our own, however we have developed this idea by making it so that one entity, the demon priest, follows a group of people, the sinners, due to his own warped outlook on the world and morals that people should live their lives by. He targets them because of the deadly sins that they carry out and must be stopped.

Characters
A type of character collection is to have a group of people, conventionally teenagers, who are targeted specifically by a supernatural being whom of which continually torments them until the end where a final climax finishes the film.

Our trailer conforms to this convention, having a group of people, however not teenagers, specifically targeted by the demon Priest.

Costumes

Costumes in a supernatural horror are conventionally very simple so that the audiences attention isn't taken up by the unusual attire of a character and diverted from the unusual events and weird occurrences that would happen in a supernatural horror film. The main character would wear quite conservative clothing, nothing excessively provocative or revealing. If an adult, the character is likely to also wear smart and sophisticated clothing for work with quite neutral colours so as not to make them look particularly special.

For this, we thought a lot about costumes, intending them to denote to the audience a sense of what sin each character was supposed to portray. This means that the costumes weren't as simple and conservative as conventions state, subverting them, being that the sinners are the antagonists of the film, and are instead used to signify a sin to the audience. This was effective for our trailer as we needed to get a sense of the narrative to the audience in the, limited in time, minuet teaser trailer that we produced.

lighting

Lighting is a large part of Horror films in general, and in Supernatural Horrors, normal shadows created by back lighting are generally distorted and manipulated to add to the supernatural aspect of the film and meet conventions of the genre, as well as add tension to the scene. The visual stimulation of lighting, using different techniques such as under lighting that comes from a source below, used in scenes of desperation of the characters, and blackouts of light, where tension builds as the character has found themselves in the dark with nowhere to go and stuck with the supernatural presence, is very effective for the horror aspect of the film.

In our trailer, the lighting started off light and in day time, and then started to get darker through the scenes, showing a link to the horror genre with low key lighting, igniting fear as the audience started to become un-nerved as to what the demon Priest would do. Lighting is also a large aspect of our trailer as we use it to create one of the supernatural elements, shadow engulfing one of the characters. This was created using back lighting and objects in the way to create a shadow. In the final teaser trailer, arms were used to create this effect, enhanced using visual effects on the computer. We therefore have met the conventions of lighting in our manipulation and distortion of shadow and back lighting to create tension in a scene.

Killer vs Victims and Good vs Evil

The victim is usually portrayed as weak and defenceless, whilst the killer is shown as being clever and strong. The effect this has on the audience is it makes them feel helpless and they believe the victim will get killed. Victim = good, villain = evil. Victim (good) usually triumphs.

This is conformed to but with twisted development on this convention in our trailer. It is unclear as to who the good one is and who the evil one is, the role of antagonist and protagonist interchangeable between the demon Priest and the seven sinners, both portraying traits of being good and bad. This means that there is no clear antagonist and protagonist meaning that the result of the end of the film is more of a mystery.

Igniting Fear

Horror invokes fear which is what grips the audience and makes them want to find out how the film ends. Usually, they fear the killer will kill the victim very painfully, and/or that the killer will escape and attack more people - again, the fear being who will the next victims be.

We did this well, conforming to this convention in the trailer, creating a build in tension at the end with a montage of shots showing the demon Priest attacking the sinners. The final set of shots shows the character portraying Pride asking what they can do to make it right, and the demon Priest with a mutated demonic face looks at her in a low angle shot, making him look bigger, stronger and more dominant, saying you can't. This final climax of the montage of shots leaves the audience in fear as to what the Priest is going to do to the sinners, conforming to the convention of a supernatural horror igniting fear.

POVs from the killer's perspective
This is used to tell the audience the killer is near. Or, from the victim's perspective, showing their horror as they witness something supernatural or are trying to escape something - emphasises how frantic they are and putting the audience in their position.

We subvert this convention somewhat as the trailer is mostly in the Priest point of view, and he is the killer but also the protagonist. This messes up the idea of who the audience should "side with" in the film and makes it more psychological.

Gore
Graphic effects and gore are used to unnerve the audience and make them feel scared and repulsed.

In our trailer, we use special effects make-up to create a graphic stomach open wound to ignite fear in the audience and adhere to the horror aspect of our genre. It also shows the extent of the Priests seriousness of his mission and makes his stalking of the sinners more un-nerving, creating tension in the minuet long trailer. This conforms to the codes and conventions of gore in a supernatural horror film.



Visual Effects to create a supernatural Occurrences
Computer generation is used to create supernatural occurrences that would not happen in reality.

In our trailer, we really conformed to this, taking visual effects on the computer and enhancing the shots that we had collated and footage we had produced. One of the main ones was the black eye effect where our demonic Priests' eyes go black in one of the shots. This was used to shock the audience and also give an idea into the narrative, conforming to the conventions of the supernatural horror genre.

Sound 

Non-diegetic soundtracks are the key way in which horrors create the feeling of tension or suspense. It guides and manipulates the audience to feel nervous and cautious of what is going to happen, this can be contrasted with the use of silence to build the atmosphere.

In our trailer, the first third of the trailer has quite fast paced sound editing, matching the change in shots. The sound is upbeat and sounds like the sound played in a film when someone is on a "mission" with the intent to do something. This links well to the visual stimulation of the shots showing the Priest getting dressed and ready to go and find his sinners. A voice over accompanies this first music overlay, with the Priest reciting a few lines from the Bible related to sins and how one must repent for them- linking to narrative and denoting the idea of sins and good and evil to the audience.

Shot of collating sounds to use in our
trailer

The middle half of the trailers sound starts with the beat dropping and being replaced with a longer, more supernatural "on a mission" beat with strange animalistic, demonic screeching sounds. Each shot is also linked to the beat of the music overlay, linking the audio and visual elements nicely. This is played during the shots of the Priest choosing and stalking his sinners. The music again starts to slow down and drop about 2/3 of the way through the trailer, a high pitched off putting sound played before a deep, loud droning sound ignites, linking to the "on a mission" beat but with a more threatening angle to it to link to the more graphic shots of the Priest attacking the sinners. The final sound heard is a off putting jingle that links to the supernatural genre with its key, leaving the audience with a feeling of unease.

Overall, the sound in our trailer conforms to the conventions of a supernatural horror genre real media product as it creates tension and suspense and manipulates the audience to feel nervous and cautious in the appropriate places effectively.

Theories

Relating to theories, we also created a blog post stating how our promotional package conformed/subverted/developed the theories of real media products, associated with genre. This was interesting and informative to us, giving an idea of how successful we were in meeting conventions, due to previous research having been carried out on Paul Wells genre theory before creating the final product.