Evaluation Question 1: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

Our film intro sequence genre was based around the genre of Horror.

In particular a horror film focused around the subject of demonic possession.

Typically we can break down these conventions into two main categories - technical and symbolic.

Technical codes are the way in which equipment is used to tell a story for example camera work in a film and post editing.

And Symbolic codes which relate to imagery within the film that represents a meaning, mood, emotion or narrative.

Let's have a look at the symbolic codes first and focus on how we introduced our audience to the film intro.

We began by showcasing our production logo which in it's very design has a dark and ominous feel.

Combined with eerie soundscape and intermittent rumbles of thunder, the audience is being introduced very early to what will lay ahead.

Our logo fades and the film title is revealed showcasing slow dolly away from the camera in a very controlled movement.

This adds to the slow tension that is building and the title fades to black.

From a production point of view we ensured our mise-en-scene throughout the pre and post production process. 

We followed the convention of setting our film intro within a private residence.

Such settings are often used in many films of this genre and paranormal action takes place in bedrooms, basements and other areas of a house.

As the film intro starts we slowly fade from black and follow a maid walking through the corridors of the house.

We worked closely with the genre conventions by ensuring our protagonist was a female.  Although gender representation in horror has been very stereotypical where females are seen as the poor vulnerable victims, we wanted to maintain this convention as we found that there was more of an emotional connection to be made with a female character.

As our protagonist May is involved in her daily duties the audience learns she is just a normal average down to earth character who we suspect will be thrust into something horrific in the near future.

We followed a few technical codes often seen in films of this genre. Firstly utilising the third/person over the shoulder viewpoint. This takes the audience along with protagonist as she walks through the building and outside where she gets into a golf cart. The camera framing remains in general in this way.

All our shots were fully stabilised and smooth in their motion so as to provide a more cinematic appearance for the audience. This we felt was very important in order to create a sense of professionalism for the viewer. The sound we used ranged from natural sound effects dietetic and non-diegetic along with some special effect noises that comprised of ghostly whispers, cackling and screams. These sounds are presented to the viewer towards the end of the film intro when the protagonist is being possessed by a demon that is contained within a the idol portrait. At this point the camera movement changes from the following dolly to a shot reverse shot sequence between the idol and the protagonist May.

This scene takes follows the conventions of our genre when a subject is being possessed. The body begins to shake along with rapid eye movements. Our use of audio and gradually making the gain louder added to the impact of this part of the film. The antagonist which is actually an unseen spirit in the form of the an idol eventually takes over our protagonist, as seen by her eyes turning black.

Our props consisted simply of the idol head as we wanted to keep things very genuine and real and not overly fake or staged. As we were working closely with the conventions we realised there were little in the way of props needed. Even our choice of costume was true to the occupation of our protagonist.

During the post production editing phase we wanted the product to continue to have a professional cinematic appearance. This decision affected our choice of colour grade which fell into the cool spectrum of colours where the shadows and highlights were brought to the 3600k temperature range and slightly desaturated. This tone resembled that of the film The Ring and creates a more "dead" lifeless appearance. We also added a cinematic crop aspect ratio to further the wide screen cinema experience.

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