When creating our OTS it was vital that we had a basic plan to follow by in order to start creating our horror sequence. We took our ideas from different scenarios of horror, these being; When A Stranger Calls, Split, Get Carter and so on... The reason why we included all of these different scenarios is because they worked extremely well in drawing us into the movie and scaring us when watching the trailers, therefore we believed that this would reflect onto our audience.
Conforming Conventions of Media:
Within our OTS we tried our best to keep all aspects of horror in mind and this is where the idea of poisoning our victim and making her killer poison her and chuck her his car boot.The reason for this is because we wanted to add a twist into our OTS by starting of in a environment where people believe it is safe and secure but in the end everything takes a twist and our victim ends up being thrown over the top of the car park causing her death.
Also the idea of our first victim dying within the first 2 minutes of the film conforms conventions of other horrors due to the final girl theory which was first explained by Wes Craven and Carol Clover. Films which follow the final girl theory include more than one girl in the film. The first girl in the film usually gets killed early on in the film as she's too vulnerable and weak to survive. The first girl is also a way for the audience to learn more about the killer and gradually find out what sort of relationships he has with all his victims. Our OTS follows this idea because our victim is killed within minutes which instantly opens up the narrative and keeps the audience guessing who the killer is in relation to the victim. Also according to the final girl theory the weakest and most vulnerable girls who don't survive are typically the most girly (with long hair and girly clothes) whereas the girl who survives at the end of the film is not seen to be girly but stereotypically more boyish (with short hair and non-girly clothes). Therefore, our OTS supports this theory as the victim is a pretty girl with long hair. We were inspired by The Grudge 2009 because the victim is faced by the killer early during the opening credits.
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Another aspect of our OTS which conformed the conventions of real media, was our location. This is because many horror films are located in obvious places such as a hospitals and schools; making the audience expect something bad is going to happen because the location is looked as though it is safe and under regular care. This is more likely to make our audience feel scared and unsettled because when bad things happen in safer places it goes against all the usual feelings (like feeling safe and protected) we have in those areas. This also links with Wes Craven's idea as he believes that the best place to film horror films is in stereotypically safe places (Hospitals, Schools, churches etc.) We were inspired by the film When A Stranger Calls 2006 as the victim, Jill, is in a big house whilst babysitting when strange happenings occur,
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Challenging conventions of media:
Although we took inspiration from many horror films and conformed many horror conventions, we did challenge the ways some horror films are made. For example, most horror films are filmed and based at night but at the start of our OTS we decided to film this in daylight because we were setting the scene and want the audience to feel like the victim is safe at that point in time.
When our victim woke up from being poisoned by the killer, she was left in a dark multi-story car park. This challenges conventions of media because horror films are often set in typically safe places, such as houses. With the victim walking nervously around the car park this helps build the tension as the audience will be expecting the killer to jump out or creep up behind her. Although this idea challenges conventions of real media there is one film which we took inspiration from; Drag Me To Hell 2009. This film includes a scene with an innocent looking girl walking cautiously to her car in a dark car park similar to the one we filmed in. |
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