Evaluation - Question 1

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products


In our media piece, (The Woman in White), we stuck to the conventions

of having the woman dying and then using lots of blood and a knife to conform to the horror genre. However, with mise-en-scene, we subverted lighting and setting as we did not use the dark lighting and it was not set in an isolated building or house. This shows that we subverted the genre as we decided to go against the traditional views of Gothic Horror and decided to put our own spin on it to show that we understand the genre and would have been able to change some things within the conventions and still make the film work. We also did not conform to the typical gothic fashion of having dark clothing, we only used dark clothing for one character, which was the murderer, for the rest of the characters, we used light colours - for example, the bride was in white which would have made her look pure and innocent. With character, we still had an antagonist but no protagonist, which would have gone against the traditional gothic horror conventions. With the camera work, we did match the conventions of gothic horror as we used Close-Up Shots on the characters faces so that we could show their emotions and also show their reactions to things within the current scene. This shot can also make the audience feel uncomfortable, especially if you have an extreme close up on a character. We also used Long Shots to show what was going on in the scene and also show that we could show the audience the surroundings and establish what could be happening next. Our Handheld Shots were used to add a sense of reality within the scene and make the audience feel like they are there with the characters, this can then also make the audience feel like they are on the edge of their seat because they do not know what is going to happen next to the characters they are currently seeing. Also with sound, we stuck to the to having the non-diegetic sounds throughout which would then increase the fear in audiences as it would make them feel uncomfortable as the music would make them feel uneasy about the film itself. This is evident at the very beginning of the video when all the characters are introduced - this uneasy music plays right up to the death of our female character. Sound can also be used to emphasise the sub-genre that is being used which can also increase fear within the audience.

Our product has conformed to the conventions of gothic horror with the camera shots as they show the audience the different feelings and facial expressions each character may have  and can also show the setting around the characters. We also conformed to the gothic horror conventions with sound as it was used to make certain points of our film to scare the audience. We wanted to use some traditional conventions because we wanted to have a traditional side to the sub-genre. However, we also did not conform to the traditional gothic-horror conventions as we wanted to change things around a bit and make it different to all the other gothic-horror films that are around. With changing the conventions, we changed things to do with setting and lighting as we did not have any dark lighting within our piece nor did we have any isolated settings to make it a traditional gothic-horror. We did this because we wanted to make this film our own and be completely different to any other gothic-horror which had already been released previously.

We matched specific conventions with the camera shots, for example, we used close up shots when trying to make the audience feel uncomfortable at the very end of the film when Emily's face was extremely close up with the camera, we also had a specific convention with the hand-held camera movement so that there would be a sense of realism within the film, making the audience feel like they were there with the characters. We used these two conventions because they were two of the main ones that are used within gothic horror and camera work is one of the main things that people focus on when they are watching films as that is also something that makes them feel on the edge of their seat, or uncomfortable, which is something that every person who makes a gothic horror film wants to have. We also used an antagonist within our film which made up our storyline as he was our killer in the beginning.