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

The first shot of our film displays the logo of the production company which we made in After Effects. We used After Effects as it produces a more sophisticated product than what we could have created using Premiere Pro. We used an animated logo in the hope of it being more interesting to look at and more successful at immediately capturing the audiences attention. We titled our production company 'Paranormal Productions' as it is suitable to the theme of the film and the alliteration of the letter P and the plosive sounds creates a catchy memorable name.

We titled our film 'Arabella' as it immediately introduces the antagonist of the film to the audience. It is an old fashioned Victorian name, and people can associate the Victorian Era with the horror genre due to the dull, eerie environment we see in black and white photographs and videos of the past. We decided to put our film title in an old fashioned font which we found and downloaded ourselves named 'Just Old Fashioned' to comply with the themes of the film. We chose a red colour as red is a typical convention of the horror genre. Due to it connoting evil, blood and danger.
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We filmed our opening in a sleepover setting and used stereotypical items that would be present in the mis-en-scene to highlight the modern time period the film is set. We also included the characters that are conventional in horror films, (naive teenagers that do not understand dangers until things begin to go wrong). With this close up shot, we aimed to lure the audience into a false sense of security as everything appears to be happy and normal and this point in the opening. 

This is a low angle shot that introduces the status of the characters. In our opening Effie (in the top left corner) is the main dominant character who is the catalyst for the bad things that happen within the film. We aimed to show this to the audience by physically raising her higher up and therefore displaying her higher status compared to Georgia (bottom right) who is victim of the film, due to Effie's actions. We aimed our film at a teenage audience and to make our opening appealing to them we tried to include conventions that were relevant to their age group. For example, we used soft lighting and colours in the mis-en-scene had the girls wearing light colours on their pyjama's with conventional hair cuts to emphasise their femininity. As women in horror films are usually conveyed to be very feminine and dainty.

This is a close up shot to display the emotion of the character at the time. At this point in the film, Poppy is scared by the story her friend is threatening to tell. By filming her face close up, the audience can see her expression of fear which is intended to trigger the same emotions within them. 

Here we use a point of view shot of Poppy turning the lights in the bedroom off which is a shot used frequently in horror films such as Cloverfield and other teenage horror films that like you to be put in the footsteps of the protagonist. This was used to create a transition which allowed the two characters sitting on the bed to move onto the floor without us having to physically watch them do so. The point of view shot allows the audience to see the film through one of the characters eyes, making it more interesting. The range of different shots generally create a more interesting atmosphere and allows the video to flow better and not just be continuous chunks of dialogue.

We used a candle as they are a typical convention of the horror genre. With candles come connotations of spiritualism, rituals, churches and religion which ties in with the themes of the opening. Candles are seen frequently within horror films similar to this one when people are summoning the dead to create an eerie atmosphere and because of how conventional they are, they instantly create this atmosphere when we see them. 

Here we used a match on action to highlight the turning point of the opening. This is where the film begins to get more conventional as the atmosphere intensifies, we used stereotypical music to highlight this. Again the main focus of the shot is the candle to force the audience to think of the eerie connotations that come with this. 

We used an over the shoulder shot to convey the expressions of the other characters whilst Effie tells the story of Arabella. Not only was this used to break up the continuous videos and create sound bridges, but to convey the characters emotions and build tension through them. We got the inspiration for this from the film 'Scream' and this technique is conventional of the horror genre. However, we challenged the conventions shown in the 'Scream' series as women are portrayed as weak and the female characters are usually sexualised wearing very little clothes whilst we have gone for the opposite approach in order to sensationalise the characters.