In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?

Ant is shown here in his costume chosen for our production. The vest he is wearing helps show him as modest and working. He is dressed down as he is just gardening. His gloves and wellies, that we can't see in this shot are typical gardening clothes and help contribute to his normal person persona, until we realise there is something suspicious happening when he suspends noose. They also show him as more masculine.

We used certain props to help create different effects throughout our production. At the beginning we used a mug and a phone to show him as a normal person. The noose is a menacing and a widely used conventional horror prop, as it is a barbaric method of killing somebody, this created visceral pleasure. The axe is similar to the noose in this regards, and is a bloody tool. The way he sets it out before we know he has captors shows him to pre plan murders like a sadistic , well organised killer, this is a convention of a psychological horror, much like Christian Bale in American Psycho.

We used an external location for our production. This is the shed used to hold the antagonists captor. This is a slightly rundown shed, much as you'd expect to see in a suburban environment, helping to make the nature of the film as normal as possible to reflect the main character as un-normal as possible.

One example of prosthetics we used was fake blood, simply bought from a joke shop. This is a usual convention of a slasher horror. We do not see the body, but we assume he has killed someone from the axe and blood. We have seen the character go from organising the murder well, digging the grave for example to doing the messy work of killing him and getting blood on himself, showing the murderer to be sadistic and brutal, however the small amount of blood lets us see that he can kill cleanly, considering has just butchered a man, allowing us to think he's an expert

Overall the mise en scene we used utilises the conventions of a slasher and psychological horror. This helps contribute the fear factor of our film and actually makes it a recognisable horror. Conventions such as prophetic blood and brutal weaponry are widely used in horror films of all genres, however they are widely associated with slasher horrors. The psychological side of the main character was created by portraying a false herring at the beginning in terms of mise en scene, as he is drinking his tea he could be either the antagonist or protagonist, however as the plot develops and we see him digging a grave and tying a noose we can see that he is up to mischief and this helps build his an antagonist and shows him to be organised and a methodical killer. As we can infer he killed his captor in the shed, questions arise as to what the noose is for.

One of the key editing techniques used in our production is intercutting. This builds tensions by showing Ant on the move and the shed which we have been led to believe there is something cynical happening in there, the time each scene is on screen for getting shorter every time. This is regularly used convention of horror, to build tension usually between the antagonist and protagonist, often when you have more knowledge than the protagonist to get the ‘Don’t go in there’ reaction from the audience. This was one our most effective techniques we used in our production and helped make it more recognisably from the horror genre.

Ant is given clear prevalence through the opening of the film. This shows that he is clearly the most important character because we cant see any others. It is not a mainstream horror convention to give the antagonist prevalence, however it does happen in certain horrors an d thrillers such as American Psycho .

Ant is shown here in the final shot of the film, which much like prevalence shows him as that character that the audience are most likely to form a connection with. What characters to show and in which scenes was very important for our production to achieve the style that we wanted. Another editing technique that is very effective in our production is choosing not the show the person in the shed, allowing us to arise suspicion about it and let the audience infer what is going on. The piece follows the continuity editing style, meaning it flows from one scene to the other, rather than a montage. this is the case with most horrors as it allows the story to flow from one scene to the next, so the plot can develop.

Free sound was hugely helpful in creating our sound mix, we used another example of non-diagetic soundtrack within our production to help build fear. This particular bit of soundtrack is used on the first track shot towards the shed. This differs greatly from the Johnny Cash track as firstly it is not a published song, and is just an instrumental, and it builds into a crescendo. This was used in combination with the Johnny cash song to create a sound bridge to help link the scenes in the intercutting, however we had to turn Johnny Cash down sufficiently so that the Crescendo is as effective as possible and helps to contribute fear and tension into the piece as best as possible. The Crescendo lets us know that something is going to happen in the shed shortly and brings it to our attention, this is a very effective technique used in horrors throughout pretty much the whole history of the Genre. The Crescendo is definitely a convention for horrors, especially slashers and Psychological, they can be used for false herrings or for actual action scenes.

The most obvious piece of sound in our sound mix is the non-diegetic song by Johnny Cash, Gods gonna cut you down. This is a very famous country song about how God will take revenge on those who conduct mis deeds. This soundtrack has a very obvious biblical context, this may infer that Ant believes he is a godly figure and what he is doing is for the good, so contributing questions to be answered within the first two minutes of the film. The song has a very strong baseline and instruments to it, making it seem menacing and troubling, allowing us to see that Ants character is up to no good. I believe that this matches the footage in our production and can be seen as a horror convention, as its seen in some very popular movies such as the use of ‘Tiny Tim's tip toe through the tulips’ in insidious. As the song is biblical and sounds old, it makes Ant seem more ritualistic and old and dated is often a convention in horrors, for example an old haunted house. This also creates a sound bridge which connects the different scenes.

Free sound was also used to add extra diagetic sound to our production, two such examples are the birds chirping at the beginning, which help create the suburban peaceful environment, which contradicts the true plot. And more importantly the muffled screams of the person being held in the shed. This shows them to be panicking and trying to get free, and as we can not physically see him this is important for letting us know there is someone there. Captors are a well used convention of horror movies, for example the Texas Chainsaw massacre, as it allows us to know that they are in trouble and it makes us feel uncomfortable as we know no matter how much they try, they cant get free.

We did record some of the sound our self, such as the banging on the shed, which shows the struggle in the shed and Ant finishing off his victim, allowing our minds to wonder about what is going on behind them closed doors, this again is a convention of a psychological movie as cliff hangers and letting the audience think about what is happening is a key part of good horror movies. Another key feature of sound recorded by ourselves is dialogue, which there is notably none of in our film, this allows us to see as well as being a normal person, Ant is also sort of inhumane, this again is often used in horror movies for the antagonist to vary them from innocent characters and to build tension

This is an example of a high angle shot, it isolates the antagonist, showing him to be on his own, showing him to be lonely, helping him seem as disturbed character, this is a convention of a horror movie, as he does have some underlying mental health problems, which might drive him into recluse.

This is a mid close up of the Wellington boot ant wears throughout the sequence. It shows us in detail some of the costume he wears which helps to build his character. This particular close up also shows the wet conditions, helping to create pathetic fallacy for the film. This type of shot is a convention as it shows the vital scenery.

Framing is very important in horror movies, this is an example of rule of thirds and a mid shot. This shows the character and some of the background and set. These are widely used in all movie genres, but in horror movies they are good as they help the audience see the relationship between the character and the set.

We used many pans in our production, in fact there are very few shots with no camera movement. This is an example of a tilt, as it goes from the pile of dirt, with the last few shovels full, up too Ant. This is quite a popular shot with horrors as it shows something, then it pans up to show what caused it.

This is a Dutch tilt. This particular angle gives disorientated feel and adds suspicion to what is going on in the shed by making it look menacing. The Dutch tilt is also at a low angle, making it seem big and important. Both these techniques are conventions of horror movies, and help create fear around certain centralised elements

The track and dolly shots were used on multiple occasions in our film, we start and finish on one. These look very professional and help us to focus of an element, in ours it was either Ant or the shed, and makes us feel as if we are going towards or away from them, overall tracking their movement.

The font used for our title is called ........., it has a distorted feel to it, which is widely used in horror films. It has a unregulated feel to it due to the parts missing and the flicks of white around certain letters such as the c, however the letters have a formal feel due to the Romany style base to certain letters such as the F. The title is conventional of a horror as the distorted feel previously mentioned makes the audience feel uneasy, and this is a key technique is slasher and psychological horrors

We chose to use the title on a fully black screen with no images on screen at the same time. This brings the attention solely to the title, and stops it being drowned out by the imagery on the screen. Other horrors we looked at used this technique, such as Resident Evil, in which I believed worked well. We started the text further back, and brought it to the front of the screen, again bringing the focus to the text, and it needed some animation otherwise it would be to plain and boring

We decided to integrate the typography containing the names of our group within the images as opposed to a black screen like the title. We decided to do this as the constant black screens only broke up the continuity of our piece, we placed it in the bottom corner so it did not take too much attention away from the action on the screen, we kept it all in the same position on the screen. We used a plain text, times new roman, for this as it is plain and easy to read, and the text used for the title did not show up clear enough.