Evaluation Question 1

Question 1: demonstrate some understanding of the conventions of your chosen genre and use some real film examples to illustrate this

The use of teenagers as the main cast; in our production we have used teenagers as the main focus for two reasons both of these both are both staying true to horror movies and their conventions. The first reason we used teenagers is because most of the horror movie either use reckless teenager who are drunk and having fun or young innocent children. We followed the stereotypical use of teenagers pranking each other and having fun which then leads to something bigger happening by using the teenager the story line was easy to develop as teenagers are portrayed to be clumsy reckless people who do not care about their health. An example of a horror movie having teenagers who are being reckless and being murdered is Friday the 13^th. The aspects of this film and our production are very similar and they included teenagers being killed one after another with no reason. This also helps the narrative of the story as it flows and creates an opportunity for something else to happen later on. This is done in our production when the two teenagers prank their friend with  the masks this is seen as foreshadowing as this happens again later on but this time it is an actual murder who goes on to harm the girl. The second reason we used teenagers is because the target audience are teenagers which means they can subconsciously link to the characters and feel even more scared as they think that it might happen to them. This is used in most horror movies as well as not using a well know actor so the audience do not focus on the actors but instead on the narrative and the story line.

The use of props; there were a couple of props used in our production, they were all used to symbolise many different thing and create different effects on the audience. At the beginning of the production the girl is talking to her dead friend and telling her how much she misses her during this scene there were many props used such as notes and flowers on the tree with a teddy bear all laid out on a tree in a very aesthetic way. These were used to make it very clear and easy to the audience to identify that a death has occurred in this area and the fact that the person who has died was loved and very cared for. This is a theme that occurs commonly in horror movies as there is usually someone who has previously died and that is how the story, drama and murders begin. Another reason to why this sticks to the genre of horror movies and there conventions is because a movie starting with a death is a common thing that occurs in horror movies, an example of a horror movie that has had this before in the exact same order where someone is dead at the beginning is Final Destination this is shown at the beginning of the movie when the girl goes to the graveyard and visits her dead boyfriend.

Another prop that we used during our production is a bloody mask this mask represents many things throughout the production and creates many different effects on the audience. Masks are frequently used in almost every single horror movie for many reasons and these are the fact that the audience cannot see the face of the character as their identity is being masked which creates suspense as it leaves the audience wanting to find out more about the figure wearing the mask and what its purpose is. This is proven by our research on horror movies as we found out that masks tend to add to horror movie and make them scarier as there is always fear of the unknown. Masks also make movies creepier which was very useful aspect for our production as one of the main target of or production was to make the. An example of a horror movie using masks to mask an identity of the killer and also make the audience very suspicious is The Purge. This left the audience terrified as they had no idea who was committing the crime.  

A prop that was used at the same time as the mask we the noose. The noose was very significant as it left the audience terrified and in chock to who the character holding it is and what he was planning to do with it. The noose represented death and violent killing as it was held by the masked killer who was wearing a bloody mask this made it very clear that the killer is differently going to use it to hurt someone but who that someone. Another thing that added to the horror was the fact that the masked killer was going to use it on the girl that was in front of him. Due to the girl  being pranked earlier on she does not know it is the killer instead she was thinking it was another joke her friends were trying to play but the way the scene was edited made it very clear that these weren’t her friends and that she was going to die. The noose added to the production and made the opening scene a bit clearer as it was somewhat of an explanation to why the girl was dead and how she died. A movie that uses the nooses at the beginning of the story is sinister where the demand got the little child to kill the family as the story unravels and the audience find out why it happens. This is very similar to our production which helped us with the production as it made it closer to a horror movie.