CCR Question #1 Draft

How does your product use or challenge conventions?


Our film is classified as a horror/ mystery drama. In horror films, short takes are used to create a fast paced scene that’s hectic and intensifies the mood. This allows the audience to feel how the characters are feeling. While researching, one film I found that used lots of short takes was "The Cabin in the Woods." This made scenes fast paced and more interesting and action filled. We used short take towards the end of our film to build suspense and to make the audience scared for what was about to happen next.

Throughout the entire film we used many over the shoulder shots to create suspense and foreshadow the danger coming. They let the viewer know what was happening, but the characters are still clueless. In the film "IT" I noticed there were over the shoulder shots used a lot when the "bad guy" We used over the shoulder shot many times. In the beginning of the film, over the shoulder shots were used when the hooded figure was following the girls around the mall. The girls had no idea he was behind them so this raised suspense. We also used this shot in the last scene of the movie when the man finally reveals himself to one of the girls. The audience still does not know who the hooded figure is but the girl does.

Another convention we used was the way we portrayed the "bad guy" , or the hooded figure. When we researched horror genres we found that there was a lot of ways to portray him. In the movie "Hush", the bad guy wears all black with a black beanie on his head and a mask. We decided to try and make our bad guy look similar to this. In our film he wore black pants with a black hoodie with the hood over their head. This hid his face from the audience and made the scenes more suspenseful by not knowing who the man was and what he looked like.

Another film I researched was called "Us". This film uses lots of incidental music to raise tension and to make scenes in the movie even more terrifying to the audience. By using incidental music we created a gloomy mood and to create a sense of unknown for the audience. In many horror movie, suspenseful music plays right before a jump scare or before a big scene happens. We included incidental music into our film at the end when the hooded figure walks up to Lily at her car. It created a dramatic scene that kept the audience on the edge of their seat.



How does it represent social groups or issues?

The social groups presented consist of teenage girls who think they don’t need protection. They are independent and  are not very aware of their surroundings when they are all together. The issue presented is that they did not stick together and when one girl was alone, the stalker attacked. To prevent this the teenage girls should stay together no matter what even when the task is simple and seems safe.