Evaluation Question 1 - In What Ways Does Your Product use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

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

Our media production "Red Run" takes up the conventions of a few real media productions as well as developing these ideas in some way.

The working title; "Red Run" was originally thought of before we bought the doll we are using to this day, we called our production this as our original doll/killer was a red action figure, therefore using this colour we came to the conclusion of using "Red Run" as our working title, the run in "Red Run" also symbolises that this is a horror/slasher film, or just a film where you'll see a chase scene or someone running for their lives, with this and red it exaggerates this, as red is also a strong connotation for blood and horror films.

Original doll/killer from our rough cut 1

The Doll now being used in our production "Red Run"

POV shot used in Halloween

The opening for "Red Run" uses the convention of previous real media products such as Halloween & Childs Play. the start of our opening we have a POV shot of someone walking towards a house, like in Halloween, where they used a steady cam to create one of the most revolutionary openings in film history, they used this steady cam to create a almost perfect POV shot of the killer in this film, this makes the audience feel like they're in the killers boots which oddly makes them experience the killing in a much more exciting way for them. The other, almost obvious convention of a real media product is the doll/killer we used, it is very much like the one used in the film "Childs Play," (1988), which had a budget of $9 Million, and on its opening weekend made $6,583,000 in the USA only. we also used it in more or less the same way as in "Childs play", with it being the killer and also how it is introduced in i think the 2nd "Childs Play" where it is brought into a family home as a present.

POV shot used in "Red Run"

Our opening also uses such stereotypical conventions to create a social/middle class location/home. The location uses was a normal sized attached house in a urban/village area, one you might see in such Slasher films Halloween & Scream. This setting will relate to almost all of the audience for this film as this is a very normal house and a normal life, giving the idea that this could happen to anyone of them, which adds to the scare factor. 

We decided to put in a false scare after the feedback given after our 3rd rough cut, false scares are widely used in many slasher films as it puts the audience on there edge, and after the scare they will not trust the signifiers of the film anymore such as a soundtrack you'll find leading to a scare or popcorn being cooked, which was used in Scream as a very effective build up for the opening killing. using these conventions we decided on having the false scare at the start using the POV shot as seen on Halloween, this will also trick the audience in thinking this is the killer as it was used for the killer in Halloween. Dillon the male "Jocky" type character for this film, is innocently making himself a tea in the kitchen, there is cross cuts between him making the tea, and the pod shot of a unknown person walking towards the house. The person then opens the gate, the male hears it, but thinks nothing of it and carry's on making his tea, he then hears something again and investigates by slowly approaching the front door, the door then opens, but the male isn't in view, as he comes into view of the door, he's puzzled and goes outside to see who's there or find out the cause of this. This is where the false scare takes place, as the males girlfriend then jumps on him as he looks outside. This is slightly different compared to our last rough cut, because that didn't make much of a impression, so i came to this idea, we have yet to film this though.