(Question 1)

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

Firstly, we chose Dead Mans Alley as our title; this is because it lets the audience know the genre of the film from the get go. The title is always shown in bold lettering to make the title stand out and grab the viewer’s attention; therefore our media product has used conventions of a real media product as most films aim to grab your attention through big bold titles on trailers/opening sequences in a cinema to draw you in from the beginning.

The location that we have chosen actually came from the choice of title for our film, this is because one of my group members suggest the alley next to her house which is named ‘dead mans alley’, we thought that this would be a great location to film due to the surroundings that it had; for example a train station right next to it, over grown plants and parts of the alleyway which looked like a dungeon. This alleyway is quite dark and is the type of alley that someone wouldn’t want to walk down alone. The title of this film inspired us and made the perfect setting, therefore developing our media product into a whole idea and image in our minds setting the base for our opening sequence.


We also used modern day costumes/props as mentioned before such as the mobile phone and clothes that teenagers would wear everyday, however the costume that you see our protagonist wearing in our opening sequence was not an basic modern day clothing such as tracksuits or jeans, it was more of a individual look, some of the clothing that our protagonist had on had connotations of danger and death for example the red/burgundy socks that were worn, this shows a hidden message from the start. We challenged and developed on some real media conventions trying to make our film as modern as possible.

In our camerawork and editing we chose to film the whole sequence as a point of view shot from the murderer's perspective to build on that uneasy atmosphere. We also added a clip of heavy breathing to build up the tension, as well as a creepy soundtrack to build up the moment and set the scene/mood. While we were editing we found it hard to hear the dialogue of the character that was meant to be said, therefore we used a soundtrack over it so that no dialogue had to be used. This specific shot was to make the audience feel unsettled as well as get their attention to make them want to see what's going to happen and who this person is who's eyes we are seeing it through... But to make it a cliffhanger we don't reveal who this person is throughout our opening sequence, even at the end, too add to the mystery. The whole opening sequence being in a point of view shot perspective uses and develops on ideas from real media products as there are normally a few point of view shots in a sequence involving a psycho murderer scene, but we challenged this convention by making the whole of our opening sequence a range of point of view shots from one perspective.

When choosing our story-line and how to create the build up in our opening sequence, we imagined what would keep us on the edge of our seat if this was an actual film we was watching in the cinema, so we used the conventions a typical horror movie usually does and what you would usually see happen in them. We started by introducing the audience to our character straight away by showing her walking from a busy high street down a side road, it's very obvious who our protagonist character is as the camera follows there every movement, this distinguishes her from the rest of the people in the background, and by getting her to walk away from everybody else this automatically brings her away from the busy public place and brings her into a deserted location instead, separating her from the 'life' in the location, which is once again another hidden message, but purposefully making it very apparent that she is now alone. We did this as in typical horror movies you see either a lone person, or a group of friends get into a situation where they are often alone (or end up alone) in a deserted place with no other frequent form of life close by. Putting the protagonist character alone is the start of our build up and developing on the idea above, then having someone follow her closely adds to this. When the character is then in the alleyway we start building to the climax of the sequence, with the person behind (who's point of view we are seeing this from) getting closer to our protagonist character, and the two then finally coming face to face, however we only allow the audience to see this interaction between the two for a split second before the shot jump cuts to a black screen, building the suspense and mystery.

The genre definitely uses and develops on the usual conventions of a horror film by the using a young and attractive teenage female as the main character, the use of props such as a mobile phone and also the clothing that our protagonist was wearing shows that we have tried to make it as modern as possible. The soundtrack from the beginning of the sequence shows forms of conventions because from the creepy and slow music we sense that it Is a horror film also , the isolation of the character herself and the uneasy point of view shot from the murderer's point of view (even though it is not obvious who this person is)