Evaluation Question 1

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

Throughout our research, we looked into costuming and make up to add emphasis specifically to possession. We dressed Harvey in simple clothing, suitable to his age, making sure he fit the stereotypes for a young boy. This inevitably lulls the audience into false sense of security as he appears to be akin to any young boy/child, and they are unlikely to pre-empt the horror he will cause later within the trailer. This also makes it feel closer to home as there is nothing out of the ordinary about Harvey in the first place. This is why we wanted our costuming and make up to appear as realistic as possible, so that the audience could relate to the young boy. We attempted to use make up on Harvey to see if it would look effective; however this was unsuccessful due to the poor quality of the face paint. For this reason we did not use make up on the young boy, however if we were to make the film in its entirety, we would use make up to pale his skin in other parts of the trailer, similar to how we have manipulated his skin tone on our poster.

In terms of developing existing conventions of real media, we have used various methods to carry this out. For example, the simple convention of a teaser trailer is to tease, ultimately enticing the viewer in so that they want to watch your film, whilst not revealing too much of the narrative. We aimed to entice the viewer by showing a kidnap and then the return, which touches on the possession genre. In terms of inspiration, the direct link between the swing shot in the trailer for the Omen and the same in our own trailer is very clear. We noticed that in many of the films that we were inspired by; almost all of them used a swing shot involving a young child. 

Another of our main sources of inspiration came in the shape of various case studies. The most influential of which were news stories such as the disappearance of Madeline McCann and other young children such as James Bulger who was particularly interesting case because it also incorporated young children committing twisted acts. An alternative inspiration behind our trailer came from looking into possession and related incidents such as Jaycee Lee Dugard who suffered from the intriguing issue Stockholm Syndrome. This provided an alternative logical reason behind Harvey’s behaviour as opposed to the pathological, demonic explanation which is the strong suggestion of the trailer. However, having gained a deeper insight into the ideas of demonic possession in the real world, we found that demons tend to enter after an individual has been through a traumatic experience, which in this case is of course the kidnapping itself. In a broader sense, we have taken the general idea of a possessed child in a film and developed it further by creating an event in which the possession occurs. This challenges the ideas of possession in traditional films such as The Omen, where the child is evil from birth.

More specifically, we took direct inspiration from the Insidious poster, where the boys eyes have been altered to look more evil and this can also be seen in our poster, with the red rings around Harvey’s pupils, which we also edited to be dark and mysterious. In more detail, the colour itself is traditionally viewed as evil and the eye is a powerful physical human feature, often described as a ‘window to the soul’ and it is evident that Harvey’s soul is not quite as innocent as he first seems.

Our location was interesting as towards the beginning we tried to create a homely feel, which was mostly present in our trailer when we used a ‘home video’ type effect in places such as a garden and living room. This suggests safety and security, which is opposed when the shots are then expanded to a lonely field where Harvey is alone on a swing beneath the tree and ultimately leaving him vulnerable. After he is taken we see the swing gently swaying, and the teddy bear left behind is an indication of the innocence he has lost and the childhood he has left behind. Following the kidnap, are scenes which show a knife falling top the ground and Harvey digging a grave, both of which are in dirty environments and are further indications of him losing his cleanliness and purity. This has challenged certain forms of media conventions, as we have therefore taken the innocence away from the child which is traditionally one of their redeeming features. He is now seen committing acts that are not normally associated with young children and both fairly morbid ideas. Towards the end of the trailer, as Harvey returns home but there is obviously a substantial difference in his behaviour, such as aggressively drawing dead people and directing a sinister look over his mother’s shoulder. This follows the theory of Propp, particularly the final stages where the protagonist returns, with a slight alteration regarding the balance of power.

With regard to sound, our trailer begins with a slow paced, calm version of ‘happy birthday’ which accompanies the shots of Harvey blowing out candles at home, giving a family-orientated atmosphere and emphasising security. However, this comes to an abrupt end as we see Harvey alone on a swing and a deep, eerie drone begins, coupled with a spooky rendition of the nursery rhyme ‘teddy bear’s picnic’ which follows conventions of real media as it’s associated with children. This said, we also challenge them as it does not sound innocent, much like the path Harvey has taken. Lyrically, the nursery rhyme also carries strong relevance to our trailer, with lines such as ‘if you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise’ which is ultimately what the young protagonist experiences. Following this, the nursery rhyme comes to an abrupt halt as the shot of an empty swing comes up, indicating that Harvey has been taken, along with his innocence, which is left by the swing, symbolically in the form of the teddy bear. The dull drone continues after this, ensuring the audience’s attention is drawn to the shocking images rather than the sound and also adds further impetus to the loud noise at the end, as Harvey looks up which intends to surprise.

Editing has also played a pivotal role in establishing the conventions of our trailer and we have used many methods to do so. Initially, we used several fade to white transitions, in order to emphasise the fact that the events were from the past, and in addition to this we used a home video effect to further the realistic feel we were aiming for and thus enabling people to relate more easily to the situation and become immersed in the film. Linked to this is the crackling effect we have used in some transitional cases, this helps add to the voyeuristic nature, indicating that Harvey has been watched for some time. Overall, in terms of editing, we largely followed existing media conventions such as using straight cuts to increase the pace and make it seem more like a genuine teaser trailer, as well as using match on action later on in the scene where Harvey is drawing, in order to maintain continuity. The drawing scene itself takes obvious ideas from the similar scene in The Ring where a young boy is shown creating morbid pictures in a strange manner. Also, we used the typewriter effect a to give the feel of a police case, thus suggesting that some kind of crime has been committed with the clicking sound and font combining to good effect. We discovered that many other films within the same genre have also used text to give information to the audience, because we wanted to use a police case study, we thought this would look good in our trailer.

We picked the spooky looking Warner Bros ident alongside the Dark Castle logo as we felt these fitted our genre most efficiently and we had also looked into films such as Orphan which had previously used them as well as being closely linked to our own.


we also used Todorov's theory of narrative, both conforming and challenging this... 

Tzvetan Todorov’s Theory of Narrative 

Todorov suggested that conventional narratives are structured in five stages:

1. a state of equilibrium at the outset;

 2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action; 

3. a recognition that there has been a disruption; 

4. an attempt to repair the disruption; 

5. a reinstatement of the equilibrium

This is the most common form of Narrative theory that is found within films.