Analyse your film opening with regards to genre.

From section 1b) Analyse your film opening with regards to genre.

The genre that my film opening was chosen to be by myself and my production group was horror and the sub genre was chosen to be a slasher. The codes and conventions that horror contains to allow the audience to know exactly what type of film they are watching are the narrative of the theorist todorov who created the equilibrium and dis-equilibrium theory, a main character of a female who is the victim or a vulnerable child, blood, screaming and suspense which is built up by the pathetic fallacy of storms. 
In my film opening 'Scarlett' I made sure that these conventions were included however I also challenged some of these to make my film opening have a twist to fascinate the consumers more. 
The first convention I used was having the main character as a female. The character called Riley was played by Harmony knight and the reason we as a production group called this character Riley is because it means strong and powerful which is challenging the obvious stereotype of a female character in a horror film. However near the end of the film opening the protagonist 'Scarlett' the doll became very haunting and broke the strength of Riley as she began to show her weaknesses through the diegetic sound of her screaming and telling her to stop harassing her. This then shows the character of Riley conforming to the obvious stereotype of the female being very weak and vulnerable. Furthermore another convention that I followed in my film opening was following todorovs theory. This is because at the beginning of my film opening it was very settled and the group of teenagers were in a park drinking and smoking which was chosen as the target audience of our film opening was mainly aimed at teenagers therefore by having similar aged characters will help our intended audience to understand the horror film opening better. This was the equilibrium following this was the disequilibrium as the film opening immediately changed to 'Scarlett' the doll haunting and disturbing the teenager 'Riley' showing all of the teenagers gone which is inferring that they have been murdered., Lastly the new equilibrium had been made by the flash back transforming back to normal where the teenagers were relaxing and acting the same way as they were from the beginning of the film opening. The genre horror relies a lot on the convention of this narrative because as an audience it allows suspense to be built and is a storyline that the audience understand before watching the actual film. By also having a disequilibrium is what makes the horror film opening intense and exciting as this is when the horror is at its best.
In addition another convention that myself and my production group used was the pathetic fallacy of the weather this is because we purposely filmed the horror opening on a very duel and rainy day this adds to the ghostly and haunting effect we was aiming for this is because it adds more fright to the audiences reaction. Furthermore we also used darkness to show where the disequilibrium was occurring this made the actress who played 'Scarlett' look more evil and petrifying to scare the audience.This convention is very important as it keeps the audience eyes drawn to the film opening as it adds more intensity to it. However our location that we chose to film our horror film opening at was challenging the genre of horror in my opinion this is because the main influences we looked at was 'Cabin in the woods' 'Chucky' and 'Sinister' these horror films that are out in the film industry were either filmed in a woods or a haunted house which are the obvious locations for the genre of horror. However we as a production group chose to film our horror film opening 'Scarlett' in a park. The reasons behind this are that because the cast were young teenagers the park reflects their innocents as a park is where young children play and share positive and fun memories. However by using a park in a horror film opening contradicts this and makes the film opening very disturbing as its ruining the childhood memories of this location. Furthermore the swings and roundabouts moving in the wind create a very spooky effect which again will spook the audience out.
Lastly one of the main characters 'Scarlett' the doll is conforming to the convention of the genre horror this is because from previous research this character was inspired and developed by the horror film 'Chucky' and the chosen costume for 'Scarlett' the doll was a cute and adorable chequered puffy sleeved dress. This is also used in the horror film 'Women in black' as its a very disturbing outfit as the personality doesn't match the innocents of the costume. Furthermore the make-up that we as a production group applied to the actress playing 'Scarlett' was very bold and by following a make-up tutorial made the appearance of the doll meet the requirements of the genre horror. The appearance and costume choice for 'Scarlett' was very important as without her being scary would of made the whole of the horror film opening very pointless and disappointing for our audience. 
In addition the theorist 'Laceys' considers that 'repertolre is elements' that work together to suggest genre and that these are a useful framework to use for analyse. These features are setting, character, narrative, style and iconography. All these features are used in my film opening which is the genre of horror and are analysed above. Also showing that the genre of horror isn't fixed set of conventions but slightly changes over time I realised this through looking back at the history of horror in previous research before my construction of my film opening.
In conclusion the film opening we filmed and edited followed the main conventions of the genre horror very well however by challenging a few of these conventions made our film opening more intriguing and different for our audience even though it didn't effect the understanding of the film opening as we still followed the narrative correctly. Overall I feel that our film opening 'Scarlett' met the requirements of the genre horror very well and by having actual influences in the horror genre that are released in the film industry gave us solid inspiration to create our own.