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

2. The title of the film
The title ‘The chatroom’ reflects the fact that the male stalker
hunts his victims over a social network called the chatroom.
Other dark thrillers involving female teenagers being a victim
and has an element of horror in it, just like ours have typical
dark names such as ‘Nightmare on Elem Street’ and ‘when a
stranger calls’. So the title of out media product challenges the
convention of using a typical scary name in a horror.

3. Setting/location
The setting of ‘The Chatroom’ is shot in 3 main locations: a
female teenagers called Meleks’ bedroom, a stalker called
Kennedys’ basement and a local park. The lack of revelation of
the location helps the audience raise questions as to where is
all this happening and wondering if they are ever going to find
out. I found that following the conventions of the opening of
seven, where the reveal very little about the location proving
very effective in thrillers.

4. Costumes and props
The mise en scene of our media project emulates on a dark
theme being narrated. The male character is seen to be wearing
no clothes until the final shots where he is wearing clothing that
hides his identity; feeding into the enigma atmosphere trying to
be portrayed. Much of the female attire is unclear and irrelevant
to the narrative until the final close up shot

5. Camerawork and editing
Our media project consists of distinctive close up and extreme close
ups. This is a relation the the extreme close ups used in the opening
sequence of seven that proved effective in not revealing too much an
creating a mysterious theme. Even though many close ups were used,
a long shot was used to set the establish that the following shot was in
a park which follows the conventions of typical horror movies. In Seven
or and other thriller, it is normal to have fast pace editing to build
anticipation. Our media product is in contrast to that and consists of
slow elliptical, intercutting, juxtaposing tension cuts to subvert general
conventions, playing with the audiences emotions by building climax
and anticlimax simultaneously.

6. Title font and style
The font used for the introduction of the cast was Herculaneum. It is a
normal basic font that we thought would be good to try subvert typical
conventions of spine chilling horror fonts. We also did this because our
movie is not a horror alone. At first we thought about showing the
casts name as if it was being typed by someone there self, but It
couldn’t be done at the time because my laptop broke and I wasn’t
sure when it was going to get fixed. Luckily for me it came back it time
and feedback from others reinforced our decision to do it. The typing
effect relates to the plot of the movie as shown in the next slide

7. Story and how the opening sets it up
The opening sets up the story nicely. Its shows something that’s
happening in mid story so after the opening sequence you
would see a flash back to Kennedy in school getting bullied. I
believe having the opening that shows elements of what is going
to happen later in the story allows audience to brace themselves
as well as wonder so much. The opening sets a pretty pleasant
tone compared to how the rest of the movie is but the audience
is aware they will be in for something as the goory final shot
reveals hints of what is to come.

8. Genre and how the opening suggests it
The mise en scene, lighting and props in particular portrays our
media project as a type of thriller/horror. The dark
cinematography narrates the genre by giving it a dark
atmosphere all is revealed in the final shot where there is blood
all over the female character hung from a tree

9. How characters are
introduced?
Both characters identity has been to has been limited as a
persuasive technique but both characters are introduced in the
same way. However, there is sense of climax and anti-climax
wen you see a friendly beautiful female then a contrast to the
dark scary man. The juxtaposition here shows a sense of binary
opposition as the female is good and the male is bad which
feeding into the stereotype.