Evaluation 1

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

'Infernum' is a Gothic/psychological horror film which we wanted to show through the mise-en-scene (costume, setting) so that it is easily recognised, but we also wanted to challenge the typical character and story tropes of the Gothic genre. The main theme of the story is mental health and suicide, topics that are focused on in more recent films and not in typical Gothic movies. There are no supernatural beings in the film which the Gothic genre is full of, however the main character does have hallucinations of cloaked beings which can be argued to be the equivalent of it.

In a way, we have tried to bring a modern twist to the Gothic genre by featuring more relatable topics and making it less fairy tale-like. 

As previously mentioned, we tried to show that the film was a Gothic horror through mise-en-scene. One way we did this is costume. On the right is a screenshot from the film which shows the MCs top which is clearly Victorian style and she is also wearing a long, floor length skirt. Her hair is also tied into a bun. These features clearly indicate that she is from the Victorian era which is what most, if not all, Gothic films are based in.

The film is also based in an open field and also the woods. In many Gothic texts, one of the main classic locations are the woods so we decided that we had to have a scene in the woods.

We also put a filter on while editing the movie to make it slightly more black and white and slightly washed out, this is because of the black and white of older Gothic films, however, people now are more reluctant to watch black and white films and so by still having colour, we are reaching out to a wider audience and are not 'scaring away' our target audience.