Evaluation

My final media product used both similar and different conventions of typical horror genre films. The building of tension with the suspenseful forest scene is a conventional trait which is used in many horror films. I specifically looked at The Amityville Horror which had a chase scene in the forest.s helped me see the different types of lighting that our film conventionally used and how they affect the mise en scene. The lightening strikes in Amityville Horror add to the viewer being slightly disorientated and not fully knowing what is going on. decided not to use this effect because the chase scene in my own movie is the beginning and therefore i felt it was important for me to make clear to the viewer what was happening. The pure darkness of night is also another convention which is commonly used in horror movies to create suspense. However by using this convention it seems to make the film too rushed since it was only the first two minutes. Therefore I decided to use an evening light, like dusk or twilight, this added to the night effect but without it being so dark that the viewer is thrown into the film world too quickly. The lighting that was used in my film challenged the forms of real media products because it was a lot lighter and therefore some may find less scary We could not use real media conventions due to budget and equipment constraints and so therefore the quality in which our film stands out now is good considering the difficulties. The music is also another factor which may be seen as a challenge to more conventional products. The tempo of the music is a lot slower than what is normally used in a chase scene. I chose this because this was not a chase scene and the tempo did not have to be fast. Also the slow tempo demonstrates the desperation that the main character is feeling, and the wind-up toy noise helped to build that feeling of unease. The use of different camera shots were important when filming. This is because in order to portray feelings of scared, desperation, anger it can not only be done through characters but through camera angles. The low angle shots are typical in horror movies to show the vulnerability of a certain character and the high angle shots show the intimidating character. Realistically while filming it was difficult to get these types of shots, but we managed to use low angle shots more often which did create the feeling of unease. When developing our film sequence we wanted to portray teenage life properly. Our target audience is teenagers and therefore in order to attract them to see our film it is important that we portray them in the most realistic way so they can relate to them. We did not base our film on any particular race however it was mostly white actors that took part. The way that the film has achieved to portray teenagers is by creating the trouble relationships. The relationship between ex-partners Stephanie and Jason demonstrate the feeling of a broken, troubled relationships. Jason is seen as a dominant male that is obsessive and compulsive, this is shown through him having the picture of him and Stephanie and staring at it. During adolescence boys tend to reach to gain status amongst their peers this is done by gaining girlfriends. This representation of a typical working class teenager is demonstrated through the gathering in the park for Stephanie's birthday. Although our film does not involve any supernatural events it does continue to stick to a horror plot line. Summit Entertainment will be distributing my media product this was because they also distributed the film Twilight which was a teen angst move. This was also another theme which we wanted to put across in our film, the torn and broken relationships. By using romance as well as horror it widened the appeal for both females and males, The teenager group allowed both genders to relate to a certain point of the movie. Also the appearance of some characters were a way of attracting the audience because they looked realistic, with their clothes and facial appearances. Technologies which i have learnt about in the process of making this media product are the editing mostly. How to make a clip shorter or how to crop it so that you only use the bits you want. This was beneficial because I learned how important each second of a shot would be and how significant it is when you take some of the second long shots out. The use of effects on the film like slow motion or adding a voice over taught me a lot. This is because they add an extra way of gripping the viewer to a particular shot or movement within a scene, The voice over was a very clever tool we used because it allowed the viewers to be given insights into what the rest of the film would be about. It also created the foundation for Stephanie's character along with Jason. The titles within our movie was another tool which i learned, how to use certain effects and fonts to make the titles relate to the move. The use of sound was another factor of technology which i learned, how to use a song and out it behind the film so it plays over different shots.
I conducted a questionnaire that was given out to my peers, who watched my opening sequence, this was useful to me because it allowed me to see other viewers reactions to my film. Through the questionnaire results I was able to deduce that the transision between pure daylight, and evening light was not extremely noticeable. This was one of the things that I would have liked to improve for my film piece. I also found that the characters were believeable which helped to ad tension and unease to the film which was exactly the feeling I wished to create for the viewer. The genre of the film was unclear at the beginning of the opening, this had mixed views, some considered this as a bad thing because they were not sure what type of film they were watching and this could confuse or "put off" any other peotential viewers. Some seen this as a good thing because the shocking blood scene at the end made the viewers feel they wanted to carry on watching because they did not expect it.