Media Film Evaluation!

By Kayomi Tweddle and Alexandra Booth

Our media product conforms with the conventions of horror as in majority of horrors depend on sound affects in order to create the mood of the film, without the sound a horror wouldn’t be classed as ‘scary’ taking this into consideration we created sounds on garage band which suits the storyline of our film, putting the sound in instantly changed the feeling of the scenes throughout. The sound creates the feeling of something not being right throughout the film which emphasises the shock of the dead body of Kayomi’s boyfriend Nathan in the last scene of the film.

Question 1!

The location of our film also created the effect of being helpless, which is normally a big part in a horror film; the feeling of being trapped in a place with no way out or any way to get help if needed. This is shown in our film as it has been shot in the woods. Our film follows the idea of a cause and effect chain which makes the characters fall under the idea of tragic. The cause of the problem could be labelled as the drugs as before the drugs became involved the group of friends seemed happy, however their reaction to Nathan’s idea of fun led him into walking further into the woods alone after taking drugs. This creates suspense as the viewers would ne worried about what could happen to him whilst he is alone. The effect of Nathan’s action ends up with him being found dead by his girlfriend Kayomi with no logical explanation to what has happened which throws a supernatural twist to the end of the film; the sound we put in the background of that scene supports the idea that Nathans death was not an accident or self inflicted but that someone or something unknown has killed him.

Although our film complies with the conventions of horror our film also challenges it. This is shown as the killer or the reason behind Nathans death was not shown at any point in the film, whereas in a average horror the death of a character is normally a driving force towards the feelings evoked in the audience for the rest of the film. With ours been more mysterious is creates a un settling feeling towards the viewers as they are as clueless towards the death of the other characters.

We based our film around the films such as ‘Shrooms’ and ‘Paranormal Activity’. Although can not be distinguished as similar to the films we based our film off we did take specific ideas from al off these films. Our idea from ‘Shrooms’ was the drug sequence we put into our film, in ‘Shrooms’ the drug sequence is the main factor of the events that occur during the film, similarly in ours the drug scene is also a main focus in the film which leads to the death of Nathan. In ‘Paranormal Activity’ the supernatural force is never shown throughout the film, it can just be heard, we took the idea of this and put it into our film, although it is not definite that the killer was something supernatural the killer is not shown which creates the effect that it could be a supernatural force.

Question 2!The social group shown in our film was age and gender. The age was shown through the typical young teenagers going into a dene to drink and camp out with their friends. The clothes they wore represented what kind of characters they were for example the boy wore chains and a track suit which gives the audience the idea that he may like to get into trouble and isn’t a good behaved teenager.

This film is represented in quite a stereotypical way as they boy does show dominants over the girl as he leaves her crying while he freely goes and does what he wants to do, which shows that the typical female who doesn’t stand up for herself to the male. The social group matches the target audience as this is mainly aimed at teenagers so they can relate to the film and matches a teenage mind better than adults as they may not approve and enjoy a film starting with teenagers illegally drinking in a dene.

Question 3!We decided that our film would only be a small budget film that will be distributed on the internet only. We decided this as we don’t think the film is big and broad enough to be produced in Hollywood. Our film would mainly be aimed at a British audience as it will be produced by a small British company. Since our film is a Horror this would have caused a lot of competition and high expectancy from the film if it was produced in Hollywood which is why we believe our horror film would match a small internet based production.

The target audience for our film would be teenagers and young adults, the narrative is aimed at a younger mind so that they can associate themselves with the film and maybe have their own experiences of being young and getting into trouble drinking in a dene or forest. The style of our film is also for younger people as it’s not too tense and scary as such which adults may find boring for a horror film, but this is good to match the ages of our target audience so that it isn’t too bad for young people to watch.

Question 4!

We tried to attract our target audience by using young teenagers in the film and to make quite a realistic situation turn into a nightmare. I wouldn’t say our film specifically ‘terrifies’ the audience but it does cause tension of having someone watching them and who could it be. The main tension is caused in the last shot where it shows one of the girls over the dead body and turning her head in shock to show that somebody’s there and maybe she’s the next one to die. With non-diegetic music in the background this is trying to enhance that something bad is about to happen and to express her shock and how scared she is.

Question 5!

The audience is put in a position where they can be witnesses of what’s been going on, so they can watch the group of friends. But they are also in shot of the shots put into the killers eyes, for example when it shows the two girls walking in the dene we can used a long point of view shot coming from the bushes with non-diegetic dark serious music to create a bad atmosphere and to tell the audience that maybe someone’s looking at them and it isn’t going to be a pleasant trip in the dene.

The style of film doesn’t let the audience see the killer as such, which plays with the audience’s mind as they don’t know what he or she looks like, when there is going to be a killing or what else going to happen throughout the film. This causes more questions and tension to keep the audience watching throughout the full film. This also helps the audience use their imagination and have their own view on what they think is out there, is it human or supernatural?

Using the camera equipment was fine once we got used to knowing how they worked and what to do with them. A few problems we had was that we didn’t know that the volume was muted on the camera so we couldn’t listen to the clips back while filming as we didn’t know how to unmute it and that we were hoping that the sound was picked up the camera.

Question 6!

Using the camera equipment was fine once we got used to knowing how they worked and what to do with them. A few problems we had was that we didn’t know that the volume was muted on the camera so we couldn’t listen to the clips back while filming as we didn’t know how to unmute it and that we were hoping that the sound was picked up the camera. An advantage of the camera equipment was the tripod as this helped us film steady and accurate shots without having any problems of shots being shaky and uneven.

When we first started filming we weren’t 100% sure on how to use the camera so we got stuck on some parts of filming. An example of this was that we weren’t very good at zooming in and out in shots, so we had to practise doing this until we had picked up the technique, then started filming so we knew that we could film correctly straight away instead of having film lots of the same shot. Another problem we had was moving the camera and the tripod around for the different camera shots we filmed. To help with this we took turns on who was going to carry the equipment so that it was equally shared.

We didn’t use any new equipment to enhance our film as we didn’t need to as our film didn’t require anything other than a camera and a tripod while filming.

When we started editing we didn’t have much knowledge on how to use the software so we didn’t know how to do certain editing techniques. But we soon got used to using Final Cut and found out how to add effects, which could help enhance our film. One of the effects we used was to darken the full film so it took the light sunny day away and caused more of a horror feel. We also used editing effects to show the effects of the drug taking in a more advanced way, this was colour full and blurry to show his point of view.

We found garage band very useful while creating the sound track for our film as it had a lot of different sound effects which we could use to create the tense atmosphere and matches the genre of our film. The challenges we found was that we had to make sure every sound effect was placed on the exact correct place on the timeline in order for it to be exactly in sync with the film.

Question 7!When we decided that the genre of our film was horror we done some background research into the conventions and past horror films. To help with our film we designed a storyboard with each stage showing the camera shots that we plan to use at the different points throughout the film. This helped us when we actually filmed on the day as this was a step by step guide on what should be included in each shot and how the narrative of the film will lay out. We also created an animatic which helped us plan exactly how to film and why we wanted our film to be this way. This helped us on the day as we didn’t have to think about what was needed which saved us time as we could just film and it would be done without having to worry about thinking on the spot. This also helped us be more creative as we had time to think and plan exactly what we could do and what effective shots that we could do in order to be creative and keep within the horror conventions.

Looking back at our preliminary task I can see that our filming has improved a lot as we understood more about the different camera angles and shots that you can use, so we tried to use these in our film. We also made sure that all the shots made sense unlike in our preliminary task as you could see our reflection in the mirror on the task. Overall I think our film fulfils the brief and keeps within the horror genre. If I could make improvements I would try make sure to use more advanced editing and camera shots, I would do this by putting more into my planning , concentrate more and practice filming.