Evaluation 1

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

Through watching a range of horror films (including Saw, Circle, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Insidious) I compiled a list of conventions that were common in all or most of them. These conventions, which are the things that typically arise in a genre, included gore, isolated settings, a villain, a lone survivor, a lack of consequences for the villain and weapons. Technical elements that were common throughout the films were dim lighting, long shots to show isolated settings, close ups of the villains so that they are only partially revealed and a lot of jump cuts in the editing. Research also included asking a cross section of audience about the expectations of a horror. The people I asked expected to see similar things to each other and to the conventions I had found. The most common responses were gore and jump scares, a lot of the responses to our questionnaire showed that audiences also wanted to see children as part of the narrative. There was a clear pattern of how we needed to encode our production piece so that the audience would be able to recognise it as a stereotypical horror. I wanted to create an opening that captured the stereotypical aspects of a horror film; this is reflected within our main character. 
The next step was to create a storyboard. 

I conducted research of the typical elements of a horror film and presented the information in a prezi format. 

Camera Positioning

Camera Shot A: The tripod was placed in the centre of the rocks so we were able to do a panning shot of the surrounding rocks. This part of the woods was the flattest therefore the tripod was able to be placed comfortably and not wobble. Positioning it roughly in the centre allowed us to get a camera angle that was quite evenly spread between each rock so we could portray an accurate representation of the location.

Camera Shot B: This camera shot was taken by the cinematographer being stood on top of the rock in order to get a higher angled shot. Our aim was to get high enough to do an establishing shop however the rocks were slightly too low in order for the establishing shot to be very effective. The high shot, however, made the girl look small showing her innocence and vulnerability t0 the audience.

Camera Shot C: This shot was positioned with the camera facing west in order to get a long shot of the girl walking away from the camera. The rock behind it made a shadow effect on the camera so it looked darker and made the scene seem more tense. We also used this camera position to do a dolly tracking shot up and down the girls body which built suspense as to what she would look like. We found this area in the woods was also less muddy than other parts so we decided to film the shots involving the teddy therefore if we did for some reason have to redo the shots, the teddy wouldn't be muddy and would correctly match the continuity editing.

Camera Shot D: The camera was positioned on the rock with half the lens focussed on the rock and the other half focussed on our character walking in the background. We thought this would give a sinister effect almost like someone was watching her and would make the shot more scary and effective.

Camera Shot E: We decided that we liked the idea of integrating the camera into the trees to use them in helping us get more unique camera angles so this shot is where we put the lens between branches and did a dolly panning shot of the tress around it. It is also in the area where we set up the tripod to do an extreme long shot of our character standing amongst the trees as the different sized and shaped branches created a creepy effect.

Analysis of Film Openings: Buscombe's Theory & Audience Theories

Hunter Productions Research

Soundtrack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl7O8_kWeOc

This soundtrack will be used as our non-diegetic sound throughout our opening. Ring a Rosie is a well known nursery rhyme. The creepy version will be contrapuntal to the innocence typically associated with this song. This track has an eerie tone, which could make the audience feel uncomfortable and on edge. We may adjust the sound so that it links in with our main character and sounds more like a little girl is singing it.

BBFC 15 Certificate

After some deliberation, for our production, The Woods, we decided to give it a BBFC age rating of 15 and over. This deemed appropriate as our film will contain some blood and gore. However during our opening none of this will appear; keeping the audience interested.

Missing Poster: Media Convergence

In order for the group and I to create a hype about our production we released a wanted poster of the main character. This will entice our audience to watch our film as it will create curiosity and enthusiasm throughout our audience. This is an example of media convergence as we published the poster on social medias; therefore promoting our film on a different platform of media. Our inspiration was the hype that was created around "The Blaire Witch Project" from their release of wanted posters for their protagonists. As they are also an independent film company, we're hoping our success will mirror theirs due to the similar advertisement concepts.

Character Make-Up Inspiration

The main character of our production is going to be played by a 12 year old girl who is 'posessed'. The makeup we choose has to portray the evilness within our character; it also needs to look realistic and be reasonably easy as we haven't got the tools and products for a professional look.

The bottom right photo consists of heavy blood around the mouth and eyes; however after precise research, we found that all possessed characters that take place in horror films don't have blood on them.

The top right photo, consists of scratches on the face. As our production is just the opening of the film, we don't want to give away anything that may lead to plot giveaways. We will not be basing our makeup based on this picture as we want to keep the audience in the darkness as to what has/will happen to the character.

We decided to use the bottom left photo to base our makeup inspiration around.