Evaluation For First Draft

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

The first of draft of my horror film

I spotted that shot reverse shots were used a lot in horror films as they show the protagonist looking around for the antoganist of the film which creates suspense for the audience, thus frightening the audience which is what a horror film is supposed to do. Therefore, we embedded this feature into our film as we thought it would be quite a scary addition to it. However, we developed this idea by adding a musical box therefore, we used shot reverse shots with a mirror. This added to the horror as you could see the clown in the mirror.

Furthermore, we incorporated something new that has not been seen before in horror films. Our last remaining character was able to kill the antagonist ( the clown). Usually all the characters are killed one by one.

Our film conforms heavily to existing horror films but does deviate due to the ending. The clown was the antagonist throughout the film this conforms to existing horror films. As well as this, we used lowkey lighting just like many other horror films. We did this to get the horrific effect, which we need.  Common things such as screams and slow movements were also used to cause the same effect.

How did you find the filming process?

Me & Jogesh together were able to complete editing and camera angles. This did go to plan as we both aided each other where we needed to.

Helena was able to provide us with the right mise en scene as she chose the location  which included lowkey lighting. As well as this, she was able to provide is with all the costume and props needed and considered the positioning in the frames.

The schedule did not go to plan due to weather conditions. We also had to compromise on location as the floor was very icy and therefore, it would have been dangerous. We rehearsed before the film and decided to change the ending via a group decision and feedback from our characters.  Next time our time management could be improved as we wasted a lot of time taking the same shot as the lighting or something else would be off about it. Furthermore, because we had to change location there were a lot of cars coming in and out of the road. Therefore, stopping and slowing down our progress.

Editing the film was quite challenging because we didn’t have enough time to edit properly as we had aqquired footage a few days before the deadline due to people not making it as it was Christmas time and due to the weather as mentioned before. Therefore, we had to use windows moviemaker, which isn’t really great for editing a film. Therefore, this draft actually isn’t as good as it should be.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

My initial questionnaire enabled me to collect information on what our audience liked therefore, we chose our film idea from which horror sub genre was most popular. Also, I found out males aged 15-20 are more likely to watch a horror film as they want to gain the thrill from the films. Furthermore, males are more likely because they are stereotypically seen as strong and brave and to prove this among friends and peers they watch horror films.

This allowed me to make another questionnaire, which was specific to the plot, and sub genre of our film.

Our questionnaires didn’t really change our ideas but in fact gave us more confidence in our decisions. This is because we had chosen the same things most of our audience had only a few people deviated from our decisions. 

How did you incorporate a range of media technologies within the research and planning stages of your film?

As our blog requires a range of interactive ways of presenting our work I have used software and online technology like: YouTube, prezi, powtoon etc..

To make the YouTube videos I had to use Sony Vegas to edit footage of my target audience. Using the software and online technology was fine for me as I am very familiar in using it. However, when rendering in high quality Sony Vegas takes quite a while which nearly made me miss my deadline. However, it is something that can be planned for.