The way in which we shot our film in terms of camera angles challenges convention of the genre of horror/thriller in that there were very little low angle/worm's eye view shots to connote isolation and vulnerability of the character.
Another aspect in which we challenge conventions in terms of mise-en-scene is the lighting. An audience expects an atmosphere created by lighting to be dark to cause dramatic tension in this genre; however, in our product we did not use lighting to our benefit to meet conventions. Yet, in terms of narrative we met the conventions of the genre by displaying our protagonist as feeling isolated - after discovering the body and, as the narrative develops, on the run as people are convinced it is him. Another aspect in which conventions are challenged is the location of the sequence; with the narrative presented usually an audience would expect the setting to be in an isolated location such as in a forest in the dark such like The Descent.
How does your media product represent particular social groups and would be the audience for your product?
Our media product is a hybrid of the genres of horror and thriller. In terms of its iconography it contains knives and gore so the product would be aimed at a mature audience over the ages of 15, perhaps, 18. Teenagers and more modern/contemporary have become more desensitized to gore which in earlier audiences would be considered taboo. However, the main protagonist represent this contemporary audience in that he is supposed to be a young teacher. Yet again, he could be considered not to represent the audience in that he is an isolated character from society that no one seems to understand.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
A media institution that would distribute our media product would be one that, on the whole, distributes films of similar genres such as Lions Gate who distribute the Saw franchise or Pathe who distributed the 2005 British horror The Descent. The distribution company would look for a film that would meet the audience they aim for and our film would meet those criteria. Being a film made on limited budget and not with the support of a studio the film would be considered independent; this would see the film being unlikely to be exhibited in a chain cinema that has associations with large renowned studios - this would make it more likely to be exhibited in art houses and in some large multiplexes that offer a range of films to meet a diverse audience.
How did you attract/address your audience?
In able to make the audience relate to the film and the protagonist's role we focused, at first, on the mise-en-scene. The setting would represent a normal working environment in which the audiece could relate - in this case a school. Instead of being incredibly far fetched it would be seen as relatively normal; a successful film will have a narrative that is simple to comprehend. As well as this we tried shots that portrayed the emotion and position of the protagonist in order for the audience to be able to interact more with his situation. The high bird's eye view shots and extreme close ups accented his scenario and the over the shoulder shots enables the audience to feel as if they are there and part of the proceedings.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
From the outset I particularly was skeptical and cynical as to how amateur our film would look especially after we had collected our footage and was importing it to the Apple Macs. However, I learnt that with a little patience, effort and slight alterations to our sequence we could produce that had was decent despite having some difficulty with sound. It was satisfying seeing our footage transform from some rough shots to a polished (as much as we could) media product. Initially, there were troubles in setting up and using the camera and tripods but after a few trial runs we were confident in going about recording. Prior to editing our footage I had never used an Apple Mac and the software we were given to use. This caused a few problems in that it took a while to fully be able use our software efficiently and to the best we could in order to make our product credible. On an academic perspective we also learnt that film is much more sharpm more pixels and is of higher quality than digital recording.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In completing the preliminary task and reviewing it it gave us the opportunity to develop our cameramanship and to point out any hindrances that we wouldn't want to take forward to our main task. The main progression I feel we made was being aware of shot composition because within the preliminary task we had to constantly consider where to place the camera and set our characters in order to obey the 180 degree rule. This definately made us concious of how to bring the best out of our narrative. As well as this we considered how shot types such as birds eye views and close ups can set an atmosphere and can convey emotions such as vulnerability and shock/horror respectively. Progressively, especially during the recording of our main task, we learnt how the audience can gain an understanding through shot types as well as feeling there with the use of over the shoulder shots.
Evaluation
In our peer evaluation a common feedback was that our sequence was too short - on this issue I agree entirely in that our sequence is just shy of a minute and we foresaw this as a problem before we exhibited our work. We did, however, have extra footage to use to extend our work by about 20-30 seconds but on inspection we concluded that the footage itself was of low quality in terms of its construction and composition. Other feedback we recieved was based around continuity; our victim's tie moves from one side of his body to the other. We would have not have noticed this if it weren't for the our peer-evaluation session. Another problem that we were already aware was the level of volume of our musical score - when we recorded our musical score with an MP3 player and microphone close to the piano we thought we would have problems in that it would be too loud but this was not the case as we had problems making the music loud enough to be heard.Without passing the blame I feel as if we had more people in our group other than just two we would have had more ideas to pursue and with an extra person/s we may have been able to point out problems earlier and address them. Work could have been delegated more effectively instead of having an increased work load on just the two of us. Obviously, there were more opportunities that we did not use to enhance our work. However, with the time we put aside and resources we had I feel we made a good attempt and produced a piece of work that surpassed my expectations and with that I am content with our work.
