Evaluation Of Main Task.

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

I believe our piece does develop and challenge the conventions of a typical thriller as we took much of our inspiration from other films of the same genre. During the research period of our project, we watched and analysed several films of the same genre. The film we took most inspiration from was ‘Shrooms’ released in November 2007. The basic plot line follows the typical conventions of a teen horror. A group of friends get lost in a woods, and brutally murdered one by one, etc. During the film there are many shots that related well to our setting for example in the opening scene there is a nice establishing shot of the woodland surroundings. We attempted to create similar shot type when filming our piece. It also challenged the conventions of today’s youth, for example a typical teenager.

It created a stereotype for young people. In our plot, Whitney plays a young girl at a party and her drink gets spiked. It is easily recognisable to an audience that the girl is being stalked. This is something an audience can relate to in real life as sadly more of today's crime is linking to teenage stabbings. I believe our film also tackles issues such as peer pressure in the fact that many of our characters are drinking and smoking. A subtle reminder of today's generation and how easy it is to be complacent. Shrooms also takes some of it’s inspiration from other classic slasher movies. Our film represents the typical group of naive teenagers.


How did you attract/address your audience?

The target audience for our film would probably have to be a similar age to myself. We tried to follow as many conventions of typical slasher horror as we could. We tried to attract our audience by using many different shots but also by adding moments of tension in our scenes too. We attempted to use juxtaposition between the first and last scene as the first created a relaxed atmosphere whereas the last scene was created to shock the audience. During the planning process of our piece we considered playing the ending of our piece at the very beginning but after discussing it as a group we soon decided against it.


What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the process of our filming I have learnt to check all equipment before taking it off site. For example during the first few days of our filming the camera ran out of battery causing us to waste time but also to loose some vital footage. After re filming our piece we were then able to edit successfully. We also found it useful to turn off the camera in between takes to save on valuable battery power. Editing is not one of my stronger media skills so I was pleased that during the editing process I learnt how to cut clips using the ‘razor’ tool and also drag them to where I wanted to in the film time line. Another skill I learnt was how to creatively use effects and transitions, tools we found very useful at the very end of our footage when adding the credits. I have also learnt to use my time carefully although eventually we finished with success, we could of allowed ourselves more time to edit before the final deadline. Although our media was successful we did have some problems to conquer. When adding music to our piece we had some difficulty with soundtrack and copy wright issues. We decided to use ‘Spit fire’ by The Prodigy in order to do this we needed to ask permission from the founder of the band. We did this through our media teacher.


Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression form it to the full product?

Overall I feel that I have progressed in my media skills during this project. Looking back on my preliminary task, it was nice to be able to practise before filming the real film however I am very glad I changed groups as I feel I work better with a smaller group rather than just with my close social friends. I am pleased with our final outcome and although we could have improved in some areas of our organisation, I believe we have achieved what we set out to do and have created a successful horror film opening which follows the genres of a classic slasher movie. Although we were supposed to create a two minute opening, we aimed to create a trailer for our film to give the audience a preview of the finished effect and make them want to watch it. Another angle we looked at as directors was putting the end at the start of the film, another director which does this is Nick Hamm in the movie, 'The Hole.' We spent a lot of time researching this film as we liked the location and some of the establishing shots used. Take for example in the opening scene, when Liz is running out of the woods after her terrible ordeal over the last few days. The film then cuts between scenes of police interview as well as showing flashbacks from earlier scenes.