Jon's Evaluation

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

Our project was set in the woods, following on to a semi-urban setting. Initially, the mood we wanted to create for the forest scene is a fast-paced confusion. We achieved this by using hand held close up shots, with fast cutting and different angles. We deliberately included houses in some of the shots to show the urban element of the setting.

Lighting wise, we used all natural light except for the silhouette scene. We wanted to shoot at dusk, however we realised that this was not practical as we'd have to get the timing spot on, and we'd only have a short timeframe to get all the shots we needed. So we decided to use post production colour correction to adjust the footage to appear as though it was dusk.

Silhouettes are a very traditional addition to thrillers, so this worked well in adding to the confusion and explanation of the storyline.

Characters

Our only character actually seen fully in the film is the girl. She is the protaganist (which normally means the 'hero' of the storyline). She is also protrayed at the start as the victim, due to her fear, and injuries. The antagonist (villain) is implied twice, firstly where the syringe silhouette scene is shown, and secondly at the end, where there is an implied first person shot from the antagonist's point of view. The antagonist is implied to be human, as one of the key differences between thriller films and horror films are in horror films, the antagonist is normally supernatural.

Sound

For sound, we used both non-diagetic sounds and diagetic sounds together.

• When the character is running, we left the sound we captured whilst filming in deliberately to create a confused, chopped up effect.
• An example of diagetic sound we used was the light switch.
• We added non-diagetic sounds like the background drone to create suspense.
• We began to write a score for the film, however it was difficult to write separately from the film, so once we added it, it didn't seem right.

Examples of Iconography...

• The syringe
• Blood
• Dark color
• Quick fast flickering to make the audience unsettled
• Wounds

Narrative structure...

• Our storyline was restricted, as we were attempting to portray from a first person view, whilst the camera wasn't first person.

What would be the audience for your media project?

Our project would be aimed at teens to young adults. The film includes modern issues like drugs, and attempts to portray them from almost a first person view.

What have you learnt about the technologies

During filming, we used the HD Sony camera. This was a great tool, as we could use the manual focus to shoot a depth of field shot and record fantastic sound (due to the shotgun condenser mic mounted on the top), among many other things.

• We used the camera to import the footage into Final Cut Pro, then chopped all the scenes up and began to order them.
• We learnt how to quickly do this in FCP, and then applied the colour correction filter to turn it into night footage.
• For the lighting, we used a red-head to create the shadows needed for the syringe scene

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Initially, we wanted our character to be a normal 17 year old girl, who has been thrown into a situation that she perhaps knew nothing about before. She is of a middle social class, neither rich nor poor.

The storyline for our character is that she has woken up in a strange building, with no recollection of how she got there or what has happened to her. She is wearing very simple, torn clothes, which could have been torn during her escape, or during whatever has happened to her while being unconscious. She runs, and reaches her home. As she's in the shower, she begins to remember small segments of what has happened to her. This comes in the form of sharp flashbacks, as the stuff she is remembering is clearly distressing.



Comparing to the preliminary...

• I gained more confidence to shoot shots which were less standard
• We used a musch better camera, and had an opportunity to try out lots of different techniques
• In the preliminary, we made certain mistakes such as getting the 180 degree rule wrong.