Evaluation - Question 1

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)




The Title of the Film
The title of our film is the most important part. When people are browsing the dvd rails or standing in the cinema waiting to see which film they would like to watch, the part which firstly grabs their attention is the title. From the start, we had decided that we wanted a short and snappy title. 'Isolation'. Short. To the point. For the horror/thriller genre, titles of the most well known and popular films are short; Scream, Saw, Hostel and Halloween. These are all titles which inspired us to create a title like the one we used.

We placed the title at the end of the opening two minutes. We did this because we wanted the audience to get a feel for the film to start with. The best example for this is the Scream Movies. Below is a link to the scream opening, although the person who uploaded these clips have changed the title, it is still in the same palce as where it is, in the film. Allowing the audience to have an insight into the film to begin with lets them begin the journey of escapism. It also allows the audience guess what is to come later on in the film, which is what we wanted because we want them to make up their own minds to what is going on, and why our main protagonist has been kidnapped.

Scream 2, Opening, Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watchv=Gu00Nu_5_CM&feature=related

Scream 2, Opening, Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAj76SQbDT0

The Use of the Black Screen; This is a technique which I think is very effective in a way in which an audience member may not think. Putting the title on a black screen, like we did, allows the audience to justr focus on the writing. The words on the screen need to be powerful and draw the audience in, because is the only tim in the film where you can have the audience's full attention on what the film is called. This is the reason why we did this. The title 'Isolation', I think is powerful and does draw the audience into the film, adding to their experience of escapism, which is the reason someone would watch our film.

The title was created on the programme I edited my film on, this was iMovie. We could of done a lot more for the title and made it more effective using techniques such as a big zoom which is what is used in 'Scream'. The reason we didn't is that in the horror genre, titles are kept more simple to create a sense of realism.

Setting/Location
The setting of the opening of our film could be the downfall in the film because it is such an ordinary place and somewhere where every person can relate to, a home. I think this allows the audience to relate themselves to the film which creates a whole new sense of fear in what thy are feeling. We did this because this is an ordinary girl who has been kidnapped, who lived an ordinary life. The bottom line is that it could of been anyone, it could of been you. It is a big message to portray in just the setting and it has a huge impact on the audience.

Here is a powerpoint which shows moodboards of settings and costumes.

Costumes & Props

The costume for the kidnapper in the film is, again, completelt ordinary. We didn't even ask our actor to wear a certain thing, we told him to wear anything. This is because we wanted to reinforce the message that it could be anyone. The kidnapper could be anyone! It could be the man who lives opposite you in the street, or your next door neighbour. The costume for the girl was ripped and dirty clothes, to show that she is going through hell. These pictures can be seen in the powerpoint above. Props were kept to the minimum and the ones we used were ordinary things that you would find in a house, again to keep the whole idea of just an 'ordinary' setting.

Camera Work & Editing
The editing in our film was all done on iMovie and kept a simple feel on the film. Filming our film, Me and Abbi took it in turns to film parts of our film so we both got equalk chances, even though we had the same vision and some of it was done together.

Story & How it is set up
The story of our film is about a girl who gets kidnapped by a neighbour. It is set up so we meet the kidnapper and see him in an ordinary life, and see him looking at a missing poster of a girl, and then we see him walk into the garage of his girl and see the girl tied up and then some flashbacks of him tieing the girl up and actually kidnapping her. This is done to reinforce the fact that is ordinary and that it could be anyone.

Genre & How it is represented
The genre to our film is horror/thriller and we are so pleased with the way we have portrayed this. We did this by using the music we did, created on garage band, making it creepy and weird and suttle, and then changing the past into something completely different to create suspence. We also portrayed this genre by the characters we used and the title. We tried to create a simple horror/thriller film.