Evaluation Activity 1

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

The title of the production:

Our group struggled to find a perfect title for our production, so we researched films that have a similar story to our production. We finally came up with ' The devils Helper' as the title. The overall title was linked to our production, as one of the characters a possessed girl who is represented as the 'devil'. Also the word 'helper' shows the possessed girl is helping the devil, which means she is the main character, by at these two words it would already give a clue to the audience that it is a horror movie.

Title font and style:

We made sure that the title grabs the audience’s attention so we made the title big and bold to make sure that its clear, different effects were also used to make it look attractive. We chose the coloured' for our title as it symbolises danger, blood etc. By looking at the title the audience would know that it is a horror film. We also made sure that there was a blank black background so that the title stands out. As our production ends on a cliff hanger, we decided to show the title at the end after the opening sequence, by doing this it would allow the audience to watch the whole sequence.

The setting/location of the production:

The setting of our final production was located in an empty house; this would have attracted a wide range of school students as our target audience is from 15-35. Also by locating it in an empty school it would build tension, as normally horror films are located in empty buildings so this would give the audience that is it a horror movie. The reason why we chose to set our production in a school was because we thought this would be very different and also because school children can relate to this so they would be very interested in it.

Camerawork and editing:

As the cinematographer I had the main job to film everything perfectly with different shots and angles. It was also very important that I worked closely with the editor, as I had to make sure that he gets the right footage. The production overall has a variety of different shots and angles, for example I used a close up shot when Abbey saw the possessed girl, this was done to show the girls expressions. We also used a variety of panning shots to show to make it look effective, P.O.V shots was used a lot to show where it show the character was looking, High angle and low angle was also used.

Editing was also very important, as you had to make sure everything makes sense, by cutting out unnecessary footage and by putting it in order. We used transitions such as fades, colour effects to make it look interesting. Sound was also very important we made sure that we used a variety of different sounds to make it realistic.

Costume and Props:

The costume was very simple; Samantha and Abbey were very casual clothes as they were coming for a workshop, however we decided that the possessed girl should wear dress, we chose to do this because the possessed girl had to attract the little girl Abbey. The only prop that we used was a doll, we decided to use this as little girls usually like dolls, and so it’s a good way to grab their attention.

How characters are introduced:

After we show the location, it goes straight to a different scene where the two sisters are introduced. The possessed girl was introduced later on; we made sure that only abbey saw the possessed girl. When we introduced the possessed girl to the audience, we use different sound effects to sure that she is the main character.

Genre and how the opening suggests it:

Our final production contains codes and conventions used in other horror movies for example ‘Annabelle’ and ‘Chucky’, we got the idea to use a doll from these films, we also used non- diegetic background music, which suggests that the genre of the opening sequence is horror.

Story and how the opening sets it up:

The production begins by showing the setting; a tinted colour effect was used which already gives a clue to the audience that it is a horror film. We also used then started to use sound effects and quick shots to build up tension, by doing this it would have already grabbed the audience’s attention.