Evaluation 1

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



Throughout our film "Redwood" we have used semiotics to connote the horror genre. We see the main protagonist played by Alice Buckton-Perkins and the antagonist played by Dan Campin which are the conventions of horror. These conventions included the protagonist wearing light clothes suggesting innocence and the antagonist wearing dark clothing conveying mystery. Alice is wearing a white t-shirt suggesting her innocence and we can immediately tell that she is the protagonist, she is also wearing a green jacket again suggesting innocence as green is associated with nature. This is portrayed in the Hollywood film Scream the protagonist in the opening sequence is wearing a white jumper conveying purity. Although Alice is wearing a white shirt she is also wearing dark pants which is associated with evil suggesting she has a diverse personality. However. Dan is wearing a black coat with his hood up suggesting he is the antagonist. the hood up creates an mystery around the character and so the audience are intrigued to continue watching.  In Scream we see the antagonist wearing a black robe sticking to the conventions of horror which we followed. This is evident as Dan Campin, our antagonist, is wearing a black hooded jacket to conceal his identity and remain an enigma for the audiences entertainment.We have looked at Scream for clothing inspiration for our own characters as we wanted to easily portray who the protagonist and antagonist are.

We have also implemented a heat beat into our opening sequence as it connotes death which portray what happens later on. The crows have been strategically placed early on to foreshadow the later events of the opening sequence. We have a close up shot of blood on a tree as the characters return with a shallow focus. This is so the audience can clearly see that an incident has occurred. The dripping connotes struggling which makes the audience wonder what has happened. The blood is also ambiguous which creates an enigma around the period that Alfie was left alone.

Throughout our opening sequence we have used the conventions of horror as we have used dramatic music to create tension that is typical of the horror genre, we have used long takes and short takes in combination to drag out and hype up the audience, it includes some blood suggesting violence and a mystery antagonist figure. Although we have used some conventions of horror, we have also challenged some of these traits. Alice is the main character and so we will have the final girl theory although it is not fully portrayed in the opening sequence. She takes control of the situation which can be seen as she more powerful as she mocks one of the male characters. She is centre stage in most of the shots and both Matt and I follow her to and from the car. We have attempted to use the final girl theory to develop Alice as a character earlier on to intrigue the audience.

As we were limited to a amateur budget we were restricted on our ideas and so we could not fully explore them. As a group we only had about £50 budget making it extremely difficult to purchase any props we needed. Therefore, we had to maximize what we already own costume for example. The characters needed a casual look and so we instructed the actors/actress to arrive in their usual clothing. The camera hardware was also used effectively as Ewan had a Cannon camera and Matt owned an iPhone 7, both of these allowed us to capture effective shots. However, with our amateur budget some changes had to be made to our opening sequence and so it is not as how we intended. This includes the range of shots as we would have used a stabilizer to keep our shots from shaking and an a abandoned house in the forest to give it a more eerie feel.

Target audience feedback

We asked our target audience, the Hollywood demographic, to comment their opinion on the film. it was relatively easy as our friends fit into the 15-24 year old gap.

Final opening sequence

Redwood

Editing session 2

Our opening sequence length was too long as it needed to be cut down by 50 seconds. In an attempt to reduce the length I cut down unnecessary shots when the characters were both leaving the forest toward the car and arriving back once they got the equipment. I shortened this section down as the original shots were too long and will have made the audience loose interest. Therefore, to keep or maintain tension the journey to and from the car had to be reduced. We also have in our opening sequence blood dripping from a tree which we liked as it connotes the horror conventions so in order to reduce time, I sped up the shot to double the speed. The shot is still just as effective and was not too fast that it did not match the rest of the shots before and after it.

I also helped Matt change the colour on one of the shots. I already knew how to adjust the settings but I needed conformation with Matt as it was in his section. We needed to adjust the colour settings as that particular shot was extremely bright and did not fit with the surrounding shots. The footage before and after were much warmer and gentle to look at. Therefore, I had to change the colour from harsh lighting so it would fit better in the scenes.

During my section of the dialogue there was a limited variety of shots. The only used shot was a medium shot of one single character and so it was hard to tell who the characters were talking to. To amend this I added a low angle long shot of  Alice, Matt and myself. After I implemented this into our opening sequence it was much clearer to see who was talking to who. It is necessary that the audience know which characters are communicating as if they are confused they will not understand the story line.

Filming Journal 2

After looking at our footage on final cut pro we realized we had insufficient shots and variety so we decided to re-shoot at a later date. I filmed the close up conversation between Matt and Alice to show the expression in that scene. This creates diversity in our film and with the different shot types that can explore different ideas. I also filmed a POV shot of us walking for the filming site location to the car. This has been done to create a sense of realism that we want to connote through our filming. A POV shot was necessary in order to create a reality as it shows the film from the perspective of one of the characters. Another shot that I filmed was the low angle shot of the murderer with murder weapon. The low angle shot was taken to create enigma surrounding the killer. This is key to creating a successful opening sequence as we want to intrigue the audience into watching the film.

Editing session 1

At the beginning of our opening sequence we had a shot that was 20 seconds long of the characters walking to their location. We realised that this shot was longer than necessary and we had to cut it down. We used the blade tool to cut the one take into several shorter ones. As a result with tampering with our footage we had to re-film most of the first 30 seconds which we decided to do in the upcoming days. We moved onto the the next scene where Alfie placed is bag over the camera to cut to the characters all set up. In order for this to flow we edited a black screen onto the footage so that the transition was clear. Some of our close ups of the characters dialogue did not work correctly so we added this to our list of re-filming in the upcoming days. Our opening sequence must be 2 minutes long and therefore in order for each of us to have the same amount of time to show our ability, we split the time into 30 seconds each.

Filming Journal

On the day of filming Ewan Matt Scott and I met up on location with our actors. We briefed them on what we will be doing and how they will be involved. We instructed them to remember their exact position to keep the continuity correct. My role was to be part of the opening sequence but I also contributed off the screen as well. I directed some high angle shots of the characters walking through the woods. I also directed the dialogue scene of the characters interacting about where different possible filming angles could be.