Adi Mohamed

Evaluation Activity 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Throughout the process of creating our opening sequence of a horror/thriller scene we have incorporated many different forms of generic conventions which are commonly found in the media products we aspire to match with. However we intentionally aimed to go the extra mile by using our imagination and standing out from the amateur media products that is expected of us. This was done by constant reshoots of footage and replanning of anything that did not seem to be of high standard when it comes to movie making. In this activity I will go through what we have done to ensure our product did fit well into the genre and audience we were aiming for.

Title of the film -

The title we have chosen follows the basic premise of any horror movie title except that we have incorporated the classical bloody and red effect on the first word Psycho to bring it out and contrast in well with the X. The title we have chosen for our movie is Psycho X as it is easily relatable and a fun little wordplay with the X connoting an ex boyfriend of some sort. As well as this I believe everyone has an interest and fear of the unknown, this is where the Psycho comes into place as not a lot of people would know what it is like to have a psychotic boyfriend or girlfriend; overall this will allow us to also incorporate messages and values to our narrative such as watching out who you date and how you decide to break it off with them this is typically found in major real media products as they seem to exaggerate their messages and values of their product

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Title and fonts used

The title of all films is the key selling point when it comes to bringing in the audience and allowing them to understand a basic proportion of what the film is about. That is why we ensured that our title looked perfect for what we were trying to convey. We aimed to make the film look bloody and gory as a result we vigorously went through all the text we had and concluded that this one was the best as it completely stands out from the others. Minor additions were made to the title such as making the X bold to connote deeper and dominant meaning when it comes to understanding the basic narrative which was a passionate relationship gone terribly wrong. As well as this we ensured that we followed another basic rule of a red theme. This instantly ensured we were in the correct genre; red connoted danger, gore and bl ood. We also decided to not have the X red to connote a relationship which was once perfect and now completely ruined by a psychotic boyfriend. We also followed another basic convention which is the classical dripping bloody effect in the text. This simple addition to the text can easily tell you a lot about the film without you even having to watch it. One of the main inspirations for our title was the 1980s horror movie Mothers Day

This simple titled conveyed a lot of meaning which can easily be guessed just by looking at the classic title. This is what we aimed to achieve with our title. We knew that if the audience can easily understand what the movie is about they will be more eager to watch it. This is us also developing a real media product and using it a boundary.

Adi Mohamed

Setting and locationCompared to other previous school productions we decided to use more than one location as this was definitely a common convention in most horrors in general. We wanted our character to get caught where she feels safe coming out of a school but little did she know, danger was lurking. She then gets blacked out only to wake up in abandoned site. The use of more than one location required further planning and timemanagement. It was especially hard getting all of our cast at both locations as most of us had many other plans especially our actor Penny Ives who had to work on her own production. However we chose to shoot our first scene outside of Oaks Park High School as it seemed to fit the bill; it was very close and easy to transport cast and equipment without wasting a lot of time. The second location we had was a very lucky scout as Nikunj Mandalia (Director) had some construction in his back garden. The location was derelict and common of the genre we aimed for. Especially with the additional

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construction materials laying around and lack of windows or wall plastering. The first location we used can easily be seen as your typical location when it comes to adding suspense and standing out in movie making. However the addition of the cold and low saturation colour correction really brings out the conventions we were aiming for and adds a sinister feeling. I believe without these additional changes we could have not pulled of the successful build up to Jodie being blacked out. Additionally the second location allows us to begin the horror/thriller side of the film. We aimed to make the location look as derelict as possible, this involved me having to add a dark colour correction and a slow sinister soundtrack playing in the background. One of the inspirations for our location was from Saw 5. Firstly we knew that from the beginning we wanted Jodie to be helpless and stranded in a place she cannot leave. We wanted our antagonist to have the power and control of Jodie This meant that ou r location had to be derelict and rundown similar to those of Saw 5. We were originally going to have the second scene is a graveyard with Jodie tied up to her tombstone however this was instantly scrapped when we thought of the possible offence we can cause from doing this.

Adi Mohamed

Special EffectsThroughout the editing process, I had a vision of Chucky slowly creeping up to Jodie from his point of view with small blackouts and a deep base for every time the footage comes back on. This meant that I had to cut up the clip perfectly in sync with the music to have this build-up be successful. I couldnt of made this scene too slow or it would not have the audience on the edge of their seat, as well as this I didnt want to make too fast otherwise it would have not been memorable. This part really engages the audience into the scene as they can slowly see something creeping up on Jodie in a slow and scary manner.

Adi Mohamed

Adi Mohamed

Costume and propsShe is on her mobile phone to connote her youthism and portrays her as the stereotypical young adult with a lot of relationship problems and stress

Protagonist - Jodie
Messy hair to connote she has some sort of stress and lacks the motivation to take care of herself. Also shows she is worried and overthinking about something else.

No make-up on her face indicates that she is too stressed and lacks time to think about her appearance and is too busy dwelling on her fallout with chucky

White clothing indicates innocence and freedom. Red clothing indicates blood and vengeance.

Antagonist Chucky
The gun was used as a prop due to the fact that it is very symbolic. It shows that he planned this attack well enough for him to be able to get a gun. It also shows his eager to get revenge for what Jodie has done to him. Black hoodie indicates that his attack was well planned as he was well covered and plotted the attack so that there is less chance of him getting caught.

Camerawork and editing-

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Throughout most of our footage we have used a variety of different shots with the main one being close ups. This was due to the fact that it is important in most horrors that the audience can see the facial expressions of the characters when something meaningful happens. After excessive planning of our film we found that camera movements within a movie can be the difference between a major Hollywood film and a low budget amateur film as a result our cameraman was directed to involve these minor conventions that can make a huge difference to our film. This involved us trying to use shots such as panning, tilting, zoom in/out. As well as this we attempted to incorporate depth of field in some of our shots however this was not successful due to lack of experience with this sort of advanced level camerawork. We also used typical shots which are found in horrors such as long shots to show the antagonist coming closer to Jodie and low angled medium shots of the antagonist to portray his dominance and power. These minor conventions added the effect we were looking for alongside the continuity editing which allowed the sequence to flow easily without errors. A lot of time was spent on the editing process of the production to ensure that our film did reach the high standards of real media products. We spent a great amount of time on constructing which shots were good and which ones just did not fit well. This meant that there were times where we had to reshoot in order for the sequence to flow, as well as this me and the director spent a lot of time looking for the correct sounds to create the intense atmosphere we were aiming for. Overall I believe that the editing and camera work does reflect similar attributes to real media products.

How characters are introducedJodie (Penny) is introduced straight after the establishing shot of a safe environment (school). Everything seems to be normal whilst she is being introduced coming out of her line of work as an assistant teacher. The audience cannot tell much about her in the first shot other than the fact that she seems to be depressed and sad which is conveyed from her facial expressions. The enigma that may arise to the audience is why is she all alone? This is the first spark for danger and is also typically common in horrors.

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This is when Chucky (Played by Nikunj Mandalia) is introduced. Instantly we can tell that he is some sort of killer which is exaggerated from his costume and props. Firstly he is blacked out which suggests to the audience that this was a planned attack. Secondly he has a gun which may indicate to the audience that this is not a person to play with. I believe this can link to real media products as we went the extra mile to get a realistic looking gun in order to progress our film further and challenge some of the real high budget movies out there.

Story and how the opening sets it up

Adi Mohamed

The very first shot was of Jodie walking out of work and receiving a text. This was the spark that began the full story as she opens the text only to find a mysterious text from the unknown. This is when the audience can tell that this isnt going to be anything other than a horror movie. As well as this it is common that there are many enigmas in horror films as a result we were able to spark up the idea of what is this about? and what did she do? The fact that our main character is an assistant teacher and works around kids gives the audience ideas about how trustworthy Jodie is and nothing bad could have come from her especially when it comes to threats coming her way. As a result the audience will therefore begin to form a relationship with this character and share feelings of fear and anxiety as to what is going on. This sort of effect tends to make the audience believe that they are with Jodie and feel as if they are experiencing what she is experiencing. For instance we know that Jodie doesnt know whats going on and this also means the audience doesnt know what going on as a result they will share the same feelings when they find out whats happening.

Genre and how the opening suggests itOur final product seems to have a lot of sudden change of atmosphere and tempo, this ranges from the sudden burst of highly intense non-diegetic score music to instant blackouts alongside some deep and heavy base sounds. This overall is what I believe has created our product and transformed it from a random amateur produced film into a heavily planned and produced product that can be compared to another blockbusters. This was simply due to the basic premise of just following the codes and conventions as well as understanding them further and applying some creativity which allowed us to stand out. As well as this I incorporated minor fixes which made the overall difference to the whole sequence. For instance the colour correction was a key convention to the product as it immediately set the atmosphere of the film and indicated the genre to the audience. As well as this the sounds that were incorporated in our production did succeed in adding minor jump scares and long eerie moments for the audience to watch.