Evaluation Activity 1

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

In our film we restricted the amount of locations to simply two different types of locations - scenic running scenes and the protagonist's home. We decided that using a variety of locations was not a key aspect that would be needed to enhance our film as due to the time restrictions, it may have made it difficult to follow and less realistic. Despite this, choosing the correct locations was an important factor we needed to take into consideration as there was such little variety, a large amount of time would be focused on these locations. We wanted our film to look as professional, as well as realistic as possible and I believe that our choice of locations supports this, however maybe next time it might be interesting to experiment with different types of locations more, in order to see what effect they would have had.

It is typical of most films to start their opening scene with an establishing shot of the surroundings, introducing the audience to the setting and allowing them to get to know the character's whereabouts. For that reason, we decided to start our opening scene with an establishing shot of where the majority of the film would take place - our protagonist's house. We believed that this would be effective in allowing the audience to engage with the film, and feel like they were getting to know the character as it makes the film seem more personal and therefore more easy to relate to. We decided to portray this location firstly through a high angle shot before cutting to a long shot of the character running away from the camera. We thought this would be an interesting way to display the location as it fulfilled two purposes - it successfully introduced the audience to the area, as well as immediately making our protagonist seem vulnerable through the use of a high angle shot, helping the audience with their understanding of the plot. I think that our opening shot conforms to the conventions in that it introduces the surrounding, however I think that the surrounding in which it introduces is subverts the stereotypes. It is difficult to discuss the stereotypes as our film is based around three different genres - crime action and thriller so there are a lot of stereotypes to consider, however I believe that in these genres, specifically action, the establishing shot would usually be in a more iconic, hectic location which aids the plot as it provides reason behind the realism. Despite this, I believe that our establishing shot fits the stereotypes of our plot as it more low key than big budget action films such as Skyfall, and I believe that with a combination of our skills and budget, our opening location successfully fits with the themes within our film.

The second screen shot is a picture of our other location - the scenic yet secluded rural running area as opposed to a large city landscape. I thought that this camera angle in particular was useful in showing our location as it also provided an insight into how we wanted our protagonist to be portrayed to the audience. Practicality was the main reason for our choice of location, however we also thought this type of area would be interesting as the audience does not expect it, as mentioned before - with a conventional large set-piece in London or in an exotic international location being the expected opening from our audience. We tried to help the audience to locate the setting as a mostly rural environment as best we could through the variety of shot types we used, as well as including as many areas of typical 'countryside' rather than busy roads etc. as we could. We hoped that the green colours which surrounded the character for the majority of the time would signify the natural element to this location that would be noticeably absent from the grey concrete of the city. This type of secluded location was something we actually gained inspiration from the horror genre, in particular the 1996 film Scream in which I analysed as part of my research and planning. We thought that this type of shot would build audience anticipation as it suggested that our young and vulnerable protagonist was being watched/followed and so helped to build suspense as well as provide the audience with a sense of fear due to the loneliness of her situation. When filming this shot, it was quite difficult to gain the correct amount of balance between the amount of obstruction from the trees and the amount of visibility we wanted from the protagonist. I believe that we managed to get this balance correct, however we were a bit further away from Christie than we would have liked. Despite this, I think it adds to the themes of the plot and it could heighten her vulnerability as it implies that she is in a world of her own (through the use of headphones and her obliviousness) and too far out of reach from protection.