Foundation Portfolio Evaluation Questions (Sam Cox)

2. Our media product uses forms and media conventions through the use of children as the threat. Children are seen as sweet and innocent, so when in horror films they are the opposite it intensifies the fear in the audience. In this way, it uses the conventions of using children to frighten an audience. To develop the conventions, during the climax of our threat, we only filmed the outside of the location, this way keeping a level of ambiguity to the actual events. In horror films, the audience either see's the attack or not. We chose to develop the non-seeing convention, as we believed this would also intensify the scare factor in our product. However, when it came to challenging the conventions of horror, especially ghost, we felt it was too risky to challenge well set conventions in such a small product, therefore we followed the conventions and changed them to fit our film.

4. Our media product represents two social groups. Firstly, children are often used because they represent the exact opposite of what a horror film stands for. Usually, the social group of children are represented as sweet and innocent, but in our horror film we represented the children as dead ghosts who haunt and murder their victims, the people who are unlucky enough to stumble upon their resting place. To represent their evil, we used high-angled camera shots, which were filmed from the shrubs and trees. We felt that using our location in this way would also help to maximise the fear factor in our film. Our other social group was teenagers. Teenagers are often portrayed to be trouble makers, who go in search of trouble. To represent our teenagers, we had them wear civilian clothing to show they were the victims. In our plot, we had them exploring a burnt-out warehouse which they knew was once the location where two children died. This is the convergence in our film to the stereotype. In our film, we represented them as typical teenagers who were looking for trouble.

6. One of the films we looked at in the initial canvasing of genres was the wickerman. I researched The Wickerman on http://www.imdb.com/ and found it was a british horror film filmed in 1973, and was filmed by British Lion Film Corporation. If our film was an actual film release i believe we would use a company like British Lion, because they are British and distribute alot of British Films through their distribution wing and they have also worked with the likes of Channel 4 Television Coroporation. I feel this sort of exposure would be good for our film. I think our film follows the conventions of a british ghost film, mainly through the location and actors. I think this is how it relates to British films in terms of production.

8. Our media film has turned out very different from our preliminary task. Most things in our new media product are different to our preliminary task, most notibly the location and the type of threat we used. In our prelimianry task we shot in a house, showing our threat to the audience on mulitple occasions. We did this because we were re-making a previous students film. Although the quality of our finished preliminary task was not very good, we learnt alot from filming it. Firstly, we neglected basic filming rules such as the 180 degree rule and thirty degree shot rules. In our finished media product, we followed these rules strictly and we feel the difference because of this is vast. Secondly, our preliminary task was badly orgainsed and the quality was poor. To combat this we were much more organised in recee'ing our location and sorting out actors, and because of this we had a clear image in our heads and on paper of how our film would look beofer shooting. I also learnt alot about the camera from the first task. Because of the first task, i learnt how to set up the camera using tools such as white balance, but also i learnt about angles and shot types which helped us to make our new film the best it could be. If i were to do this film again, i would not change much, only i would make our film more actor based and not as suggestive as it has turned out. I would also make a much better soundtrack as i think in some of my fellow students work it is very influenctial.




9. After the departure of one of our group members, i feel myself and Andrew have worked and will continue to work very well together. Myself and andrew have identifyed eachothers strengths well and therefore assign task evenly but also to the best person for the job. In filming, we found i was more suited to the actual filming of the film, whilst andrew was mroe creative with the directing role. However, i still contributed ideas to make the film better. I would say that both members of the group have contributed alot to our film and although Andrew and our previous group member were responsible for alot but not all of the key ideas and plot of the film, i have contributed alot towards the production of the film, as i produced our shot list, sourced our actors, and shot our intial filmshoot. I also did the editing of our inital shoot with help from Andrew.

Evaluation Questions - Andrew

Part One 

Question One - For our short film, we are making a horror film, the short film is two minutes long introducing the very beginning of the film. Through researching to create our horror film, we looked at current and past films such as Paranormal Activity and Frankenstein. We also looked through various films to generate ideas in making our original idea even better. The production and preparation for our film was very organised, however, at the beginning and through weeks, we had a few problems with group member being absent and not dedicated to the course, but we have now resolved those problems and on track in creating a professional looking short film. From the original four members we had, we have now gone down to two member (Myself (Andrew) and Sam), where we worked very well together, putting ideas and experience into the course. 




Question Three  - Our film would be aimed at certificate 15+, we would aim our film at this age as we feel that the film wouldn't contain a huge amount of violence and fear for the film to be rated an 18.
To make our film more effective for the given and targeted age we would look at other horror films with certificate 15 to include and see the boundary at which we feel our film could reach.


Part 2


Question Five - I feel personally that we have targeted our audience to the correct level. Our film contains the right amount of tension for the audience and with more editing and music, the film with conclude very successfully. In our film, we made the actors seem innocent as to what was going to happen, however, it could be seen as cliche, but due to the time we have had and the ability of only two members in the group, i feel that we have succeeded very well. I also believe that the music also adds huge tension and generates the pace for the film.

Question Seven - Considering all the technologies such as blogger, iMovie and Garageband, i feel that they have all succeeded and we have used them to a huge potential especially garageband (personally). i feel that through the course, ive gained a better knowledge of how to use such technology. I feel that all the programs we have used have helped us in making our work and our project a lot better and a lot more organised which i feel is a huge part in having a good partnership and creating work together.


Question Nine -  In the beginning stages of the project, i feel that i incorporated a number of ideas and organisation into the group, i also feel that as we work well together in our group, we had great skills in knowing what we were skilled in and what we should assign each other to do. As Sam had previously used such technology as Garage-band, i asked whether it would be possible for me to develop more skills by creating the music for the film, i feel that this was a successful result as i have created a beginning tune to open the film. Through the development and creation from starting the course, i feel i have taken a 'behind the camera role' where i feel im more successful in directing and incorporating my ideas into what could make the film better and be more effective.