Evaluation Activity #1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

 

Our media project which we have created as a Horror Movie opening would be able to resemble and relate to real media products which have been produced and will be explained by using nine screen shoots of our opening which support this topic.

1.      The Title of the film.

As the plot of our story is ‘A teenager who has lost a loved one turns to alcohol due to effects of depression, whilst visiting the grave of his loved one the teenager is attacked and abducted into the an abandoned room where the doctor tortures his victims’. Our group came to the decision to name our horror movie ‘Taken’; the reason for this is that the title sums up the movie and gives insight to the movie before watching the footage and the word taken also connotes the theme of loneliness and isolation which is a theme typically used in gothic/horror genre projects which are very successful such as Frankenstein.

2.     Setting/Location.

The screen shot I have chosen is the graveyard, this is because it is an effective setting in our opening scene as this is where the character is seen standing over a grave which is a part of the plot to our movie. The long camera shot of this setting also shows that the character is isolated as he stands alone over the grave which is a gothic/horror theme which gave our production a more stereotypical approach to the horror genre of movies and real media.

3.     Costumes and Props.

This screen shoot is shows how we used costumes and props in order to have a more effective appearance for our movie’s opening as it represents the character of the doctor as you can see there are medical tools within our settings mise-en-scène. For the doctors costume we decided to have him dressed in a smart dress shirt with a plain apron it is simple and signifies that the character is a doctor which is also a stereotypical character within many horror movies.

4.     Camerawork and Editing.

For this shot we used a panning shot which panned left to right across the doctors desk where he is standing which was edited within the video by increasing the speed as the panning duration was too long which exceeded the time limit for our movie opening. The panning shot was also effected as is showed the medical tools and aspects of the mise-en-scène which strongly contributed to the setting of this scene.

5.     Title font and Style.

The title of the font we used for our Title ‘Taken’ and the opening credits was ‘Bradley Hand ITC’ the reason for using this font is that whilst editing I felt that this seemed like a gothic style of font and helped to resemble the theme and genre of our movie rather than using a bold and original font. I also felt that they looked more eerie and tied in well with the grave setting and music I chose to use for the opening of the movie.

6.     Story and How the Opening Suggests it.

For this screen shot I have chosen the drinking scene which is at the beginning of the movie opening just after the production company name as this is what leads to the theme of isolation of the character that is taken and then tortured by the doctor which is an important part to the story and plot of the movie and relates to the horror/gothic genre of movies.

7.      Genre and How the Opening Suggests it.

The genre is suggested throughout the opening of the movie however the screenshot of the movie I have chosen shows both the doctor and isolated teenager who is being tortured. This helps to suggest the genre of the movie as the doctor has a victim who tied to a chair torturing him in a dim lighted room which also supports the gothic/horror effect of the opening.

8.     How Characters are introduced.

In our opening of the movie we introduced the characters one by one and screened the ‘starring’ opening credits of the movie in the order each character appears within the opening. The screen shot which I have chosen is a point of view (P.O.V) shot of the attacker by doing it introduced the attackers character as before you  this shot the audience can only see the back of the character and are not sure who the character is.

9.     Special Effects.

In the opening of the movie I had inserted various effects whilst editing then footage. The screen shot which I have chosen to represent this is a special effect (camera blur & ghosting) which added to the effect on the audience and gave greater visual effect of the spotlights and vision of the doctor as these effects occur in a point of view (P.O.V) shot of the abducted teenager who was attacked and when the teenage victim is regaining consciousness after the event of the attack.