Evaluation

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our product meets conventions as the victim is female, which is often used in crime programs, thrillers and horror films. Also the murderer is very masculine which is also a common convention and clichéd. However, the murderer in our film is female (although she is shown in a very masculine way). This challenges conventions as the antagonist is often male. The plot of this opening meets conventions as it is often used (victim being chased through a wooded area). Overall, our product, including the soundtrack and casting, is very clichéd as it is based strongly around existing texts. It both meets and challenges stereotypes.

Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 The main social group that it represented in our project is females. The protagonist in our film meets the stereotypes as she is a 'helpless female'. However, the antagonist is female too, which challenges this stereotype, although she is shown in a very male way. Detective Dave would be the main protagonist in the rest of this film. This meets stereotypes as he is male.

Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our product would be distributed by a small-scale, independent company as it is not high budget and not made by a well-known company (TNC). It could be shown in the London Short Film Festival or other such events. 

Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your full product?

Revised plot summary

There were a lot of minor changes made to our original plan. In our original storyboard, we had two victims. However, when it came to filming, we could not arrange a suitable actress for the second victim. Therefore, we changed the plot slightly for one victim. Also the positioning of the murderer was too hard to arrange with minimal personnel. We therefore had to imply the murder, instead of showing it.
As we could not get hold of the necessary props and equipment, the pathologist scene had to be simplified. This means that it lost a lot of it's meaning but we used different shots to rectify this. In addition, the murder weapon had to change as we didn't have a big enough axe. As we had a sickle, we used that instead.
As we had only minimal personnel at our disposal, a lot of the planned shots had to be change. For example, we had planned to use over the shoulder shots from the murderer. However this proved to not be feasible. This reduced the amount of shots we used so we used longer shots to fill in the time.

Some of the shots had been too ambitious for our budget and ability. For example, we couldn't do any of the planned tracking shots as we didn't have a dolly and the cheapest ones we could find were £400 or so. We attempted to improvise with carts but it looked too messy and unprofessional.

Shots of our Product

Most our product is made up of longer, long to medium range shots. This means that we can show the victim running and the murderer pursuing in the same short. This provides a concept of time and space. There are very few close ups of the characters, which means that they remain anonymous. However, this means that there are few reaction shots, which means there is very little emotion to our characters.

We put a fairly unnoticeable jump cut in one of the scenes where the murderer is pursuing the victim, to imply a mysterious aura to the murderer. However, this is not vital to the story line, so we didn't make it pronounced. We also put a jump cut between the final scenes, to imply the passing of time and make our antagonist appear superior, or god-like.

We used a handheld camera shot in order to make the audience feel uneasy. It also made it feel authentic, as if the footage was genuine. In addition, it makes it seem like the victim is being watched by some unknown observer, as if the shot is from their point of view.

The shots in the chase sequence get closer to the victim, which gives the impression of something closing in. The last shot in that sequence was an extreme close up of the victim, when the gradual build up of tension has reached it's peak. This is the point at which the audience feels most involved.

If we'd had the time and equipment, we would have used a greater range of shots. For example, we would have used more jump cuts and fast paced editing to provide the feeling of a chase. We also would have used a panning or panoramic shot to show the murder scene in the last shots.

Mise en scene of our Product

The costumes of our characters were fairly casual. We felt that to make this more realistic and relatable to our audience, we needed our victim to be like them and the murderer to be someone they could believe to be real. Therefore, our victim is wearing casual clothing (jeans and a hoodie) and our murderer is wearing jeans and a jacket. We felt that the hat would provide some level of anonymity. This would create an uneasy feeling around the identity of the killer and add intrigue to the plot.

The entrails we used, we thought had to be real to add a realistic feeling to the scene. We therefore, spoke to local butchers in our area and were supplied with pig guts (tongue, lungs and heart). However the blood was fake, as we needed blood but could not be readily supplied with it.
Also we used liquid latex to make the wound in the victim's head. We felt this would show a level of professionalism, as it is used in actual films.

We didn't use many props in our film as most of it was the victim running away. The only main prop we used the sickle that the murderer had. We felt that this was an appropriate weapon as it could inflict damage but wasn't an unrealistic choice; the look of the sickle suggested this thought. Also the shape of the sickle is similar to a scythe, which carries connotations of death.
We also had a mobile phone as a prop, held by Detective Dave, however this proved to be of little importance in the actual film.

Originally when we first filmed, we had more props (a mobile phone and a music box). We thought the phone would be realistic as it would show how the victim had tried to get help. The music box was playing creepy music and we felt this would add to the atmosphere of the shot. However we could not get these shots to fit into the plot so we left them out.

Ideally we would have used more props, such as police tape or pathology suits to make the meaning of the final scene clearer to the audience. However, we couldn't get hold of any of these in time for our filming (or legally).