Evaluation Question One

(1) In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I believe that I observed the continuity and language of film and editing to a reasonable extent at a technical level as our film itself was well edited and put together in a way which avoided errors in continuity, giving the film a story that was not too hard to follow, yet still had an heir of mystique to it. We made our film look professional from a cinematic point of view by using a tripod to keep the camera steady and to make sure our framing remained straight throughout the shots. In order to do this we framed up a shot with the people in it before filming, ensuring they were fully in shot.

Our film fits its genre conventions quite well. As a horror film, it is quite a common theme to have a girl alone, making her look vulnerable which is how our film starts out. She picks up a weapon to show the audience that she doesn't have anybody there to defend her, and that she is all alone with whatever is causing the knocking noise. We also have music in our film which builds up the tension and makes the audience feel uncomfortable as it is often a sign that something bad is going to happen, however they are surprised when we subvert genre conventions by having something non threatening at the end of the constantly building music.

In our film, using the ukulele is a link to another horror comedy film. In Scary Movie, a female is alone in a house being hunted by a killer. She has a lot of weapons liked up and instead decides to use a banana to defend herself against the knife wheedling serial killer. We also have hand held shots that are sped up to create an almost inhuman look. These are a reference to Evil Dead, giving our film links to both horror and horror comedy. Further more, the knocking noise is used in many horror films as it makes the audience curious as to who is on the other side of the door.

Our main audience pleasure is entertainment as our film is not an educational one, and is purely for the audience's enjoyment. We believe that we have done this well due to feedback that we have gathered from our target audience who have all enjoyed watching the film and found it entertaining. Our film could also be a place to find role models as the main girl in the film is clearly an intendant and strong woman who is not afraid to face the dangers alone. She either lives alone or is home alone, either displaying that she is independent as she does not need someone else in the house to look after her. The pizza boy is also a good role model as he is clearly young but is out in the world earning money instead of relying on adults for it. Richard Dyer's theory says that there are certain pleasures that people can get from watching films. One of these is intensity. Our main character's facial expressions hsow extreme fear throughout the film as she doesn't know who's at the door. This mirror's the extreme fear in Drag Me To Hell when Christine has been cursed by the gypsy woman and does not know what will happen to her. We also have transparency in our film as the use of weapons, slow walking and jumping at every noise illustrates the fear that the main character feels. According to Dyer, having these things on our film will make it entertaining to our audience.

Richard Dyer's theory states that there are certain things that people lack in their lives and seeing them in films makes the film more entertaining for them. Our film has Energy due to it being a horror. The tension and excitement of not knowing wo is behind the door is something that an audience gets a thrill from, making the film more enjoyable and entertaining for them.

I have studied many real media texts in my research for “Unknown” one of which was “Psycho” for the harsh music used within it. It has very high pitched and loud music which we decided to use in our film too with the stressful tension music that builds up before cutting of quickly for the sound of the knocking or the pizza boy dialogue. Alfred Hitchcock had major influences in our film with close ups of female faces, harsh music and a constant mystery shrouding the film. We also looked at Shaun of the Dead, which is another film which uses makeshift weapons as a form of comedy. I also spent time researching “The Tea Chronicles” which is similar as it has long periods of time without dialogue to build up tension.