Evaluation Activity 1

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

The Title of the Film
The title of our film is 'Sranger'. This is so that the audience automatic know that there is going to be an unknown person in the film, yet they do not know how this person is going to be percieved. The word 'stranger is not significantly long, yet gets straight to the point. This is to represent the main character, whom is a obviously a stranger.

A simple, bubble font is used for the titles. This makes it clear to read. As the outline of the writing is in white and the inside is in black, which clashes with the background this shows dull colours. The group have done this to try and make our opening scene look like a thriller by just looking at the title. Also, the white outline has slits in it, which incates there could be some scaryness within the film. It also indicates the mood change, due to one minute being happy and then next being extremely scared.

Setting/Location
All of the frames which our group used to create the opening our opening scene storyboard in the picture above are taking place in the 5 different locations which we had planned to film our opening scene in. These are:
- Bathroom
- Bedroom
- Stairs/Stairway
- Games Room
- Swimming Pool Area
The stairs, games room and the swimming pool area are all dark and eerie locations. This is because the thriller effect of the opening scene then starts to kick in. The group thought that this would create a tension which would relate to the genre of our opening scene; 'thriller'.

Props and Costumes
In our opening scene there were few props used, but these were:
- Toothbrush
- Blusher Brush
- Make Up (for stranger)
- Water
- Torch
These props were used to emphasise the 'thriller effect' in all situations. I feel that these props may have made our opening scene more successful because they related to the genre our group was trying to portray. Also, these props helped us to create tensions and the perfect atmosphere.

In our opening scene you can see a couple of different costumes. The costumes used are the Katie (me) and Honor. We wear casual clothes as we are planning to go out therefore, we do not want to portray any other effect than just two girls going for a casual night out. One costume which we used was for the stranger. We decided to give Amelia (disguised stranger) black leggings, a hoodie which she wore the hood up most of the time to hide her identity. To make this look even more visually effective, we decided to put black eye shadow on which looked rough and also backcomb her hair lots, so it had volume and made her look like she wasn't a wealthy human being. This improved the professionalism of our opening scene as our costumes were believeable which also created tension and atmosphere and made our opening scene merely successful.

Camerawork and Editing
The camerawork is steady however, I feel the group could of benefitted with a tripod to make the camerawork more balanced. The group tried to put in place three different camera angles as best as they could within the opening scene. These were:
- 180 Degree Rule
- Match on Action
- Shot/Reverse Shot
These shots and techniques helped us to create a more successfull, effective opening scene.

We used the software; 'Premiere Elements Pro 7.0' to our advantage by creating distorted, repetitive footage the conveyed the idea of a nightmarish dream/premonition, we furthered this idea by using transitions that represented this theme in order to create a successful, polished opening scene.

Storyline
The plot of our film is about two harmless girls who are getting ready for a night out. Disaster strikes when the electricity goes off and they notice something strange around the house. Katie them decides to go and put the electricity back on and check everything is ok down the back of the garden, but she sees something and quickly scarpers. The stranger then goes after her and Honor and this is the end of the opening scene. The opening scene sets the rest of the film up as the stranger is yet to go after the girls and play physcological games with their heads.

Genre
The genre of the film is thriller and it is set up in the opening scene by using a lot of conventions from any other thriller film. These are things such a physcological effects, scaryness, putting the audience on the edge of their seat etc.

Characters
The two characters Honor and Katie are introduced by just going straight into it by getting ready and chatting. However, Amelia (the stranger) is introduced or seen properly at the very end the opening scene, when she is about to go after the innocent girls. She is seen once before in the mirror of the bathroom, however this was a one second shot.

Special Effects
The group didn't really use any special effects apart from an effect called 'ghosting' which we used on the title credit to make it more of a duller picture, and also made the writing broken. This effect causes the footage to become blurred and distorted, creating a feeling of panic producing tension and atmosphere and making our opening scene more successful.