Grace Haybyrne - Evaluation: Question 1

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

We intended our piece to have an independent look as our production values were always going to be low. Building on this we introduced a few elements that suited the resources available to us. both technical and artistically. This meant poor lighting and a not very glamorous series of sets. 

Examples of titles used.

We decided to call our opening 'Red Marks' as we thought that it linked with the idea of the setting being in a school yet was ironic as our film is about a serial killer. We felt that using red and white as the dominant colours, although conventional, was very effective. For example the blood running down the drain and the red marking in a students work book have connotations of the thriller genre. 

We  mainly stuck to a conventional title sequence – using several production company graphics – we also incorporated our names into the logos.

Non-Diagetic SoundWe thought that for our title sequence the music should be slow and eerie, at first so that later on in the opening, the tempo could be speeded up to convey to the audience that the action will take place soon. The music, though electronic is conventional as it attempts to create tension and adds a sense of suspense for the audience and also builds up to an event. 
I found the soundtrack, by Torrey Desmond on YouTube fitted with our groups idea of a slow paced tracked that speeded up and in doing so, built up the tension for the audience.

Titles
We choose red font on a black background, although very conventional, we felt it was effective, especially when we distressed the font. We chose a red font to link back to the idea of our title 'Red Marks'. We thought that it would stand out more if the red was on top of the black instead of white. We decided this because we thought the white would represent innocence whereas the black conveys the idea that our antagonist is a dark, creepy person. 

Narrative

The narrative is reasonably explicit although the antagonist, being a school girl, is unconventional. We decided to make our 'pyshco' a young girl as we thought this would shock the audience more as its not your every day mainstream typical murderer. Although her face looks quite innocent, we dressed her in dark coloured clothes to portray her character as being subversive. 

Editing Our editing choices were made in order to keep the narrative flowing, for example, when we cut from the titles to the first piece of action we made sure to cut into a tracking shot in order to create a feeling of inevitability as well as showing the location: a school. 

Our group decided on a school as our location as we thought that from our audience research we have done previously, mostly people between the ages of 15-19 would watch this film and we thought that if it was in a setting they recognised and were comfortable with they would enjoy the film more. 

Our framing is mostly conventional except towards the end of the sequence where the angles and the extreme close up of the victims blood washing down the drain is meant to shock the audience.