Media evaluation question 1

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

1a. At a technical level, how well does your film reflect or challenge the conventions of continuity, and the language of film and editing?

As a media student, I am fully aware of the importance of continuity in film. Continuity involves keeping things in a scene the same throughout the shooting. For example, if a door in the background is closed, it must remain closed unless it is opened as part of the script. If in one shot the door is closed and in the next shot it is open then that is what’s called a “continuity error” as it confuses the audience and makes no sense at all.

As director of the film, it was my responsibility to make sure that continuity is properly used in our film. I would often observe our settings to see how things were laid out in case we ever had to film on the same setting again. I would also take notes on costumes and props. I also starred in the movie, for my role I wore a black coat, blue jeans and black boots. For continuity, I had to make sure that I wore these all the way though the film.

1b. The genre of our film is a psychological horror with some mystery added in to it. I believe that the content of our film meets the conventions of a psychological horror. We have suspenseful music, emotional instability, murder, mystery and a cliff-hanger ending. I think that these help to meet the nature of our film.

1c. Having viewed our film, I don’t think that there are any moments were we played with the genre’s codes or history. And we didn’t make a lot of references to other films. One of the only references to another film that I can think of is the head shaking effect from the horror film Jacob’s Ladder.

1e. As our film is psychological horror, we decided to study other psychological horror films in order to get an idea of what we needed to make a film of that genre. Our film has some comparisons with films such as The Shining (a man loses his mind and commits murder), the Silence of the Lambs (a cliff-hanger ending), and The Ring (a supernatural object that triggers the events of the film).