1) Screen shots

Evaluation Task 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products (i.e of films openings) - Screenshots

 This establishing shot shows the audience the location the opening of the film will be set in, the light green of the trees contrasts the cold grey of the road and highlights how when she is with her friends there is happiness and safety but as soon as her friends leave and she enters the cold, darkness of the woods it signals things aren't going to be nice as before. The setting is also quite remote and away from civilization which is key as it shows how alone our main character Lucy is and how there is no-one around to save her or even hear her scream. 

We used a low angle shot to show that when the three of them are together they are safe and almost untouchable, it's a long shot as well with them in the background showing already to the audience how tiny and insignificant the characters are in comparison to the surrounding and how vulnerable they are with the trees looming over them. 

The original shot was quite long in length and showed them walking all the way down from background to foreground but we felt it dragged on to long and bored the viewer so to keep the pace up we cut it down to three shorter clips which we think is much more effective. 

This shot introduces the characters as we see them for the first time and we can begin to make assumptions about them - their costumes are a key part of this, the main character (Lucy) is wearing a bright, vibrant, colourful coat highlighting she is a person of more importance who we as the audience are likely to follow as something bad will happen to her, the other two are wearing very dull, plain clothes to signify they are supporting actors and not very influential in the story. 

The titles are in the bottom corner as we didn't want them to cover the whole screen as we want the audience to focus on the characters on screen, we chose white as the colour as we felt it looked more professional and we had liked how it looked in other horror openings, the font was quite simple but we made sure it wasn't too pretty or flowing (like a rom-com would have) but still legible. 

It conforms to the genre as it's young, innocent teenagers (specifically girls) in a remote setting on a gloomy, quiet foggy day - there is no one around to help. Also they appear quite happy which is usually how horror movies start before someone is brutally murdered and chaos descends.

This shot is a close up of the main characters face, it shows the audience are getting closer to her as we learn more about her, also it hides a lot of the surroundings so the as the audience we are unsure if something is hidden behind her, to the side of her or lurking in the trees somewhere. This conforms to the genre as close up and extreme close up shots are often used in horror films, it brings the audience closer to the character and hides most of the surroundings they're in which builds suspense, it also has the effect of placing the audience more in the characters shoes so they feel the drama on screen is actually happening to them and draws them more into the film. This is something we wanted to make a key part of our film - placing the audience in the characters shoes, we do this through the use of many points of view shots when she is looking around or running and also by giving her prevalence and never cutting from her. The shots before this cut between Lucy (all alone) and her friends leaving (together, safety in numbers) and highlights clearly to the audience that she is on her own now., this conforms to the genre of having the main character alone in a rural setting (like the woodlands). Several shots before this showed her alone in the remote setting which built the suspense which acclimatized in this scene as the audience felt tense and unsure what was going to happen - this is cut sharply by the sound of a phone ringing, cutting the tension. 

This is a medium shot which is used to again show the characters coat which is a constant visual reminder that something bad is likely to happen to her as it connotes danger and blood - key aspects of a horror film and therefore conforms to the genre. The phone (our only prop) shows her connection with the outside world as her mother calls her and is an important moment in the plot as it serves as the reason for why she has to walk through the woods as it's the quickest way home and her mother wants her home immediately. This could tie in with the coat that connotes danger as you could imply from the phone call that her mother wants her home immediately as she has done something bad that her mother wants to talk to her about. Without this moment Lucy would have probably gone the long way home, not through the woods and therefore probably wouldn't have been attacked and so the film would have no story line - this conforms to the genre as in most horror films people get attacked when they are alone and end up in remote settings even when it would be safer to go a different way. In the storyboard we put in that the phone would die (run out of battery) and therefore she wouldn't be able to contact anyone or get any help from the outside world but with issues on how long our opening was turning out to be we had to cut this shot from our opening. I don't think it affects the opening too much but i believe it would be better with a scene in the opening where the phone is dropped or something but it would have been hard to add this aspect into our opening, not only with timing issues but also with making it seem natural as part of the story and not staged just as a unnatural moment.

We took inspiration for this long shot, used to show Lucy entering the remote, dark, scary woodlands in her bright coat, from the film 'Schindler's List' in which there is the girl in the red dress. She represents something innocent which our character is and this scene could signify the fate of Lucy *Spoiler Alert* as in Schindler's list the girl in the red dress ends up dead. This scene conforms to the genre conventions as it shows an innocent, young girl in the isolated settings of the woodlands - there is a high chance she will be attacked and there is something sinister lurking in the background. We used a long shot which is unusual for this genre as it shows a lot of the setting which may decreases the amount of tension as people can see the surroundings and so it eliminates the possibility of something lurking in the background. With this shot though many things could be hiding in the woodlands and especially as it contrasts to her bright coat we thought we would break from the conventions and use a long shot. It also reinforces the key point we've tried to maintain throughout - Lucy is all alone and isolated from the outside world.

This is one of the few shots with both Lucy and the Malevolent phantom (MP) in it, this is something we kept limited as we wanted to peruse the idea that not only is Lucy truly alone but this MP is mysterious, we don't see him that much and don't ever really learn any more about him. Therefore we didn't want that many shots of him as we wanted to keep him hidden and mysterious. This scene is also one of the only scenes where the attention turns partially away from Lucy and onto the sinister person lurking in the woods, throughout the rest of the opening the camera is always on Lucy or shows the surroundings from her point of view as she is the main character and the person of importance. We used an over the shoulder shot so that we could still see Lucy and so the attention was never completely turned away from her onto the MP, also it shows us a bit of the MP to keep the audience hooked and almost give them something to reward them for holding on for this long, it's an important plot point as the MP has now been introduced to the audience and we want to know more about him. It also builds the tension as this shot emphasizes how big and powerful the MP is compared to Lucy who seems so tiny and vulnerable in this shot. 

This medium shot is effective as it shows the characters facial expression clearly and highlights how the audience should be feeling  - scared. A large proportion of the background is hidden which builds tension and plays on the classic fear of what's lurking behind you, by focusing solely on Lucy and giving her prevalence the hope is that by this point the audience feels like they are Lucy and are worried that there is something lurking behind them. Diegetic sound of leaves rustling can be heard which causes Lucy to become so alarmed and stop in her tracks. This shot is reasonably long in length as she steps onto camera and holds this terrified glance, the music is key by this point as it builds in tempo and volume, climaxing as Lucy turns around and we see there is in fact nothing behind her. This poses more questions than it answers as in the previous scene we had seen the MP behind her and we're now wondering where he has gone and if he's going to attack her.

A medium shot is used to show the moment when Lucy finally see's' the MP that has been following her and her fear becomes real as she becomes scarred for her life. A long shot would have shown too much of the surroundings and meant there wasn't enough focus on Lucy and the MP and would have subverted from genre conventions as as previously stated horror films don't tend to use long shots as it reveals too much of the surroundings. A close up shot would have been effective to show her facial expression but it would have been hard to get the MP also in the shot so we felt a medium shot was perfect. Just after this moment non diegetic music is introduced that is high in volume and tempo as we want to audience to be scared for Lucy and worry whether the MP will catch her and kill her. Lucy's costume makes her stand out again in this scene whilst the MP is black to connote a sinister, scary character, the juxtaposition of these two colours works really well in this scene and highlights both the characters for different reasons. This is an important moment as all the build up, all the tension has built to this moment where Lucy finally sees the MP and has to then run for her life, the build up is effective as it keeps the audience on the edge of their seats, guessing what's going to happen next but from our audience research we found lots of people like a chase scene. The scene then cuts to a fast paced sequence of shots of Lucy running from the MP - providing the audience with what they want, a bit of excitement in the opening, getting straight into the dramatic side of the story rather than dwelling too much on characters backgrounds - we can learn about that later on once we have hooked the audience. 

After the high octane chase scene which concluded in Lucy falling to her knees in relief as she thought she had finally got away from the MP, we conformed to horror cliches and the genre conventions by having the antagonist appear and the protagonists fate look doomed. A low angle shot was used before to show Lucy in a high position at the time when the audience thought she was safe but as soon as the MP appeared in the background we cut to a medium shot showing poor Lucy about to be attacked, as before a long shot would have shown too much of the surroundings and not left enough focus on the two characters hut a close up shot would have been hard to position to get the MP visible in the background therefore we felt it was best to use a medium shot. If we had more time and some money to spend on this we would have loved to have got a much higher angle shot which showed Lucy's vulnerability and highlight her isolation in the woodlands. There was a slight issue with lighting in this shot as it shines in on the left hand side but when we went to re shoot it (along with a few other shots) we found that conditions weren't the same as it had been raining and therefore we couldn't use the re-shot footage as it didn't match with the rest of the shots. Never the less I feel it doesn't affect the shot too much and contrasts effectively with the dark, looking figure of the MP.

The final shot was originally longer in length but we cut it shorter, not only due to timing issues but also, because we felt it was more effective and more dramatic to cut to black after this screen shot rather than have the character dragged of the screen as we felt it was hard to make it look as brutal and scary as we were hoping for and therefore cutting to black was dramatic. The pond was supposed to represent her salvation as the audience finally thought she was safe and had escaped from the MP but it also highlights how isolated she is and reinforces the idea she is all alone and there's no-one there to help. This conforms to genre conventions as isolation is a key factor of horror films (used in 28 weeks later, The Purge, the Hole, Saw etc) and makes the audience feel more scared for the character as they have no-one to save them. This scene clearly shows the juxtaposition of the characters costumes as Lucys' coat is bright and radiant (with a hint of danger and blood) whereas the MP is black, dark and sinister. Lucys' coat is a dark red which stands as a physical representation of the darker side of her character and could be a hint of what could happen with her, unlike if she was just wearing a bright, colourful coat that would suggest her naivety and happiness, the darker shade of the coat suggests maybe she's not as innocent as the audience think and ties in with the plot line that questions how innocent the people the MP attacks truly are.