Magazine

 Above is my annotation of a magazine front cover by Four Four Two. Below is my annotation of a contents page of a magazine. 

This is my magazine front cover. 

Original Story and script

                                   Original Plot

As this was the original plot, it was clear that it would change by the end of making the final product. In the original plot, the protagonist is a girl as this would be a convention of the horror genre. Like in Scream, a girl dies in the opening scene which was what is intended for my film. 

A girl is in a forest on her phone with her friend, who she has just been at her house in the local village. She is getting followed from Nafferton and she puts the phone down. She hears a noise from behind so she turns around. She turns around and sees a figure; she starts to walk faster and then eventually turning into a run. The figure starts running after her as she runs into the main forest. When she turns around there is nothing there, she starts slowly walking backwards looking for the figure and accidently falls over. The killer then stabs her and runs away. The body is lying on the floor. A man walking with a torch finds the dead girl and calls for an ambulance.  

The Film Title

As a group, we decided to call the film The Wrong Tracks. This was due to the fact that the killer kills his victim near a train track. Also, the protagonist walks across a train track which suggests that trains are significant in the film. 

The Wrong Tracks Final Cut

This is my final cut of my product. The film is called The Wrong Tracks and the genre is horror. 

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?     

I     In the preliminary, the camera shots were very basic as we weren't experienced with the camera and making a film. The shots that we did use were predominately mid shots through the corridor, close ups of Jack's face and the door handle, a two shot of the two teachers and shot reverse shot of the three people engaging in a conversation. As the location was in a little room and not the woodlands like for my final product, it was difficult to accomplish a good film in the space that we had. 

      

       The editing software that we used for our prelim was Serif Movie Plus. The software was very basic and it was easy to edit the film, it took us around an hour considering it was new to us. We just needed to drag the shots together to create the film. We didn't use any effects or transitions during the film and we also didn't have any sound to go to the film, although we didn't think we needed any. However, for the final product we used Adobe Premier Pro CS3. This was a lot more better to use because in my opinion it was better to use. Premier Pro gave us what Serif Movie Plus had but more advanced as it was more professional compared to the "GCSE style" Serif. The availability of transitions and effects for our film were at our fingertips and with the help of sound improved the film enormously. We could also create effects like slow motion that we couldn't use on Serif.   

Evaluation Question 1

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

As my film is in the horror genre, I decided to use the woodlands as a good place to use as a setting. This is very like other horror films especially Friday the 13th (1980) as the woods are secluded and the killer can easily kill someone without anyone knowing. It also gives a sense of tension for the audience and the woods have always been a scary place, as you don't know who is watching you. 

Like in Friday the 13th, we use many shots from the perspective of the killer to show that the character is being watched, so that it creates tension for the audience. I also used many wide shots to give the audience a sense of what surroundings they were watching the character in. 

Near the end of the film I used some fast cuts which heightens the tension for the audience and helps to build the climax at the end of the scene, where the hooded person kills the boy.

To challenge the horror film conventions I decided to give the killer a change of clothing. This was to show and go against the normal convention, which is seen in the Halloween and Scream franchises. Michael Myers for example wears dark clothing and a mask to hide himself and Ghostface does also. However, for my killer I didn't want to make him create a mask, as it was typical of the genre. As many horror movie killers are remembered for their mask I needed my killers clothes to be memorable. I decided to give him a blue jumper, jeans and white trainers as it was very unique in the genre. The clothing is also typical of what a person between the age of 16-25 would wear. 

Another horror convention that I developed was the fact that the killer kills someone in the first scene. Like in most horror films including Scream and Halloween do this. This means that the makers of the film want the audience to go straight into the film as the action has already started. Horror films need to start going from the very off and my film does that. 

The Wrong Tracks Final Cut

The video is the final cut for my final product. My film is called "The Wrong Tracks".