Evaluation Question 1) In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation (1) - Analysis of Our Deployment and Exploitation of the Forms and Conventions of Film:

Camera shots:

Our objective was to combine a feeling of verisimilitude that would draw our audience into the realism of the film world, yet at the same time, disorientate and unsettle them to achieve a mood of disquiet.

In order to achieve this dual effect, many of our camera shots were deliberately conventional ones. We made repeated use of over the shoulder shots, low and high angles, tracking shots and extreme close ups, particularly to establish the context.

Additionally, we used a lot of handheld shots, particularly with the tracking shots, to give the film a very realistic, documentary style feel, again in order to reinforce the idea of verisimilitude that we tried to portray within our film.

However, our use of canted angles and, especially, the low angle shots, were used to disorientate the audience by conveying a sense of surrealism and bizarreness, which are key qualities of how we treat our subject matter to create a disturbing mood which is also very prevalent within our film, specifically the final scene.


Costumes:

For the killer, we selected a very masculine coat, full length and very black, conveying his macho image and evil, threatening presence as well as connoting the iconography of the images of both the Grim Reaper and Dracula. Also, our use of colours, especially red, black and grey, helps to convey a sense of danger, evil and death.

In Dammy’s case, costume was, on one level, in keeping with current fashion trends in order to portray a young man from an urban background. However, at the same time, the use of primary and light colours connoted a childlike innocence and naivety.


Locations:

The interior mis-en-scène of the bedroom conotes a very warm, comforting, safe, secure but also suggesting a lack of real worldly experience, which is very much Dammy’s environment, effectively reinforced by the shots of the items in and around his room, such as the comic books and the light colours.

The exterior locations, such as the streets and the flat block, help to connote a sense of exposure to danger and vulnerability, in that the character Dammy has nowhere to run, trapped in a maze-like environment. This feeling is made stronger by the fact that we are always seeing him walking towards a place, his friend’s house, connoting safety, that he will never reach.