Evaluation Questions - Emma Davis

1) We made a horror film which was inspired by the idea of 'The Orphan' directed by Jaume Collet-Serra in 2009. We used a young girl as the threat and an older woman as the victim in our film, which goes against dominant ideologies so is likely to surprise the audience and keep their interest. We filmed our production twice as the first time there were a few continuity errors. However, the second time we filmed there was disruption from passers-by and we were unable to find a suitable sized pram, so we went back and used the original film, although some of the continuity errors are still clear. I worked with Becy Stanley and Liam Frazer whilst making the film and it was an effective relationship as we all put in our upmost effort into planning, filming, and editing the production. We overcame problems by working together as a team and consulting each other on what we thought was best, such as Liam being away for some of the editing, we overcame this by coming in at lunch times to edit our production. Another problem we experienced was Becy being away for some of the planning of the production, we overcame this by working in our own time to make sure the planning was completed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6L4jZqUXVk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ywOPNNii9w

2) Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror in which the threat is not obvious, but rather a normal human, whose identity is often not revealed until part way through the film. Psychological horror tends to be more subtle than other genres of horror, as it works on the factors mentally affecting the audience rather than of graphic imagery seen in other sub-genres. It creates discomfort in the audience by exposing common psychological vulnerabilities. In psychological horror the essential element is to frighten the audience mentally, whereas this is not the case in ‘slasher’. Here are some examples of psychological horror films:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg4mPJdyg_E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFVyAjj3Bs0
We used this research to develop our film in terms of the threat and the victim, the audience do not see any graphic imagery in our film, instead we used blood on the young girls dress to connote that she had killed the woman. Her horrific identity is not revealed till near the ending of our film, as the blood on her dress at the start of the film could suggest that she has been the victim. It is only when she takes the woman around the corner and we hear the woman’s screams that the audience know that the young girl is actually the threat. Our films challenges forms and conventions of real media productions, as it is the young girl that is the threat rather than the usual idea of an older man or woman. This surprises the audience and is likely to keep them interested in the film as they are not expecting an 'innocent' looking girl to be the threat. I researched other psychological horrors such as The Orphan, Paranormal Activity and The Shining, and looked at previous students work. The psychological aspect of the production being the young girl alone, and the audience not knowing why or what she wants to do with the baby, the audience is likely to feel protective over the baby as it's mother is now dead and it cannot protect itself.

9) During the planning of our production I completed the script, some evaluations of other films and productions made by previous students, the film outline, half of the storyboard, the makeup design sheet, the Recee sheet and the character design sheet. During the filming of the production I filmed the majority of the shots, working with Liam as Becy was starring in the film, because our actor could not film at the last minute. This included the tracking shots, an over the shoulder shot and the establishing shot of the park, as well as some close-ups and mid-shots. I worked with Becy to edit our film as Liam was away, including sorting out the continuity errors and the darkening the lighting to make it look spookier. Me and Becy also worked together to produce a soundtrack for our production.