Evaluation

The Blue Alleyway: Evaluation

The first thing to decide when beginning the project was the genre of our film, as the conventions of our particular genre would help shape the story line, setting and character choice. We decided to use the conventions of the horror/psychological thriller as the whole group was very familiar with this genre and would therefore be able to connote the correct atmosphere. Before writing a plot line we needed to establish the setting and actors available to us. As we all lived in and around Oxford and assumed either ourselves or friends of a similar age would have to act as the characters in our project, we decided basing the film around the life of a student living in Oxford would be convenient for production purposes. This also suited the conventions of our genre, as many horror’s and psychological thrillers star adolescent females; as they fulfill the typical ‘damsel in distress’ stereotype victim. Key examples can be taken from movies such as ‘Scream’ or ‘Halloween’ where teenage girls are often the victim of savage murders. This setting would also appeal to our demographic audience; working, upper-middle class males and females between the ages of fifteen and thirty. Creating characters the audience can relate to in plausible situations should in turn draw on their own fears, therefore fulfilling the aims and conventions of the horror/psychological thriller genre.
Next we needed to write the detailed synopsis of the film in its entirety, using films such as ‘Scream’, ‘Hide and Seek’ and ‘Fight Club’ for inspiration; as all three films challenge the conventions of the genre’s they predominantly conform to. From ‘Hide and Seek’ and ‘Fight Club’ we drew on the themes of mental illness and the protagonist doubling up as the killer, this adding shock value to the plot and breaking some of the typical conventions of a horror film. As the section of film we were creating was only two minutes long we would need to follow some of the conventions of our chosen genre to familiarize the audience with the type of film they would be viewing. In order to achieve this we employed stereotypical features of ‘mise-en-scene’ to connote particular themes and a certain atmosphere to the audience, drawing on the conventions of ‘Scream’; a film itself that plays with the predictability of the genre. By using images of drug abuse and using mirrors when filming we intended to connote some sort of distortion to the audience, foreshadowing the themes of mental illness to come later in the plot. We set the film in the dark of night, a typical horror convention connoting dangerous events to follow. We also used images of the moon another signifier of lunacy and mental illness; as the word lunacy is derived from the belief that madness depended on the phrases of the moon. By juxtaposing the clinical, light, white scenes of a girl vomiting in her bathroom, with the dark blue scenes of violence in an alleyway; we attempted to anchor our audience to the conclusion that this girls vomiting was caused by the violent events of the alleyway, planting the idea that she was some way involved in these events. The white clinical, almost institution-like setting and vomiting again connotes illness of some kind, contrasting to the urban street settings. We used dark clothing for the characters in the outside setting and violent scenes to denote them as the evil or ill-moral characters and a white dress for the protagonist which would initially establish her as the victim and ‘good guy’. However this convention would later be challenged as through the twist she is revealed as the murderer. We decided to challenge this convention in our film synopsis as the target audience are very familiar with the typical horror/psychological thriller conventions and to gain enjoyment out of a movie they need to be comfortably familiar but also kept on their toes; although many of the conventions should be followed some should also be challenged to hold the audiences interest.
We were also told to research and think about what kind of media institution might distribute our film, we would need to consider a company that has produced films with similar values and target audience. When evaluating our ideas of target audience firstly we have to think about the class, age, gender and the ethnicity we are aiming towards, which I earlier reviewed as middle-upper class, fifteen to thirty, both genders and mainly British or English speaking. The reasons behind these audience distinctions are based on the generalizations of audience types known to enjoy this genre and in the ability of the audience to relate to the characters and the situation. When considering audience theories we believed our target audience was likely to be an active one. Therefore as the creators we have employed features of the ‘mise-en-scene’ to the encoded the film for the audience to actively decode, following the concept of ‘Reception Theory’. A few companies that would be suitable to distribute our film could be ‘Pathe’ a French major equipment and film production company which has produced such British horror films as ‘The Decent’. Another option would be US Production Company ‘Lionsgate’, producing films such as ‘Saw’ and ‘American Psycho.’ However ‘Dimension Films’ a branch of the ‘The Weinstein Company’ has produced a wide selection of horror films, for example the ‘Halloween’ films, the ‘Scream’ films, ‘the Crow’ and many more. As these horror films follow similar conventions, they present ideal advertising opportunities; as the best way to attract our demographic and active audience is advertising in the trailers before similar films. Also if it was to be shown on television it would be shown on a channel like ‘Film 4’ after nine in the evening, which often shows horror films and British films, as its purpose is to entertain and it has a similar demographic audience.
We used a variation of shot types in the filming progress; we found medium shots very useful for the vomiting and fighting scenes, as they framed the action and still show enough of the background to give the audience a good sense of the location whilst the simplicity of the shot does not draw focus from the characters. Another example of a simply yet effective shot technique that we could take advantage of is panning; we used panning whenever following the action of the actors. We could have also used tracking for this effect, however we did not have the appropriate equipment to track smoothly and although at times the camera did not turn on the tripod as fluidly as in professional filming the overall impression was on a while smooth. However panning did feel appropriate to the atmosphere of suspense and fear we wished to create as it follows the characters from one perspective and gives the impression they are being watched. The first three shots of the film are extreme close-ups of someone snorting a line of a white powder substance, someone closing a door and someone lighting a cigarette. By using these extreme close-ups the character doing these things is not revealed, therefore the ambiguity of these shots is intended to add mystery and suspense. We took full advantage of zooming either in or out to draw the spectators focus to details in the action, changing the speed and extent of the zoom to add more emphasis where appropriate. A key example of this is the contrast between the subtle zoom inwards during the over the shoulder shot as the protagonist looks at herself in the mirror and the faster, quicker and more extreme zoom in on the characters fighting in the alleyway. We also employed match on action, a technique we learnt during the preliminary task, an example of this is when the phone rings and we cut from a hand grabbing the phone to a girl sat on the bed talking on the phone. When filming the shots there were some basic rules we had to stick to in order to make the film run smoothly, firstly the 180 degree rule; which as we filmed we made sure we were always filming within an 180 degree radius, otherwise the spectator would feel disorientated. Another we tried to do was stick mainly to our original or adapted story board which we draw out and annotated before filming. However we did find some of our ideas were too ambitious and the lack of filming experience in the past hindered our initial judgments, for example we originally intended to uses shot reverse shot during the soliloquy, filming the actors face from both the over the shoulder perspective and the perspective of the mirror; however we felt this over complicated the section and detracted from the suspense.
Our preliminary task demonstrated the importance if creating a story board to help guide our progress, it also made us familiar with the equipment and with the length of time it can take to make just a short piece of film. However as the plan for a final was far more complicated that the preliminary there were still major problems we did not predict, for example we did a lot of smaller shots in a small space of time, the style of shots themselves very key in denoting plot elements. This made the editing process a far longer and more difficult one than it should have been, as there are far more transitions, it would have been easier for us to have shots that lasted for longer. At first we found the editing program very challenging as we could not get the transitions as snappy or in some places smooth as we wanted, however eventually becoming familiar with the process and after many hours producing a product we are all happy with. We used circular frames in the first few shots called peep hole, made the shots black and white and overlapped them to add to the ambiguity. We also had a few problems finding music that suited our piece due to copyright issues, eventually discovering musical effects on the Mac editing program which we added to our piece at different moments in the film to create suspense. We also added a soliloquy as a voice over, we did this by recording straight onto the Apple Mac in the correct place. We derived the idea from‘Hamlet’ by Shakespeare or more recently from ‘One Tree Hill’ an American television drama, this technique is used to let the audience in on the protagonist’s most private thoughts in a time of inner turmoil.
After completing all these finishing touches we showed our films to the rest of our class for feedback. Overall the response was positive; however we changed the colour of the titles from dark red to white so they were clearer and we cut most of the phone call as they felt it deducted from the suspense, this was a helpful exercise. I am pleased with our finished product although if I were to start this project I may have made my storyboard simpler as this may have solved a lot of problems we faced, however I have found this an exciting project and have learnt a lot more about the subject now we have been able to put the theory into practice.

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