Follow-up criticism of final production

In our most recent lesson, we began to learn how to ask more in-depth and developed questions about each other productions in order to further our understanding. To do this, we had to get into pairs and after watching each others final production, ask each other interpretive questions.

The first question I was asked about my opening sequence was:
 "How might using the dog create sympathy for the main character from the audience?

To answer this question, I would say that the use of the dog in my opening sequence makes a connection with the audience before they even know what is happening in the scene. This is due to the dog being the most common pet for people to have and so immediately the audience can relate to my opening sequence. Moreover, this means that when the dog goes missing in the scene, the viewer is automatically anxious and worried about the dog as they do not want anything to happen to it due to their previous connection. Therefore, from this sympathy is also created for the main character who has lost her dog as the viewer may understand what it feels like for your pet to go missing.

The second question I was asked about my final production was:
"Why might the door shut at the end?"

To answer this question, I would say that we decided for the door to slam shut at the end of the sequence to frighten the audience and so link into our chosen horror genre. In order to make the choice of our genre clear, we knew that we needed to scare the audience slightly so that they would get the thrill expected from horror movies and want to continue watching. Therefore we decided to draw the viewer in by the slow build up of tension when the main character is walking up to the abandoned house. Furthermore, this tension is ended as the viewer is frightened by the door slamming shut by something unknown after the main character walks into the abandoned house.

The third question I was asked about my opening sequence was:
"If you could change the setting would you?"

To answer this question, I would say that I may have changed the location of where the main character was walking the dog. I believe that a more appropriate setting would have been a forest rather than a field, as it would have added better to the tension filled atmosphere. Due to the research that I had previously done about the common features in horror films, a forest would have been ideal as it immediately suggests to the audience that something is not right. Moreover, it would have added a more eerie and sinister tone to my final production. This may have made it even clearer to the viewer that it was from a horror genre and portray the sense that something was going to go wrong. Therefore, the audience may have felt more anxious and apprehensive while watching our final production which would have meant that we had succeeded in perceiving the horror genre accurately.

In conclusion, by beginning to learn about how to ask more in-depth questions, our understanding of film language is being developed as we have enough previous knowledge to question and ask why someone may have interpreted something in a certain way. Furthermore, it makes us think and question what we did ourselves and allows us to think about how we could have possibly improved our final production, or simply to justify why we may have made a certain decision.

Final production review

On the whole, I was pleased with our final production and believe that it represents the skills and techniques that I learnt throughout the course. However, there are certainly things we could have done differently and room for improvement. As our genre was horror, the idea for our opening sequence had to leave the audience with a frightening cliffhanger in order for them to want to continue watching. We came up with the plot of a teenage girl walking her dog through a field alone, she trips up and falls down while accidentally dropping the lead, when she wakes up the dog is gone and she calls out for it, the dog begins to bark and she follows the sound to an abandoned house. With the dog barking getting louder and louder, she walks up to the door and enters the house, the scene ends with the door slamming shut on its on and the title 'Unorthodox' appearing on the screen.

I believe we used several things effectively in order to create our final production. For example, we managed our time very well in order to make sure that all pre-production, production and post-production was finished successfully by the deadline. We also effectively used skills and techniques we had previously learnt throughout the course when in the production process. This was to ensure our camera work was thoroughly thought through and things such as the rule of thirds and camera movement/composition were included. Furthermore, as our opening sequence was of the horror genre, we needed to make sure our reader fully understood this through the use of our sound. We used dark soundtracks that effectively built up tension in our final production in order to lead up to the shock of the door closing on its own at the end of the scene. I will make sure to carry and build up these techniques and skills on to A2 as I have already used them effectively in AS.

However, there were also improvements that we could have made on our final production. For example, the use of our diegetic sound in the scene could have been used far more productively. We could have added in more and louder dog barks as the girl walked up to the abandoned house in order for it to be clear to the viewer that she is going in the house as she thinks its where the dog is. One other thing we could have done to further help the understanding of the viewer is to make the font of our credits more 'horror-like'. To do this I could have looked at similar films opening credits to see what was popular and most likely to be used as part of my product research.

In conclusion, this review of my final production will be very helpful as it has made me identify the positives and negatives of my work. It has also aided me in realising what skills I can carry through and develop in A2 and also the techniques I need to work on and improve in order for my production in Yr 13 to be the best I can make it.