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.