Evaluation Activity 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

• This shot is at the very beginning of our film, and is an establishing shot, so that our audience are familiar with the location. This is a typical shot that comes up at the beginning of many horror films, as it establishes whether the location is a house, the woods, a park etc. This is similar to the opening of 'The Ring' as it shows the house that the action is going to take place in via an establishing shot. 
  

  For this shot, we used match on action, to show the importance of her knocking on the door. Using match on action is similar to 'Scream' where the girl hears the phone ringing and then as she goes to pick it up match on action is used. Match on action is good at highlighting the importance of something that is happening, which in our film would be our character 'Tara's' friend knocking on the door to stay the night.   

•  This shot is quite typical in horror films, as it is a conversation scene where the two characters are introduced to the audience. This scene is quite important in our horror film as the two characters are shown to the audience and it is made apparent that they are home alone, so are more likely to be the target for an attack compared to two girls who are at home with their parents. Also it shows the audience their relationship, for example whether they are friends or family etc.

•  This shot is a very important shot in our horror film, as it is the initial introduction of our murderer as he hides away in the bushes. The shot we chose to use was an over the shoulder shot, as this way the focus can be on what is in the background, which happens to be one of our characters walking to her death. By having him hidden in the dark it can make the audience feel uneasy as they cannot see him properly or see if he is holding anything to help him kill her. It also makes the audience wonder if he is going to attack or if he is planning a different way of hurting her. 

• This shot is not stereotypical of a horror film, as it is from the murders perspective instead of the victim's. By having it from the murderers perspective it shows everything that he can see, and also highlights when he is going to strike as he moves out of the camera shot. By showing the victim is can also exaggerate the fact that she cannot see him so it expectant of what is to come. The genre of the film is also made apparent by the person in the foreground who is our murderer, wearing all black and having his hood up. The reason he would be in black would be so that he blended in to the darkness and was unnoticeable to anyone inside the house. Also the horror genre is suggested down to the hooded figure being around at night, as murderers do not usually kill during the day. Also since it is at night, it gives a bigger sense of vulnerability as no one would be able to help her as no one is around.

• For our credits, we used the same font that is used for our title. We decided to use the same front as even when it is small, it still looks relatively scary as it is in block capitals. Compared to our title which is red, we decided to have the opening credits white, as since they are white they would show up against the darkness of the rest of our film. Also by having them fading in and fading out on top of the scene, they are not too distracting for the audience, so the audiences attention can still be on what is happening in the scene. The scene with our murderer walking up the stairs is quite important as it shows where he is going, and where our victim should not be going. It also makes the audience feel helpless as they cannot warn our character to not follow him up the stairs. It can also create a sense of dread for our audience as stereotypically the victims always seem to go where the murderer is. 

 This shot is very important in our film, as it marks our killer's 'signature' move. Also it confirms the audiences suspicions as in the previous scene our character screams and you do not see what happens to her. By having the hand going down the window, it suggests that the killer has got what he wants, and both characters have been killed in their own home. This is not a stereotypical thing that happens in a horror film as sometimes the audience would just hear a scream, then the scene would cut to the murderer walking away. By doing this. the audience would be left knowing nothing about what had happened, and what happened would be left up to their imagination.

• This shot is significant as it shows that our murderer has finished what he came to do, and is moving onto his next victim. By having the street lamp above shining onto just where he is walking, it makes the area around him look more sinister as you cannot see much, and the focus is entirely on him. Also since the background is very dark, you can't really see where he is going, so his next victim could be someone else who lives down that road. This is fairly similar to 'The Strangers' as the killers drive away leaving their victims in the home where they have been killed.   

•  For our title of our film, we used the same font as the opening credits, but instead we had it fading in white, with red around the outside of it. By putting it in red and white, it fits with the stereotypical way horror films were in the 80's where the slasher films had red font to connotate the blood that was being shed due to the slasher type of horror. More modern horror films have the font coming up in white as it is much clearer to see against dark backgrounds. By having our font in both of these colours, it helps our film fit in the middle of the stereotypical horror film colours and by using the red around the outside it helps to suggest that blood has been shed in our film, backing up that it a horror film and fitting the horror conventions.