The document discusses the filmmaker's use of genre conventions and real media forms in their short horror film. Some conventions utilized included implied death through screams rather than visuals, building tension through reliefs and anti-climaxes, and creating a sense of realism and isolation. Feedback indicated that while the plot twist was impressive, the sound and editing required more polish. Throughout the process, the filmmaker used various media technologies for research, planning, production and evaluation, including Prezi, YouTube, SoundCloud, Audacity, Smart Photo Editor, Facebook and Tumblr.

2. In what ways does
your media product
use, develop or
challenge forms and
conventions of real
media products?

3. Conventional Themes
I utilised some of the
conventional films of horror
film and played upon them a
different way to many other
films.
0 Death- The way death is
represented is different as
it is more of a convention
to see the death whereas
in my film you simply hear
a scream.
0 Fear- fear is played upon
in my film through the
use of relief of tension,
the build up of tension
and anti-climaxes such
as when she bumps into
her friend.
0 Reality- The reality of
the film happening to
anyone adds another
layer of fear to my film.

4. 0 My location plays upon the
idea of being isolated in a
public place, which is not a
generic convention but
links to the theme of
isolation.
0 I use the convention of
dark lighting in order to
allude to my genre which
was generally rather
unavoidable.
0 I used non-diegetic sounds
as well as layering diegetic
sounds in order to identify
with classic films such as
The Exorcist.
0 My use of close-ups was
appropriate as it allowed
for the sense of paranoia to
be communicated to the
audience and allow them
to associate with other
existing films such as
Psycho (1960).
0 (See Genre Conventions
Prezi)
http://prezi.com/sxdelj5n_2
tj/horror-thriller-genre-
conventions/?utm_campaign
=share&utm_medium=copy

5. How effective is
the combination
of your main
product and
ancillary texts?

7. I believe my poster is a very effective
communicator of the nature of my film whilst
holding onto the conventions of my genre.
The main image of the figure dressed in a
hoodie is a definite reference to my killer
whilst adding an air of mystery to the
revelation of who it actually is. The colour
scheme also links to this idea of mystery and
the unknown as well as relating to the horror
genre through the red, white and black
theme alongside the distorted colours in the
rain.

9. I chose to produce my film review in the style
of a review that would be published online in
order to keep up with the expectations of my
young target audience. I believe my review to
very fitting especially with the type of
language used as I left this open and gave
nothing away in order to not spoil the film
for my expected audience. I also included the
colour motif of an already established review
site with a good reputation in order to
ensure that the rating given had validity.

10. What have you
learned from
your audience
feedback?

11. I carried out audience feedback throughout the entirety of
the course in order to make my audience have an active
rather than passive involvement in the film’s development.
My preliminary audience researched identified that my idea
for my film was appropriate for it’s target audience and
gained interest about the film.
I returned to my audience when any plot changes were
going to occur in order to make my audience decide what
was best for the film before I continued with it.
I then carried out target audience feedback by asking
participants to watch my film and comment on the quality
and what they thought about both the film and the poster.

13. I found that my audience were very
impressed with my film even participants
that would not usually be part of my target
audience were impressed with my plot twist.
My sound and post-production editing was
commented on however with mixed
opinions. It was suggested that perhaps more
attention would be necessary for me to
perfect my short film. I fear that perhaps I
did not have the technology nor the skills to
master post-production.

14. How did you use
media technologies in
the construction and
research, planning
and evaluation
stages?

15. Prezi
I used Prezi in order to
present my qualitative data
on the genre conventions of
horror films.
This was effective as I could
easily refer back to them and
reference where the
conventions had come from.
It provided me with a
platform to use for
inspiration.
Prezi also provided itself as a
colourful and memorisable platform
in the display of data and lead us
through a journey of the conventions,
adding another layer to my advanced
portfolio.

16. Youtube
I used youtube throughout my
production in order to create a
youtube channel and use it to
post not only my final production
pieces but also developments
throughout and my audience
feedback.
Youtube is a very useful platform
as the views it receives from all
over the world is outstanding
and could be a very helpful tool
in filmmaking.

17. SoundCloud
I used SoundCloud in order to
present the different sounds that
I wanted add and layer up in my
film. This gave me audience the
opportunity to sample the
soundtrack for my film suring
pre-production stages and many
a time, I used soundcloud links
to suggest my audience to view
some of the sounds I was
considering adding.

18. Audacity
Audacity was very useful in the production of a short
film as it allowed me to alter my sounds, add effects
and cut these to appropriate length for my scenes.
My skills in audacity have developed considerably
since the start of the course as I am now able to add
in different effects, changing pitch and tone as well
as simply just the volume.

19. Smart Photo Editor
Smart photo editor is a very effective
program for editing as it allows you to
do it all. All of my photo editing,
cutting and text manipulation was
carried out on smart photo editor.
My skills on this program have
drastically developed also due to me
being more able to apply my skills and
creativity to all of my print products.

20. Facebook
I felt Facebook was appropriate
for carrying out my target
audience research as for a
modern audience, facebook is a
very visited site that is popular
and effective at gathering honest
opinions. It can be less formal to
answer questions about the film
online than in person. In this
sense I believe that facebook was
effective however in reflection, I
may have carried out my own
survey.

21. Tumblr
In both my foundation and
advanced portfolio, I utilised the
blogging platform Tumblr. My
skills from the foundation
portfolio had drastically
improved with this site as I have
now included links to break
down the texts post into
categories and put these into
chronological order to make my
blog more readable.