Progress Made This Year: Creating Conventional Media Products

In my AS production, I created the opening two minutes of a horror film, called Regretful Sins – about an outcast girl taking revenge on her peer group one by one. My group chose this genre as we felt that audiences would respond effectively to our take on conforming to conventions of real media texts. For example, our use of fast-paced cross cutting to show the antagonist following the victim was effective in portraying the fear and danger commonly associated with the horror genre. The fast-pace was effective in raising tensions, something that is highly used to conform to the horror genre. Similarly, in my A2 production, I created a horror trailer, called Watching, to further develop my use of conventions and show my improved skills over the course. In this production, I developed my understanding of horror conventions to create intense scenes that increase suspense. For example, I used a series of fast-paced jump-cuts to introduce my antagonist. This was effective as it contrasted the gentler introduction of the victim, and portrayed a juxtaposition between the two characters in order to allude to a wider narrative. The contrasting introductions is conventional of the genre as it allows the audience to recognise which characters they are meant to relate to and which they are meant to reject. My use of conventions has improved since my AS production as I have learnt more about how to subtly introduce different effects to the audience. In my AS production, I did not do this as effectively, as I was predominantly trying to imitate conventions to make my film look like real media texts, rather than using the conventions to shape my ideas in production, like I did at A2.

During both years, I used Adobe Premiere Elements to complete my editing. Before beginning the course in Year 12, I hadn’t previously used any type of editing software, and so in my AS production, I used very simple transitions and edits, such as fades to black and general match-cutting throughout, to make the film look mysterious and tense, and add to conventions of the horror genre. I included cuts between characters, which had short fades applied to them, as a way to increase tension and suspense in the film. However, this attempt to increase tension was unsuccessful and did not achieve the desired effect. We wanted to create a sense of realism, but the fades throughout the film alluded more to the passing of time, something we did not want to portray. Looking back at it, the tension should have been introduced through the use of symbolic establishing shots and non-diegetic layers of sound. This is something I made sure to pay attention to at A2 in order to use post-production to create a much more believable text. 

In my AS production I used various long and medium shots of the central character to ensure the location was presented, without being too explicit using static shots. We thought this was effective in portraying a sense of mystery about the location, however it did not allow the audience to fully engage with the film and its setting. In my A2 production, I made sure to begin with three long shots of a road and a swing-set, in order to allude to juxtaposition of innocence and reality in the film. I included fades on these shots as well as rack focus to allude to the mysterious nature of the town, and to foreshadow danger within the film. The cross-cutting between the locations further alludes to a sense of disorientation, increasing suspense from the beginning of the trailer. This representation of the location allowed the audience to effectively relate to the characters in the town and feel a sense of heightened tensions, which was not as evident in my AS production.