Part 1 is to do with question 1 about reworking the familiar!
At a micro, technical level when we edited the film, we observed our conventions. What we did to edit our film was a fade out to show an extended period of time elapsing, this was to make continuity flow easily and to show audiences when time had passed, which was a main goal of ours. Even though this was to show continuity our plot was also non linear as it jumped from scene to scene, like in a film we watched based on our growing knowledge of the different film genres. The film that had a non linear plot was Memento and we liked the idea of that film, so we used that aspect.
What we did to create the language of the film was to use eery music to create tension and mystery, to make the audience feel out of place, we also used the element of jump cut to show the shady character looking over the group, we did this again to create mystery and an abnormal atmosphere. The structure of our film helped to make it seem real, like it would happen in real life. It followed on from what was said in the last scene such as Jess saying ''I'll send you a facebook email about it'' then the next scene cut to that facebook email, it shows a modern take on a mystifying sequence, and adds to the affect of the shady character looking over that same email! Also the death of myself in the film continues with a shot of the shady character holding onto my head about to drown me, and then a shot of just my feet dragging along and then the scene when you see the dead body lying against a tree, this shows the death and isolation of the heroine.
Throughout the production of the film, we made a few mistakes. The worst was not bringing the script to the location, so we had to make the words up as we went along. This actually helped in a way as it didn't seem staged and looked like the characters were really saying what they felt. We also forgot the scene shots, so we had to go by memory of what we wrote down, luckily we all remembered some of the sequence, and once we did one it linked onto the other, and we knew that we could edit them and put it in the right sequence so we weren't that worried about that part. I would say because of our Preliminary Task it helped us progress with our Main and final task. I say this because it helped us recognise the shot angles such as match on action and shot reverse shot, and from the errors that were produced in that, it helped us widen our knowledge on what was right, so we looked at the possibilities and stuck to the basics, to make the film feel real and easy to understand.
At a Macro level, the location of our film really set the conventions of a thriller/horror genre, as it symbolised isolation and destruction as so many bad things can happen in the woods on a camping trip. The characterisation also played a part in the sense of isolation, this was shown by the way the characters acted and how they reacted off each other such as myself being lead off to find my phone as i lost it in the film. I would say that this film does live up to the contractual nature of the film genre as it shows the suspense that draws the audience in, it does this by seeing the shady character standing behind the tree and makes the audience ponder on what is going to happen next, and the genre Thriller hybrid Horror wants to achieve that goal, as does my group.
We deliberately changed the film by editing it to make it different from the Thriller/Horror genre as we wanted to make it contrast to what you would normally see in the cinema. The difference was the editing, it didn't make it seem real as it was in black and white and some of the scenes had the earthquake effect which looked shaky and unreal, we used this effect for the shady character, to show something was not right with him/her. Again we took away the idea of a non-linear plot from Memento and put our own spin on it, but we changed the continuity of it by fading out, not cutting to a different scene, but we did jump cut the scenes for the death scenes.
I wouldn't really say there was any reference to any other films, however i would say the element of isolation was taken from the film 'The Strangers', I thought about how they could feel they are not alone in the woods and in 'The Strangers' the couple also knew they weren't alone but on a larger scale, they saw it upfront but the characters in our film knew something wasn't right by their missing friends. So i guess we did take on the idea of isolation from 'The Strangers' but on a minimum scale.
I have to say that we really wanted to please the audience and make them feel out of place when they watched the film. We weren't as such trying to make them scared, but we wanted them to realise that the people weren't going to be alone, and we gave hints out during the beginning, with the shady character looking at the facebook email, so the audience would figure out that this person isn't part of the group of friends. I feel pretty confident about the film and how people will be affected. When we got reviews from the other classmates they all said they enjoyed the film, and they thought that our editing MADE the film what it was, so i was proud it did this.
Part 2.....next!
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