Final Media Evaluation: 'Blue Alleyway'

Evaluation
Blue Alleyway.

When first thinking up ideas for a film, we had to decide on a genre, themes, settings and actors. We decided a horror or thriller film would be the most simple to make as the conventions and mis-en-scene is more obvious to work with then a romance or maybe a comedy. We changed our idea a lot as we went through the planning process, especially the setting. At first an outside setting would have looked great however we would have needed a lot of time and patience to get the shots right in correct lighting. This is why we decided to have the film take place inside; luckily we had a suitable flat to use. We filmed part of the film outside as we had a specific alleyway we wanted to incorporate in our film. We didn’t decide on the acting straight away until we came up with the story, which was when we chose what we each wanted to do.

As part of the media task we needed to use certain conventions and mis-en-scene of our particular genre. We had three quick shots to begin with which incorporated a black and white theme, we did this to give mystery to the opening of our film. For one character in our film we used dark clothing to setup bad connotations of that person. We used a typical setting for a university student, our main character, a classic en-suite room. We kept the room simple and tidy; we added a “night nurse” medicine box on the bed-side cabinet to denote our character’s sleeping problems, suggesting she isn’t mentally healthy. We also added a pair of reading glasses on the ledge near the bed which we used to give connotations of intelligence. When filming into the mirror, a canvas with different faces could be seen on the wall opposite. This was deliberate, we used this as it could be associated with our character’s schizophrenia. We were lucky to be able to film when the moon was at its fullest so we included it into our film as it fits in with our particular genre.

We included a series of different shots in our film. We used a panning shot when showing a particular character walk from one point to another. We also used a close up when having a cigarette being lit up. We also showed that we used the 180 degree rule, we showed this by having the camera rotate following the character but making sure it didn’t exceed 180 degrees. We also used an over the shoulder shot as the main character looked in to the mirror at herself, letting the audience feel her point of view.

We aimed our film towards an older audience as it wouldn’t be suitable for young children. It will also attract students or maybe teenagers as the main character is a student herself and deals with situations, teenagers are likely to deal with. To enthral this type of social group we created our main character as a typical university student which was simpler for us as we knew what to include from personal preferences for example clothes or type of room. We also thought about the type of personality this character would have. It was challenging to reveal her personality in the first two minutes however we filmed a phone call scene which showed her talking normally on the phone to a friend, this suggested the kind of person she was as she rejected a friend’s invitation to go out suggesting her not so out-going nature. We later deleted our phone call scene as it decayed the feeling of suspense which is what we were given as feedback when showing a preview of our film to a real audience. To engage the more mature audience, the flat we used was kept un-cluttered and well ordered to avoid the setting being too complex for the audience to absorb. Our main target audience was towards C1, C2, D, and E. Our film may appear to the middle-class and higher middle-class as it is a psychological thriller and there is thinking involved in working out the storyline. However they wouldn’t necessarily always have the time to watch a film so we aimed it at the other audience types as we felt they would definitely enjoy it.

Another reason we chose our plot was because it was more straight forward to represent social groups as we can associate our character with our real lives and add our own knowledge of what we thought would represent our age group and also typical students. Our project shows problems a student may face when dealing with the workload and stress they may be feeling. By having someone ‘beaten up’ in our film we suggested the younger age groups as adults deal with obstacles in life differently to teenagers.

Our particular film may be distributed by ‘Film 4’ or could even be shown on ‘itv1’ or ‘itv2’ after 9pm as it is too disturbing to be shown before this time.

Our filming was a lot more time consuming then we had originally thought it would be. It was difficult to take the outside shots as people or cars went past. Also the shots that show our main character being sick required a lot of attention to assure it looked realistic.

The technologies were quite bothersome when first attempting to edit the project. It was complex splitting scenes and putting them together. However once we finally achieved a way of doing this our editing process moved along much quicker. Finding music for the film was also quite challenging as we had to avoid copyright complications. It was also difficult to find a piece of music that fitted our scenes. We all wanted something that felt right to create the suspense we wanted in our film. We managed to use three different pieces which worked extremely well with the whole film. It was beneficial to understand how the technology for the editing worked as we were then able to practice putting in our credits. It was even quite fun creating our film and playing with different effects and themes.

From my original preliminary task I feel I have learned more about and understand the combinations of making a film and editing it. I also believe I have learnt a lot more about the conventions and mis-en-scene as we were able to add these into our film effectively. I have understood it as I have now seen the results and the effects of this. The audience’s feedback also suggested the conventions and mis-en-scene used had worked as they said the suspense created made it creepy and scared them slightly too. A criticism we had was that our phone call ruined the atmosphere and lowered the level of suspense. This is why we chose to cut this scene and delete the audio out of it because we wanted it to be right for the audience not us. It was also exciting adding voice to the film especially when watching the film back. We used our soliloquy to inform the audience of the characters main thoughts and feelings and give them an insight to what she is like. It was a clever way in telling some of the story by just using a recorded voice.

Overall, I am pleased with the final version even though it was very time-consuming and ambitious to get it the exact way we would have liked it to be. I have realized some parts of a film have to be changed as not everything always works well together, for example our phone call and certain shots which either didn’t match up or ruined the film’s sense of flow. However I really love our film and it was an exciting task to complete it.

My blog hyperlink: http://cherwellmediamcritchlow.blogspot.com/

(1310 words.)