Evaluation of Silent Runner

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

Silent Runner involves a number of media conventions, some that we have used in the general sense and some conventions that we have developed or challenged.

We’ve used conventions of narrative in the sense that we used a linear plot and the structure in the general order in which they are presented to the audience with the exposition of demonstrating the actor is a keen runner going out for what starts out to be a normal run. This is then followed by the development of her entering a secluded forest where she appears to be lost and isolated from society. The complication is when she appears to be being followed unaware to the actress playing the runner but known to the audience. However, a way in which we have challenged the convention of narrative is that we conclude our film during the climax not revealing the resolution of what happens to the runner and her stalker.

Conventions of camera we used in the process of production were a number of conventional shots used in films to distinguish between different emotions of the film and to concentrate of certain areas of the storyline. For example, we have used a number of long shots to establish setting, used a number of close ups for dramatic effect and used the space in frame and composition to give the essence of symbolic space and isolation.

Methods in which we challenged this convention were that we have also used a variety of more unusual shots. For example, we have used the Dutch Tilt camera shot to express abnormality in the world and a number of mirror shots as in the opening scene showing our actress getting ready and eye line matches where we show her looking for the source of the snapping twig, which are not as used as much as other camera shots.

Editing conventions that we chose to use was the aspect of continuity editing throughout our film as we follow the course of the actress’s run. We have also used cutting from different angles of the same scene and action which is often used in media productions. To challenge this we broke the eye line match rule in which we showed the actress looking for the source of the snapping twig but deprived the audience of what she was looking at just her reaction to it to give the allure of mystery

Conventions of sound that we used was general sound techniques used in films including soundtracks and sound effects such as the Asynchronous sound of a twig snapping which was not matched by an on screen source which an effect of suspense and drama. We also used a number of Diegetic and Non-diegetic sounds in our original plot idea of a car crash as we added a tire screech and as we were shooting in a forest there was a lot of natural sound too. Our choice of song Massive Attack – Teardrop was chosen to express the feelings and emotions of the actors through the song to substitute the no dialogue. In contrast a way we have challenged this convention is that we have no dialogue throughout our film despite it not being a silent film. Our film mostly consists of soundtracks, ambient sound and natural sound made by our actress like heavy breathing, gasping and screaming.

Mise en scene in the sense of conventions we mostly used involved, that most of our lighting is natural light like sunlight or moonlight which was used to give atmosphere to match the emotion of the story. An example of this is when the actress appears to be happy then scared, from the start of her run where it is bright and daylight, to the scary climax in darkness. We have used costume and the use of props to illustrate character as in her hobbies and ideals and with the stalker character to express a dark character with the used of dark clothing what you expect from a stalker.

We challenged this convention is the performance of our actress in which her performance was the key storyteller due to the no use of dialogue. Our actress had to portray her emotions and the plot through her performance with the use of facial expression, body language and the use of sounds made by the actress for example her heavy breathing, gasping and screaming. Our film was relatively based on the notion that actions speak louder then words.

How effective is the combination of my main product and ancillary texts?

In our poster we wanted to establish a brand identity for our film, we attempted to do this through our use of image, language and design in our poster to portray our film as a certain genre.

The way in which we used image successfully to create a brand identity for the film is the use of separate images of our actress. With one being more pale then the other and with one looking back at the other unaware that she’s there gives an essence of paranormal and eeriness about it expressing to the audience that this film will either be a thriller or horror. Also the use of bars in the image represents a sense of entrapment and anxiety. The use of nature in the images also gives a sense of isolation in which there appears to be no sign of society.

The use of language to create a brand identity successfully was portrayed mostly from the tagline of “One Step Too Far”. The use of this tagline presents to the audience a feeling of danger and apprehension. It expresses to the audience a sense of the storyline that the runner may run into trouble and may enter a place she is forbidden to go to. Also the use of the title “Silent Runner” also represents a mood of danger, that something ay happen to the runner; it gives the essence of death with the word silent.

The use of design to create a brand identity successfully was shown through the use of green and yellow text to illustrate the use of nature as key to our story. This represents to the audience the importance of nature and the way this isolates her from society and enhances the sense of fear. Also the use of the red T that looks like a crucifix suggest the genre of horror, it suggest to the audience that their may be blood or murder, the use of red suggest danger accumulated with the cross gives a sense of evil. Our poster was designed to give a sense of mystery/wonder as it wasn’t fully explicit what would happen.

The way in which the contents of a magazine feature the audiences understanding of our film is the use of image in the magazine review and the language. The use of the image in helping the audience in the understanding of our film is that it firstly indicates the genre/brand of our film as it shows our actress in a hysterical state in a dark forest which basically screams thriller. The use of image also suggest to the audience a sample of the storyline as the image suggest a sense of danger that she is trying to get away from something and maybe not succeeding. The image of the main character also states who to focus on when viewing the film.

The use of language that helps the audience in the understanding of our film is that it firstly states the plot which shows the audience a brief outline of our story to perhaps grip the reader into being interested in viewing the film or reading the rest of the review. The language also illustrates that it is not a professionally produced film which may deter some audience members. As our target audience is relatively a young mature audience of 14 – 25 of both genders. As it is a negative review of the film which does state some good points on editing and production it helps the audience to understand that it is not a blockbuster. It presents to the audience that it is an interesting piece if you are interested in amateur media production.

What Have I Learned From My Audience Feedback?

The way I constructed my audience feedback was issuing out questionnaires that ask my audiences members a number of questions about our film. We also asked them to add comments about our film, some more specific than other to get their viewpoint of our film to find either fault or praise.

Our audience sample consisted of a vast majority of young and old students plus some teachers and other adult members of society. Our audience was mostly an opportunity sample that consisted of an even ratio of boys to girls.

A question we asked to our audience was what genre they thought was portrayed from our film.

As you can see the majority of our audience members correctly guessed the correct genre of our film showing that our film had good representation.

We also asked our audience members if they could understand the storyline in which we wanted to find from our audience feedback if our film was confusing and needed filling or re-shooting.

You can also see from this pie chart that the vast majority understood our film, showing that our film has good structure and not in need in redrafting.

Also a number of our audience members made some praising comments such as “A good suspense which made it exciting and enjoyable to watch”. Some of our audience members also requested a sequel as our film was inconclusive they were griped so much to the actors and storyline they wanted closure which expresses that they rather enjoyed our short film.

Our audience members also commented on some of the technical aspects of our film. A lot of members of our film found that when the music started when the actress put on her earphones was effective. Also a few of our audience members found the hand held camera movement to illustrate the creeping movement of the stalker was gripping, effective and added to the atmosphere.

We lastly on our questionnaire asked our audience members to rate our film based on their own experience of viewing the film.

Where as you can see our film got great reviews from our audience members as they believed our film was better than average and felt that it was more than just good. Our audience members were shown other short films to allow them to make comparisons which make the results from our audience feedback even more pleasing.

Our overall conclusion of our audience feedback was exemplary we believed that were honest about there opinions and there evaluations of our product gave us ideas and inspiration to improve and add to our production. As a result we believe that if given the time we would produce more editing to our music such as lapses in the music or add a second soundtrack which was the only aspect proposed from our audience to alter.

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

The software used to produce our short film media product was Adobe Premiere which allowed us to edit our production of the film. Using such software presents its own advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of editing our product on this software is that it allowed easy configuration of our short film and presents itself in an organised fashion that is simple to interpret. Also as it allowed simple editing techniques to be produced it allowed a fast procedure of editing as in the chase scenes of our film when the runner is escaping the stalker. This software also allowed us to create credits which some editing software does not. The main advantage of using this particular software was that it allowed a lot of aspects of our film to be altered and improved including a wide range of cutting techniques and visual effects. The software also allowed us to alter (increase or decrease) the shade, length and pace of the shots in our film. We also could edit the music throughout the film in the same way by changing the pace of the music to illustrate scenes of tentatively or excitement as in the chase scenes where we would increase the pace and volume of the music and during the scene of the runner hiding behind the tree we lowered the volume of the music to emphasis the desire to go undetected.

However the use of Adobe Premiere’s editing software did bring some disadvantages as it did not allow us to edit two parts of our film separately on two computers simultaneously which did create some timing issues and inconvenience as not all members of team could edit. Also some aspects of the software were too basic and did not allow us to use advance editing techniques. This would have been useful in our original storyline of a car crash which was difficult to film and produce using our current filming equipment and software which resulted in our change of storyline. There were also in our group a lot of technical faults, for example there were issues of updating in which the latest edited version from my partners computer did not update into mine. There were also an issue of conjoining two separately saved scenes into one adobe file which luckily we detected early as we did lose some of our work which in turn caused more time issues. The main disadvantage of using Adobe Premiere we found was its complexity as some aspects of the software were not visually acceptable and therefore difficult to understand and use for newcomers which was resolved once we got use to the software.

The software we used to present our processes of making our media product is a Blog on http://www.blogger.com/ using such software brings its own advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of presenting our work on a Blog was that it allowed us to easily present our work as a group. It also allows us to visually present our work in the form of images and videos which separates the text in the Blog making it easier, faster and more enjoyable to read. Using a Blog also allows us to explain our planning, production and evaluation is a Diary explanation form, it allows us to keep an organised track of our work and allows easy explanation and recall. Also using the website http://www.blogger.com/ allowed us to look over other blogs for inspiration and advance our creativity.

However the use of Blog software did not allow us to alter the Blog space it does not allows us too much freedom in customizing the layout of the Blog which has become apparent when uploading YouTube videos as due to the narrow column some particular type’s of video does not fit in the space provided. This lack of space did limit our creativity as we couldn’t apply a layout design as we are constricted to single column, this also limited us to a straight and narrow design as it didn’t allow slanted boxes, boxes of other shapes and animation schemes. Also representing you work on a Blog requires you to be precise and to the point, it doesn’t allow you to be explanatory and in depth which may come natural to some writers. Another disadvantage of using a Blog is that as in a traditional Blog, although structured chronologically, the newest entry appears first and the oldest last which can long term effect the intended order of posts which can result in those unfamiliar with the concept may become confused and unable to navigate around it.

Fun of Filming - Blooper Reel

This is a humerous showcase of when filming did not excactly go to plan. Enjoy our blooper reel.

Audience Feedback Interviews

Here are a range of students that we interviewed to gain audience feedback of our film.

Production Process of Filming

The equipment we used to film our film include a basic tripod and a digital video camera, we had to use natural lighting and only the sounds picked up by the video camera, so basic equipment. The majority of our filming took part in Eastbrook Chase, a local nature preserve that had the characteristics we needed such as woodland areas and a river.

During the filming procedure we encountered a number of setbacks. A number of setbacks were due to the shooting schedule, although we did have a shooting schedule there were often changes made to it which sometimes affected our filming process. After we made our initial schedule we then had to change our actress because of conflicting agendas. Which resulted in us acting the roles. This set us back as we had not prepared to act the roles ourselves as we wanted to concentrate on the aspects of the film behind the camera. Following the loss of our actress we then lost a fellow member of the group due to a lack of participation on there part, this also created further obstacles and strain on our shooting schedule as we then had to re-arrange how we were to film the film as both us remaining members were also the actors in the film.


This is footage of our original actress Nataile Camilleri

This sometimes caused difficulty especially when both character's were involved in the scene but on the other hand, made it easier for us to arrange to film and follow the schedule as we only had to have the two of us there, when there were more people we often found it difficult to get everyone to be in the same place at the same time. As there were only two of us in our group film and we were both acting out roles in the film we ad to be clever and creative in how we shot scenes that involved both of us in the shot which basically involved setting up the camera initially then getting into out position leaving the camera unattended.

Other setbacks in our schedule was the cancellation's due to weather which would have effected the continuity of our film and the change in our script, changing the process of the film meant we had re-plan and adapt our schedule and editing what we already shot to suit the adaptations. The reasoning behind changing the storyline of our film was that we found filming a car accident with the basic equipment we had seem a bit of an ambitious idea, one that we couldn't match. Therefore after a failed realistic attempted we opted to change the storyline of the film to a modern approach to the classic villain and victim horror film with a stalker being the modern monster.

Editing Process of Film

The editing process of the film was by the software Adobe Premiere in which we uploaded what we filmed onto the software programme in order to alter it in the way we seemed fit which involved cutting out unwanted outtakes and deleting unwanted scenes. The editing process also aloud us to judge our film from an outside perspective in what we believed as a viewer needed to be either changed, added or redone.

The editing process also involved altering scenes brightness in order to make them darker to suit the theme of the scene such as scary scenes. Other aspects of the film we could edit was the pace of the film which we chose not to do and the addition of our music track Teardrop by Massive Attack which we could then further manipulate to become either more louder or more quite to add effect to dramatic moments.

We could also add special effects when using Adobe Premiere when editing our film such as side swipes or other transition to add to the effect of a passage in time which we chose not to add to our film but keep with the continuity editing to show the progress of the runners journey.

Creating Our Institution Logo

We were instructed to produce our own institution logo to put on our poster and perhaps somewhere on our magazine review page. what we firstly done was research other famous film logos to give us ideas and inspiration to create our own logo.

After our research we had a little discussion session and roughly sketched a few ideas of different symbols we can use and names that we apply to it. When figuring out a symbol we had the idea of having a symbol linked to film, screen or sound and we creatively came up with the idea of a megaphone linking to the old stereotype of an old fashioned director. once we identified a symbol we had to associate a name with it in which we aimed to create a catchy name. the name we came up with was Megazone which we found to be comical irony.

We decided with the light and dark blue colour scheme due to a common agreement between us on what colour most suited the design.

Creating Film Poster Title and Tagline

When creating the title of our film we first had to select a name of the title which at this point was still undecided. We then selected our two favourite's from our list of suggestions and previously said that one would be our title and the other our tagline. Our top two suggestion were Silent Runner and One Step Too Far. We finally decided that Silent Runner would be our title and One Step Too Far would be our tagline as that what we believe was the most effect and suitable.

Whe researching possible fonts for our title we found that adding effects to the font didnt work well as we experimented with a number of styles and decided that we should adopt and more simple approach.

When deciding our design of our title we agreed that we would have a strait neat title and do something effective with the colouring. We picked the font style Century Gothic as we believe it would be effective in our poster, plus the name of the font stood out due to the genre of our film our tagline was of the same font and Italic. After writing the title in this font we noticed that unintentionally that the t in the word silent i our title looked like a crucifix and thought that we could something effective with that and colour that letter red to give the hidden message of danger.

We also believe it would be effective to separate the two words of the title separated with the second word beginning underneath conjoined with the crucifix to illustrate a embedded symbolism.

Research Into Our Target Audience

Once we established our idea and gained inspiration through researching other short films we needed to define our target audience to direct our film towards to attract to them. Where it should give the audience what they expect from the format of convention but at the same time challenge and surprise them.

Our target audience was stated as being of 14 - 25, although due to the content, can be viewed from the age of twelve but our film in general is targeted to appeal to this age boundary.

Our target audience is not sex restricted and should appeal to both genders of our audience. Our audience is also defined as class c in the social demographic scale as the majority of our audience are estimated to be students. Also in conjunction with the student lifestyle we attracting to their adventurous lifestyle and laid back demeanor.

The reason why we had to state a target audience was to act as a basis to appeal to whilst planning and producing our Short Film production.

Researching Other Short Films

When researching other short films we looked into the conventions of short films and how they differ from feature films. Conventions of short films include they they are usually set at the the time period of 5 - 7 minutes. They also usually involve few actors for few characters. Also a common feature in short films include a music track in the background throughout the film that usually gives effect or adds to the message of the short film. We also researched other short films to give us inspiration in how to present our idea in the short film style. Here's a short film that inspired us:



We also how to consider how audiences use short film and how they view it which also involved how short films are distributed. traditionally short film were shown during film festivals that would travel around to entertain the local community and to advanced publicity for up and coming directors. However in the modern era and advancement in technology short films now are usually viewed on the Internet on popular Internet websites that show video clips online such as http://www.youtube.co.uk/.

Final Film Product

This is our final film product Silent Runner which can be viewed here on our video link or on Youtube though this hyperlink http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDWmU-_6_YA

Final Magazine Review Product

This is the finished version of our magazine review of our short film Silent Runner

Final Film Poster Product

This is the chosen final poster product that we chose out of three that we felt best coincided with our film genre.

Editing Magazine Review Product

Editing the magazine review product involved firstly placing the chosen snap shoot image into place and editing this image appropriately to fit the size of the established area and also darkening the image for a more spooky effect to further portray its genre.

We also had the idea of adding some colour to our magazine review although this does contradict our genre but does follow the convention set by the magazine NME which traditionally uses allot of colour in its articles. We followed this convention by making some of our text boxes colourful using colour that NME are associated with which is usually blue and yellow.

Our editing process also involved the creation of our ranking system as we felt that we wanted to challenge the convention of a traditional ranking system of stars which involved in research to alternatives which we had the creative idea of a simple thumb's up or down which as we ranked our film average we had to find a sideways thumb. Also as we stated that this review is published in the music magazine NME we had to establish that by presenting the NME logo on our review which is conventionally placed on the top left corner of our page layout.

Drafting Film Review Layout

Drafting the layout of the magazine review page involved researching other magazine review pages and trying to imitate those and use them as a baseline for inspiration of producing our draft of our page layout for the magazine review page. Using the convention of having a snapshot of a point of the film in the film review, we decided to place the image as it was a portrait image in a corner preferably in the the top left as most Magazine review pages do. We also planed to follow the convention of having a number of the film details somewhere on the page plus title and tagline. At this point we wasn't sure of having a pull quote or star rating due to space constrictions.


To have an idea of space we firstly created a number of text boxes stating what each box area will consist of to gain insight of page layout space. We done this on Microsoft Publisher to have a plan of what area we have to work with and basically to experiment with a number of ideas on how to make our layout original and appealing.

Choosing Most Appropriate Image From Film

Choosing the most appropriate images from the film was not a difficult as I found from my research the image usually taken is from the part of the film with the most excitement and adrenaline. When selecting the right image from the film I had to select the right scene in which to view from to take a snap shot at the right moment, the scene I selected which I believed was the most effective was the dark chase scenes as I believed it expressed the essence of the film, quality of acting, mise en scene and genre of the film at its best quality.

To select this image I had to view the scene and take a snapshot of the scene using the Adobe Premiere software to pause the film as save the onscreen image as a picture to be later edited and displayed in our magazine review page.

Drafting Film Review Text

When drafting the text of the film review we purposely set out to make the review a negative review so that it would appear more realistic as a review as most film reviews are negative especially in the short film category. This would also make t easier to point our positive aspects of the film and make it more appealing and exciting to read. It did seem a bit of a cliche to denigrate our film but it gave us the freedom to evaluate our film in an external point of view and allowed us to creativity write about our film from a different angle.

We also decided to follow the convention of writing details/statistics about our film which involved research into our own film including length. We also wrote details about production crew,age rating, we also followed the convention of writing about the release date and gave a brief plot description.

We finally drafted idea's for pull quotes and other humorous quote we could use throughout the page layout plus the future release date of the article and the website address of our film and the website address of the NME magazine.

Analysing Design & Language Conventions of Magazine Reviews

When researching other magazine reviews I found numbers of convention that appeared in many reviews including conventions of review layout and language. There are a number of layout conventions of magazine reviews, one layout convention that I found that appeared in many film reviews was a snapshot image of a certain moment in the film usually the most exciting scene. Another layout convention that is common is a pull quote that is sometimes enlarged to stand out. Obviously in all film reviews you have the title of the fum and other details of the film including time and actors names. Layout conventions also included how the review itself is represented which is often laid out in columns sometimes involving a bullet point list and of course the classic star rating system.

There are also a number of language convention of magazine reviews as well. One language convention i found to be common was that most film reviews were written informally as to appear more casual to appeal to young audiences as appear less intimidating to readers, this was also done by making most film reviews short and to the point. Another common feature of language in film reviews was the use of rhetorical questions, puns/jokes and references.

Researching Different Film Magazine Audiences

When researching other film magazine audience I found that depending on the content of the magazine such as the from the type of film they review to the detail they include when analysing the film. I found that magazines that cover mostly action film mostly consist of a male audience and fashion magazines that sometimes cover film reviews are mostly of a female audience such as:

This type of audience difference can also be seen in the age of the audience of those mags that review more adult films with a higher age rating are likely to have an older audience but those magazines that are design at teenagers or younger children are likely to contain reviews of lower age rating films such as those of animation etc such as:

We decided that we had to select a magazine that would attract an audience similar to our target audience which I've define previously as unisex 14 - 25 year old's, particularly students which from research we be believe the magazine that best suited our target audience and film genre was the magazine New Musical Express (NME):

We decided on this magazine as its best suited our audience and film as an audience that enjoys the type of contents of this particular magazine, the music covered in this magazine and the other film that have been advertised in this magazine would also be attracted to our film, plus the target audience is roughly similar.

Drafting/Editing Film Posters

Drafting and editing our poster layouts involved using the software Microsoft Publisher and Fireworks manipulate our chosen image and allow us to use our creativity to create visual effects on our chosen poster image.

We chose that producing two images of the actress onto one background would be a good visual effect and give the hidden message of abnormality or anxiety of the actress. This was doable with the software we had which involved cropping an image of the actress out of the chosen image we thought looked the most natural running position onto another image we took of our actress running.

Once the actress's body image was cropped out of the background and pace on the other image we altered the brightness of the image to make it stand out from the other to look unnatural and give the misconception of a spirit to the audience. then when the image was completed we started constructing the layout design into place with the Title and Tagline in place. Institution Logo and age rating in place and the bottom corners, then finally entering the release date, review comments,website address and production team details.

Once we created the final three posters we had to select the poster we felt was most effective to be our final film poster. Here are the other two drafts that wasn't selected:

Choosing Most Appropriate Poster Images

When choosing the most appropriate images we wanted to select the most natural looking image that we could easily manipulate to apply a special effect. We also took in the factor that we wanted three separate ideas which we applied three separate backgrounds and actress positions to allow us to experiment with ideas and give us choice in selecting the most effective design out of the three.

Besides from choosing the most appropriate background to use and best actress position we also had to choose the most appropriate image to apply editing software to. We planed to use the software Fireworks to crop out the image of the actress to place on the plain background image to give the visual effect of empathises other special effect applied to the image were to be decided at a later date.

Setting Up Mise en scene of Poster

When we started organising our photo shoot we decided to take a number of images at separate setting's to produce a different background to experiment with ideas. As our film was a modern approach to the classic horror film we kept the classic convention setting of a forest which was on of our setting's with the other two setting being present in the film. We also took an image of the plain background setting without the actress in place to later be used for possible visual effects.

We also directed our actress to produce a number of poses and running setting's to analyse the best figure position that is effective and looks natural as w e could take an image of our actress whilst in motion due to issues of focusing.

When researching other horror film poster and their use of mise en scene we found that a use of a prop or special effects were often used to produce a suggestive message. however we could not exactly reciprocate this as our film did not involve a definitive prop such as a murder weapon however we could at a later date add an image effect which we kept in mind during the photo shoot process.

We kept the other areas of mise en scene such as lighting and costume simple such as using natural light and on stage costume.

Sketching Possible Poster Images and Fonts

When we started the discussion and sketching procedure of creating a possible poster image and poster layout we initiated a trial and error procedure. we aimed to produce three different poster designs with separate images to select the most effect of the three at a later date. Here's an example of one of our rough sketches:


When sketching our three ideas we kept in mind to portray the essence of the film, genre, appeal to the audience and possibly give a hint to the storyline. These were rough sketches and therefore not to scale and detail but gave us freedom to express the general idea and expand the idea creatively in detail when we apply it to production stage on the computer using the appropriate software.

As well as sketching possible image and layout design ideas we also also had to design possible font ideas, whilst researching other title fonts other horror film posters have used such as:


We decided that a straight, neat, possibly upper class font was required and that we could create an effect using colour rather than a suggestive font.

Pitching Ideas for Poster

When pitching ideas of a film poster design during a discussion group we initially done a rough sketch each of our basic idea of our poster design. We then discuss a number of creative ideas to portray to the viewing audience a sense of the genre and storyline.

As well as pitching ideas for the visual aspects of the poster such as the image we also had to pitch ideas for the tag line, institution logo, review statements and at this stage we still did not have a fixed title.

When pitching ideas for the said things above we came up with a list of spontaneous ideas for a title which we then creatively suggested that the one we liked the most would be our working title and the second would be our tag line if its fits and is suitable. We also decided to go through the same process of discussion and sketching to produce a idea for a institution logo.

Analysing Film Poster Conventions

When analysing film poster conventions we done research into otter film posters of films in the same genre category as our film so we can gain some insight into common aspects and gain inspiration for producing our own film poster in a similar style. Whilst researching other horror film posters such as:

From other film poster research we found that a number of conventions appeared in horror film posters. a common convention of a film poster is that the masterhead/title is generally at the top of the poster with the tagline directly underneath. Another convention of a film poster is that the release date and production team details are at the centre bottom of film poster with the age rating and institution logo at both bottom corners. Also most film posters include film review statements.

Film Shooting Schedual

When organising the original shooting schedule we had to take into the factor of our availability due to our external responsibilities. As at this point we still had three group members this was difficult to organise but we settled to mostly film on free lesson times on a Thursday afternoon and on weekends. We did draft a basic shooting schedule as we establish that it would be unnecessary due to known improbability of having a consistent shooting schedule.

Our shooting schedule was designed to keep track of our filming process in which this caused minor problems to our progress which resulted in the change of the dynamics of the group. Firstly we decided to replace our original actress Natalie with our group member Sarah which aloud us more time to organise for filming. We also during the same week lost a member of our group due to her lack of participation in the work and subject which lead to her dismissal from the subject by our subject teacher.

We didn't exactly have an established shooting schedule but did agree to mostly film on the same day of Thursday and whenever we were free on the weekends, however due to the content of our film and difficulties in weather and lighting that effect the story and order as we had to think about the continuity of our film which resulted in a few cancellations.

Film Organisation of Locations, Actors etc

In preparation of filming our product during organisation we established what locations we will be filming in for each scene. Our short film in set in five locations, house, small roads, main road, park entrance and finally secluded forest. our location were filmed mostly in the day except the secluded forest location which needed darkness for drama.

Once we were settled and established what setting we will be filming in we had to arrange what actors we would be using and what characters they would be playing. At first we thought it be best if we outsourced actors (Outside our group) so we can focus on factors behind the characters. However due to conflicting agendas and lack of availability plus the unsuccessful recruitment of replacement actors we had to act the roles ourselves. luckily our storyline and storyboard didn't involve both of us being in the same shot at once so mostly one of us could be behind the camera.

We then using our storyline and storyboard as a guide we had to produce scene plans for each scene so that we were organised and focus on what we wanted to do when it came to filming. Once we had finished our advanced production planning we had to organise permission to use to music track Massive Attack - Teardrop which we wanted to add to our film at a later date, which involved writing a letter of notification to the copyright holder.

Film Storyboarding

Once we produced our script we started sketching our storyboards based on each separate shot in each scene making sure that we include a variety of shot lengths, angles and include different technical aspects as in an Dutch tilt and eye line match etc.

We produced storyboards for each scene for a guideline to follow during production as it gives us a visual reminder of what is shown we stated on the sheet the type of shot and type of edit that followed and any dialogue, sound or camera movement to be produced plus an estimated time of shot.