CCR Questions for PT2

1. How does your product USE or CHALLENGE conventions?

(Think sound, lighting, narrative structure, editing, camera work, symbolism and iconography)

Our Film "The Babysitter" uses and challenges the film conventions in many different ways. The opening scene already gives away that something dangerous may occur due to our main actor cleaning a knife; a weapon. This already puts a thrilling sense to our film and tells the audience of what may by ahead. The sound throughout this film does not include a lot of dialogue however music does play a huge roll in creating suspense. I put music into my final edit quite early on in the film to try and give it as much room to build up. This worked very well in creating a suspenseful tone. We used darker lighting in this film to try and create more of a curious feel. We used a lighter, having the actor hold this lighter and not have any studio lights set up. This worked well and looked good on camera even will the dark lighting. The narrative story went well and everything flowed together. The only other part in this film that did not flow well was the part when the actor receives a gun. We did not show this and therefore this part of the film was quite confusing for the audience. The editing of this film was very standard with no color correction, however I did use an after effect of the gun flash. This took a while to do put overall looked well of the final edit. The camera work was very standard throughout the film and did not change much. The symbolism that is in this film includes:

• Knife
• Gun
• Hood
• Face Mask
• Dark Clothing

2. How does your product engage with audiences?

Our Film engages with the audience due to the different types of shots we did and the connection between the main character and her little sister. This connection is broken when there is a home invasion and the little girls life is in danger. This engages with the audience if some of the viewers have little sisters or other family members. The flash backs that we used were to show the bond that has been developed between the two characters and therefore make it more relate able to the audience, this would help to engage the audience more. With the use of many different thriller conventions we put the audience on their seat. Some of these conventions include:

• Dark rooms
• Guns
• Knifes
• Weapons
• Flashbacks
•  Music
• Creepy TV noises
• Doors creaking

3. How have your PRODUCTION skills developed throughout the project?

My production skills have increased greatly due to this film. Mainly because of the use of after effects and learning how to use that software in order to accomplish what I wanted to achieve creatively. I had to research how to do certain effects and therefore I increased my knowledge in this certain area. My pre-production skills also increase greatly due to being introduced to different areas of work. I learnt more about how to draw up a story board and what it takes to direct. I also learnt a lot about different lighting techniques. Lighting was a big part of this film so that had to be well done. This pushed me to preform better and therefore the overall image looked better, due to better lighting. Learning more about directing was an amazing experience. I got to discover what it was like to be a director and the responsibilities it takes. This included acting, leading, working with the camera operator and much more. 

4. How did you integrate technologies into this project?  

The different technologies that I put into this film include:

• After Effects 
• Gun Flash
• Smoke Title Effect
• Masking
• Basic Editing

These certain technologies helped me to create the film that we have now. The gun flash took the longest to create and then the smoke Title effect. These took effects were made with After Effects and took multiple lessons and study breaks to complete. However it made the film much more enjoyable and better to look at overall. These two effects were a first time for me so I had to search up how to do them and watched the tutorials for these effects. We used the blue light of a TV screen in order to give the blue hue onto the actors face when shooting. This worked very well and created a spooky sense to the film. When the lights go out the actor pulls out a lighter so she can see where she is going. This lighter looked very good on camera due to the darker background and having the lighter be the only source of light. We also used a drone to get some shots of the flashbacks and also some shots of the opening scene. However I chose not to put any of these shots into my final edit, because I felt like they did not fit in with the genre that we were trying to go for.