Creative Critical Reflection Question 1: Research

     This question challenges the use of genre characteristics, representation, mise en scene, and media theories. Lucky for us most of our blog posts are directly applicable to the research that went in to making the choices we did.

    In order to ensure I answer all the CCRs to the best of my ability, my goal is to create a complete breakdown of the specifics that I need to have to answer correctly as well as gathering all my thought into one post to make it easier for myself. During our production process my partner took lost of notes as to why we made the choices we did.

Horror Conventions

    Clearly, we aimed to create a horror/thriller film opening which is why it was critical for us to incorporate some of the specific conventions of the genre into our media product. We researched a lot about what went into horror and honestly everything was VERY specific and there's little room for creativity, which is why we had to find a way to make our film unique and not like any other while still sticking to the strict guidelines.

    It was essential we used some these techniques because they play a very important role in setting the mood and creating an atmosphere. Some of these included our intense use of backlighting and low-key lighting and our incorporation of the supernatural. Honestly, we tried to avoid bright lights all together with the exception of the detective board since it is literally meant to enlighten the detective to find the cause and save everyone else from suffering the same fate as Amber. But most importantly, we wanted to base our film around the element of mystery, since it is basically what the whole film is about and it helps add to the fear aspect.

    Fear in created primarily by the elements used to create suspense, like the darkness and the music. Which was great since we relied heavily on those features to give audiences auditory and visual cues that something out there was to be feared. 

Production Techniques

    As far as using production techniques to further solidify our theme of mystery, we, as previously mentioned, relied on sound and lighting.

    All throughout our opening you can hear the suspenseful music playing accompanied by the usual lowkey lighting with a couple backlighting shots to create more urgency. We used flashlights to achieve these shots, and it can be seen in my post "Filming Update 1" and we also took advantage of their strong light to create a couple shots where Ben is looking around and the light is only pointed at him creating an emphasis on his emotions which clearly show discomfort.

Representation

    We choose to make most victims of our film children. This is because the stereotype is that teenagers in specific are compulsive liars as well as very gullible and are therefore very vulnerable because of this mass distrust adults have for them. We agreed that by making them the primary target of the monsters we would be reinforcing that.

    We mainly used our character Benjamin to portray this. We did this by mainly showing him alone in dark clothing which represent the rebellious stage most teens go through. This outfit choice, all black, also solidifies the innocence in children and how regardless of how harmless they may be, they are always connected to death through decisions, and everything can change within a split second.