Horror movie evaluation

INTRODUCTION

I had a lot of different roles in the production process. For example, I was director, acting, producer, script writer, camerawoman, editor. In lesson I had researched about horror movie conventions, at horror movie history, typical camera angles used in horror movies. We learnt about diegetic and non-diegetic sounds in movies. We also learnt about the narrative in a movie which is really important because without it, you can’t really film anything as that’s where the ideas come from.

MAIN BIT
I know that there are 3 types of horror genres; slasher, supernatural and monster. We decided to do a slasher horror movie. In slasher movies the typical characters found are serial killers, psychos, young teenagers. The general storyline of a slasher movie is that the victim is normally possessed by the monster or killer and has normally done something bad so needs to be punished/got rid of. Some iconic objects in a slasher movie are knifes, swords, saws, black clothing, cold, harsh weather and a lot of blood. The conventions we decided to keep were the teenagers, serial killers, knife and blood, the cold weather setting, and the theme  that the victim needs to be punished so is murdered. We took inspiration from various horror scenes and we were influenced by different films.
I helped in designing and planning the film by noting the ideas we had for the storyline and giving feedback on it. I also made notes of the various settings we could use and props and costumes needed. The filming went well and we were able to get to grips with the camera and directing quite quickly. We filmed the scenes in order of the storyline so we knew what parts we had done and needed to do. One thing that was a problem was that we weren’t sure how to start the filming so we wasted some time at the beginning getting started. We also realised that we couldn’t film the scenes exactly as we had imagined and had to make do with what we were able to film. We also got rid of some scenes and changed the storyline as well as we weren’t happy with the old one and had thought of a better storyline. Some problems we faced in filming was that the area wasn’t available or that people were there and the filming was disrupted. This was frustrating as we had to film another scene instead and it wasted even more time and also because we had to refilm the whole thing again as we forgot.
While editing we faced various problems. One problem was that there weren’t enough MacBook’s available and we missed a lesson of editing because of this. Another problem is that once we got the MacBook, we found it difficult to edit as it was our first time using the software and we had to get to know it better. Also, importing the videos took long and this meant time was lost in editing. However we used this time to work on our evaluations instead. One other problem we faced was that in the process of importing the videos from the computer to the MacBook, we lost some scenes. This meant that we had to change it around a bit as the scene wasn't there. This was kind of annoying as we were sure on how the trailer would go but after losing the clip, we had to look for a different clip, which took some time and we didn't agree on what scene to use.
We didn't use any soundtracks as we felt it wasn't needed and would ruin the film. Also we added sound clips such as footsteps and heartbeats and there was a bit of us speaking included as well. Also we recorded ourselves whispering 'dark secrets' and added that around the same place as the title comes up.


CONCLUSION
Our film is called ‘’Dark Secrets’’ and is about a group of 4 friends who did something bad and have to hide it. However one of the girls (Fardowsa) can’t hack keeping quiet so decided to tell someone. Her best friend (Me) didn't want her to tell as she would get in trouble with the other 2 girls (Fatha and Hamdi) so told them to stop her. However in the process she got murdered by Fatha and Hamdi. I tried stopping them but failed. It ends with us 3 having an argument about the body and the other thing they did but doesn't show the decision they made. Our story ends on a cliff-hanger as this will be more interesting and urge people to watch the 2^nd one.
I think our group did better than we gave ourselves credit to. We thought it wouldn’t be good and that we might not be able to finish off editing or filming the scenes well. However we got a lot of good clips along with editing the whole thing well. My favourite part of the trailer was at the end where Fardowsa was being dragged on the floor as that wasn’t meant to happen when we were filming it, yet it still came out well and looked better than the scene that we did film and were going to use.
I don’t think we tried breaking any horror conventions or genres, however we did break one whilst filming but we didn’t put that in. The convention was the part where Hamdi and Fatha met; they were all buddy-buddy and were acting happy and friendly when they should’ve been meaner and scared. The social group in our film was teenage girls who were close friends. We represented them as a unity, like girls would normally be and made sure they did everything together and there was always the one girl who goes behind their back/betrays them. The killer was represented in the generic way with the face covered and scary and creeping up on the victim. 
The target audience for our film was 15-22 year olds. This is young teenagers like watching horror movies as it is the general thing to do at that age and because the storyline of the movie fits with their age range. Also because at age 22 they are getting older and transitioning from a teenager to an adult, as it takes a while to get rid of their childish habits so they would watch a movie like this. I think we did reach the target audience a little bit but maybe only a few of 22 year olds would watch it and more 16-17 years would watch it instead.
I think the main lessons I will take away from this project would probably be to be patient as good things come in little packages and that the final product won't always be the same  as you expected but sometimes much better.