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1. In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products

2. After analysing the opening scenes of horror films, we
became particular influenced by Friday The 13th (2007).
In both films they enter the woods for unethical reasons
with illegal intensions. In Bird Call, the group of teenagers
aim to get heavily intoxicated by the alcohol even when
they have been grounded by their parents. This is
underage drinking as well as in a public place which is
illegal, and without their parents permission. Early on in
Friday The 13th we acknowledge that their main reason to
enter the forest was to take the cannabis plants and sell it
to make money. This is also illegal as it’s against the law
to sell marijuana.

3.  After the flashback, the film starts
off with an establishing shot of the
location which is of a river by the
woods. In this shot there is no hint
of society nearby, with no one
featured or man made objects in
the shot. This is to show that the
area is deserted, and if anything
happens at the campsite, no one
will be able to rescue them. In Bird
Call, our establishing shot was of
the woods, showing no human
activity and pure nature, such as
the Friday The 13th ‘s shot. Also,
we attempted to film at a similar
brightness level as the establishing
shot, which was the transition from
the day time turning into night time.
This brightness was essential to
receive the similar effect of a
possible danger occurring soon in
the film

4.  At the start of the film there’s a group
of young adults walking through the
woods to get to a cannabis site. The
group has a strong chemistry with
each other and everyone’s having a
good time socialising at the campsite.
They establish the good friendship
when the two of the characters have
a small argument which they sort out
abruptly. Apart from this, all
characters have content facial
expressions and seem to have a
positive rapport with each other. We
modified this beginning in our film
where we had the characters bonding
over some alcoholic beverages in the
woods. The other actors including
myself were laughing, socialising
connoted as having a good time.

5.  Also in both films they consume a vast amount of
alcohol. This instantly increases the danger in the film
as drinking too much will make you drunk, reducing
your speed of reaction, giving you possible blurred
vision, and a lack of control in yourself. These
symptoms put the characters in danger as they are
helpless, should anything bad happen to them.

6.  In Friday The 13th they also include diegetic sounds
such as cricket noises and other wild life sounds. In
Bird Call, we feature the diegetic sound of bird noises
through out the film. Saying this, we manipulate the bird
noise to establish when the danger is coming in the film
which isn’t the case for Friday The 13th.

7.  This group of people however are not the main
characters in the film as they are all brutally killed by
the villain in the beginning. This is to establish the
killers characteristic and threat. In Bird Call, even
though we didn’t discuss it, we could interpret this and
make John the villain who later on kills other so called
‘friends’. Saying this, we could avoid the code and
convention of that film and make the characters that
were seen at the start, the main threat through out the
film.


8.  In Bird Call we attempted to use similar camera shoots
such as the high angled shot displayed in Friday The
13th. This was to show that there was greater presence
amongst them. This however is revealed later on in our
film to be John, whereas in Friday The 13th the greater
presence is Jason Voorhees.

9.  The font of our title might be
different compared to the Friday
The 13th one however we
included the splash of red. This
splash of red represents blood
and connotes the brutal and
sinister elements in the film. It
tells the audience that bloody
deaths will occur. Me being the
title creator, I thought that it
would be a key element to
include as it builds an
expectation of the film, which is
key for slasher films. This is
essential as you can rather allow
the audience’s beliefs of what’s
going to happen come true, or
you can have a plot twist. This
will leave the audience with great
ambiguity and excitement as it
was unexpected.