Evaluation of AOTT Activity (DYM)

1) Our film is about a young girl who is mentally disturbed. She is staying at a mental asylum and during her time there she becomes uncontrollable and her psychotic nature sees her begin to kill the other people there, one by one. In the opening, we wanted to establish this and we did so through the shot of a small tally chart, which is in fact the number of lives the girl has claimed so far.

2) In the opening of the film, we were sure to include key information to ensure our desired audience would be well informed. We established the main settings and locations of the film, both indoors and outdoors, the main characters that were to feature in the film, the names of the two main actors and most importantly the title of the film.

3) The titles link to the man film idea because they are successful I connoting the genre of the film. The main title is in a very distinct font and the fact that it is called ‘playtime’ could reflect the significance of what is to take place in the film. The phrase ‘playtime’ reflects the characters horrific acts of killing people for fun.

4) Following seeing the film I would expect the audience to be slightly disturbed and in great shock due to what they had just seen. I also expect the audience to be unable to apprehend the events in the opening. The actions of the main character would be the cause of this confusion and discomfort that the audience would be feeling. By the end of, I expect the ambiguity of the opening to leave the audience feeling very confused about why the main character is doing such things

5) Three things that were included in the film opening that are important are:

•      The film title – the title is key when informing an audience about a film. It lets the audience know of what the film might be about and in this case it informs them that it will be about something that one may consider to be fun
•      The introduction of the main characters – this is important because it allows the audience to expect certain things from the characters that they are introduced to, therefore setting up expectations which they will want to be gratified later in the film
•      The establishment of the main genre – the genre allows an audience to decide whether or not they will be interested in watching that film. Through the use of signifiers such as blood and shadows, the audience become aware that the main genre is horror, and so this will result in the desired target audience being appealed to and therefore increasing interest.

6) I believe that the film opening was effective as an opening as we were able to conform to the many expectations of the desired and we were able to include typical conventions of a film. I think that one of the most successful things was the way we were able to ensure that the audience were well informed, whilst not revealing too much about the narrative of the film, which meant that the audience were left wanting more.On the other hand, I do feel that if I were to do this again I would have included an establishing shot of the building which is where the film is set.