Evaluation Questions 1 and 2

1)
My film ‘Bad News’ was a Mystery genre of film, with themes from crime genres, which is shown by the murder. Some changes were made between my storyboard and my final film, such as the adding effects including cross dissolves and adding rolling credits in the beginning to outline the film name and characters present. This has allowed me to develop my proficiency in the use of effects and camera control.
My film was influenced primarily by the mystery series Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. A similarity between the two is the main character, appears to be a normal person, wearing smart clothing and acting normally. The Mystery genre has become primarily focused with the older age groups, as all of the television programmes feature on day time television and this is also recognisable as all of the characters featured are older. I have challenged this by casting my main character as a younger character, which would lower the target age group of my piece. I have also challenged the typical mystery genre, more predominantly Miss Marple, by adding both music for a major part of the running of my film, also the use of effects which is not present in most mystery genres, and the lack of speech used in the first two minutes. My film does introduce a ‘suspect’ in the first two minutes as the friend of the main character, which is done as a major feature of Miss Marple, as the idea of ‘whodunit’ theme. I did not include the actual murder, like Miss Marple, and instead showed before and after, this is also much easier as an actual murder would be exceptionally difficult to shoot effectively. The use of camera shots conforms to that of Miss Marple, such as the use of the camera to show the vision of the murderer, and showing walking from a distance which is used consistently in the mystery film The Da Vinci Code.
2)
In my research I found that most films and programmes which focus on a murder mystery plotline usually feature, at least as a sub-plot, a story into the main characters life such as they are suffering from alcoholism, split up from their partner or other heartbreaking tragedy in their life to make the consumer connect with this character, feel for the character and also keep them hooked not only on the ‘unmasking’ of the culprit but usually a resumption or improvement of their life. An example of this would be The Da Vinci code, when at the end of the film the main character falls in love again.