1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In our media AS project we had to create an opening sequence of a thriller film. Before planning our product, we as a group had to fully understand what was meant by the term ‘Thriller genre’ and the techniques within the genre which allow for iconography through the use of mise en scene and cinematography. We did this by researching the openings of real thriller films to draw ideas and techniques and apply them to our own product. I used the techniques from my own thriller openings research on Now You See Me and Pulp Fiction to generate ideas for our opening.
There are codes and conventions in a genre which are shown in the opening of thrillers, and they are portrayed exceedingly well, to make the audience ask questions and give a mysterious feeling for a spectator. They are used to convey the genre of film to the audience.
In the beginning of Now You See Me, the colour appears both saturated and de- saturated, creating a chilling effect in the scene which is a very important convention of a thriller as it conveys an unbalance in the scene almost creating a disturbance which is common of the thriller genre. However this warming effect of the saturated areas of the scene such as the golden mirror in front of our character is used to draw in the audiences attention and keep them focused on the important action that is
unfolding.
unfolding.
We decided to use this technique in our product in the interview scene between Mr Harvey and the investigator. We then decided this was not the effect we wanted when we got to the editing suite and opted for a de-saturated black and white filter, as we could still see the lighting techniques being displayed but we also captured that 'chilling' look by making the scene cold, dull and uncomfortable for an audience. Another thriller that uses this technique is the crime thriller The Third Man 1949 directed by Carol Reed.
I researched the idea of naturalistic and high key lighting for our crime thriller as it makes for a more believable story and helps to create a realistic fear for an audience. I found the opening of Pulp Fiction to be a great example of this type of lighting to gather my ideas from. The opening of Pulp Fiction is set in an American diner in the daytime, allowing a spectator to view the full setting and characters emotions, which is uncommon of a thriller genre as the characters emotions and facial expressions are normally concealed by shadows and low key lighting.
However this technique is excellent at helping to contrast this scene to the change of events that our about to occur when the couple sitting in the diner decide to commit a robbery and draw out their guns. This technique is effective as an audience do not expect these events to happen and are then shocked into watching the whole film right through to the end. We used this lighting in our opening title sequence after the interrogation scene as it allowed for two dramatic changes of events, one after the interrogation scene and one before the murder scene. We used this lighting technique to create a Contrast to dark murder and investigation scenes that are later presented.
Shadows are iconographic of a thriller genre as they allow for suspense and increase the spectators emotions; keeping them connected with the characters and the film. I draw the idea of shadows from Sherlock Holmes.
Camera angles play a huge role in how a genre is perceived and presented. This convention helps to give a film its thriller genre, as different camera angles create different senses of body language and emotions. Thriller films also use Camera Angles such as facial close up shots and mid – range shots. An example of a close up was used in a film called Band of Brothers, in the film there is a close up of the mans face after he has been shot, showing that he is in pain. Band of Brothers was made in 2001.These help to show facial emotions/expressions and also shows body language, which helps to show tension, and helps the audience to feel as if they are in the film and gets them to start asking questions. Some Camera Movements also make the audience feel tense and also helps to make them feel like they are actually in the film. For example when the camera moves up and down slowly, they try to mimic the characters breathing. This can be shown in the opening sequence of The Bourne Supremacy, when Jason Bourne wakes up in his bed after a nightmare and begins to heavily breathe. The Bourne Supremacy was directed by Paul Greengrass in 2004.
This makes the audience feel like they are in the film and to make them feel like they are the ones that are breathing. Another Camera Movement is tracking, this is a fast paced camera movement, which can also be known as a Dolly shot or just a Dolly. This type of shot has been used in films such as Goodfellas, when the camera is quickly tracking through the kitchen of the Copacabana. This film was created by Martin Scorsese in 1990 .This makes the audience more tense and also makes them quite nervous and makes their heart beat fast, as they know that something may happen next due to the fast pace. We used these typical thriller genre camera elements in our film opening to emphasise the thriller genre and create suspense for a spectator keeping the engaged in the film. In our investigation scene between Mr Harvey and the investigator, we used many close ups of the characters faces to capture their emotions and connect them to the audience. This is used in thrillers to trick a spectator into producing sympathy for the villain at times then dramatically changing to hatred as when the villains emotions change and become dark and evil, the spectator tends to become distressed and has no sympathy or emotional feelings towards this character apart from rage.this technique helps to keep the audience involved in the proceedings of the thriller opening and helps to control the story right through to the end.
A sub genre is a category that a genre, say thriller, could fit in to. A sub genre of a thriller is Crime thriller. This particular genre is a hybrid type of both crime films and thrillers that offers a suspenseful account of a successful or failed crime or crimes. These films often focus on the criminal rather than a investigator. Crime thrillers usually emphasise action over psychological aspects, however we chose to use both of these aspects in our film opening.. Central topics of these films include serial killers/murders, robberies, chases, shootouts, heists and double-crosses. Some examples of crime thrillers involving murderers include, Seven, No Country for Old Men, Silence of the Lambs and Untraceable. In our thriller we decided to use the crime sub genre in order to convey the murder of Iona proficiently.
The other important convention that makes up a thriller is Editing, this gives films things like quick cuts. These quick cuts can also be seen in films such a psycho, when the women in the shower is getting stabbed there is a lot of fast cut, as it shows different angles of her being stabbed. This makes the film fast paced and makes it more tense. Another one is fade to black. This has been used in the film Three Monkeys, at the end when the final shot is of a man standing at the top of a ramshackle building, looking out on a dark horizon; thunder tolls; a train runs in from the left side of the screen, and appears to enter the side of the building, then the screen fades to black. This film was written by Nuri Bilge Ceylan in 2008.It makes the film more suspense, because you don’t know what is going to come up next.
Generally, a crime thrillers plot involves justice and injustice (good/evil) fighting against each other with an overall feel of suspense. Most often, the identity of the antagonist is known and the protagonist must intervene with their plans;in our opening we decided the the investigator would be our secondary protagonist. We decided this as then the audience would be able to see the difference between a protagonist and the way they act and their posture in comparison the antagonist and be able to distinguish differences between them. In the beginning/opening of a crime thriller like ours. There is typically a clear sense of pursuit, although they sometimes begin with the sense of an equilibrium and show the overall series of events that occur through the full film. We have achieved this through the use of flash backs in the investigation scene, showing the audience the events that have happened. We then see these again as the full murder scene is shown after the opening titles.
The story of a typical thriller film will usually be shown from the protagonists point of view, following the events that they must overcome. We decided as a group it would be better to make the film opening from the audiences point of view, yo create the narrative. This point of view allows an audience to become more involved in the events themselves and therefore closer to the characters, as they can then see how the characters interact with each other in different situation which is commonly used in this genre of film. However, other points of view are sometimes included in the telling of the story and when we used the antagonists (mr Harvey) point of view whilst he strangles the protagonist Iona, a spectator may feel a rush of emotions and feel as though they were the knees strangling her.
This creates empathy for the antagonist as the audience now has a emotional connection with the villain and may allow a spectator to see why they're the antagonist and not protagonist. Depending on the character that plays the villain or how much is revealed to a spectator, a sense of guilt can also be created.
Psycho was written in 1960 by Alfred Hitchcock .This adds suspense and horror/thriller to the film to give it its thrilling genre. Other sound elements which are used to give the films their thrilling genres are; diegetic/ non-diegetic sounds, synchronous/asynchronous sounds and ambient sounds such as sticks snapping in our woodland scene.
The two main characters, the protagonist and antagonist in a thriller are set apart from each other in the way the audience sees and perceives them. The crime thriller genre often presents our world and civilization as sinister and fraudulent, and in this world there is usually a somewhat antagonist (villain) against a protagonist(victim in our film opening). In our product, our antagonist or villain character is called Graham Harvey. In our thriller opening, Mr Harvey is under interrogation at a police station as he gas been suspected of the murder of 11yr old Iona, his daughter. Iona is our protagonist/victim. We distinguished the difference between these two thriller archetypes with the use of mise en scene. Our victim Iona wore a white school collard shirt, as the white colour is symbolic of an angel and represents innocence and peace, which it typical of a female thriller victim. She was also dressed in a school skirt to help suggest and convey her age to the audience. Her character also wore a pair of ripped tights which suggests that she has been abused and helps to add to the effect of her being dragged through the woods.
As a group,we agreed that dressing the character Iona as a young female school girl was the best way to convey her innocence to a spectator, allowing the audience to feel sympathy for Iona. On the other hand, Graham Harvey wore blackball over, suggesting dark and sinister themes and meanings for his character in comparison to Iona. These colours reflect Mr Harvey's violent and aggressive personality.
The typical setting of a thriller is in a woods or urban city. Usually the main colours will be Gary of if not grey, de-saturated to emphasise the helplessness of the first character we see(Mr Harvey). We decided to use both, by using a woods location where the murder was committed and also the police interrogation room which is normally found in an urban built up city.
Mise-en-Scène contains a few important elements which help add thriller to films and also help to add suspense as well. Lighting such as colour design has to be dark to help give the film a gloomy mood and helps to make the audience feel more suspense towards the film. These to low key lighting effects were mainly used in the interning action scene. Another thing which also makes the opening off a thriller stick to its thrilling genre is props, as in thriller films there is a lot of sharp objects and weapons like glass, knives, guns etc. In films such as Train-spotting, they use props such as drugs, needles and cigarettes, to show that the characters are drug tackers and to show the audience what type of personality each character has. Train-spotting was created in 1996 by Danny Boyle . This shows the audience that the objects are going to be used to kill someone or something. The set design/ location also helps the genre of the film stick to thriller, as the right set/location such as a gloomy warehouse or dark woods give a thrilling film as it shows mystery and suspense/tension towards the audience. Instead of using sharp edged weapons in our product, we just used Harvey's physical abilities with his hands and fists as murder weapons as we felt knifes and guns were inappropriate for our target audience age of 15.
2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?
We displayed many social groups in our product such as disability, youth/age, class/status and also gender.
Our age social group is represented in the character Iona as she is a young 11yr old girl. As said before, her age is mainly represented through her outfit, due to her being dressed and presented in a young school girls uniform, it conveys her young age and her naivety and innocence to the audience and allows a spectator to create emotional connections with her character as they feel sympathy due to her being at such a young age and being abused and murderd.
Other social groups presented in our thriller opening are disability and gender. Disability can be argued in our film as Mr Harvey's insane motivations may be seen as a disability for him compared to well minded people such as the investigator in the interrogation scene. However in our product we did see this behaviour as a disability as it affects Mr Harvey's mental health and drives him to murder his own daughter, which is disturbing and is not considered as normal behaviour or as mentally well.
The last social group presented in our product is class and status. This is represented in the investigator character. This is shown through mise en scene. As an audience member I can tell that his character is upper middle/upper class as he is dressed smartly in a suit and his posture and body language is always stood up straight with shoulders back. This suggest he is well mannered which is stereotypical of a middle/upper class citizen.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our thriller opening has the characteristics of an independent film. An independent film is not produced in a film studio such as WarnerBrother and Paramount. Independent films have very low budgets in comparison to mainstream film which is made in these type of Hollywood studios.
An example of an independent film studios are MGM and Pinewood studios which are both UK independent producers and distributors of films in Britain. Although our budget may be small due to it being an independent film, this does not mean it will not be successful.
Art House cinemas and independent cinemas such as the Duke of Yorks in Brighton would be a suitable location to screen our independent film as this is what they specialise in. However by screening our film in these cinemas we may be less likely to attract our audience demographic as 15-25 year olds are generally attracted to mainstream multiplexes.
I feel as though online streaming would be the safest bet in securing a profit from our thriller. Online screening can be used on websites such as YouTube and Netflix. As we are an independent driven low budgeted film, we would not be able to distribute them through television or cinema as they would be too expensive for our budget, so I believe online screening is the better option.
As a producer, YouTube allows one to broadcast my film to any audience demographic, cheaply and easily. This is beneficial for a producer as it's cheap to distribute on these kind of websites. Our film would be purchased on the YouTube website by a consumer for a small viewing fee and then they can simply watch the film on any device of their choice as long as they have the YouTube app and an internet connection. This is also an advantage for a consumer as it's quick and easy to purchase and use and allows for a better viewing experience for the viewer at home and on the go.
Facebook and Twitter are very effective ways of spreading the word about our film. We could not only set up a page where members of the public could follow the making of the film and track its progress, but also as an opportunity to raise the popularity of the film and evidently our independent film company. Also, like YouTube, there are opportunities to advertise around the social networking site, but because these do cost a lot of money and as we are only a small company, it may not be something within budget. However, a member of my group did set up a Twitter account for our page towards the end of the editing progress, and she is still now posting to encourage people to watch our film.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Due to the large amount of violence, abuse and neglect in our film opening, we decided a 15 certificate would be appropriate for our crime thriller. Our film is aimed at both the male and female gender aged 15-25 yrs. A 15 certificate means that only ages 15+ cN watch our film do to its explicit content.
We thought this would be the most appropriate age as it is a demographic that the embers of my group fit in it, enabling us to personally relate to the themes and issues displayed and discuss which rating was appropriate. Also, as the film is of a thriller genre, anyone under the recommended age may find the film discomforting and traumatic, and also an older age my find it not as thrilling.
I believe audiences that enjoyed watching films such as se7en and The Silence Of The Lambs may find our film appealing as they involve similar plot lines.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
In our group, we agreed that the age of our older characters in the film were within our target audience age group as this allows a spectator to relate to the characters. Costume was used in order to make the characters look older and fit witching out audience demographic.
However Iona's character is younger than our audience demographic as this allowed the audience to feel more sympathetic for her as she can't stand up for herself. In almost every angle of Iona, she is being leant over by the antagonist, making her vulnerable and places her in difficult situations which makes the audience more sympathetic for her and shows that Graham Harvey is the more dominant character in our thriller opening.
