Question 1

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

A thriller is a genre of film which typically includes high tension scenes and excitement to put the audience on the edge of their seats the common conventions are the enigmas which make a thriller thrilling.  Enigmas are a person, thing or atmosphere that is mysterious or difficult to understand for the audience. The thriller genre connotes a long list of sub genres, those including: 

We chose to use the sub-genre mystery and an element of psychological. The sub-genre mystery made it a little more easy to create enigmas as mysteries are full of plots that make you question what’s going to happen or question other things. We also decided that psychological and mystery thrillers are effective as they really play with the audience’s mind and creates confusion and gets the audience guessing. Mysteries allow a lot of opportunities for various plots so the audience will never be able to know what going to happen and allows the chance for plot twists whereas action films are very stereotypical and usually follow the same story line or sci-fi films tend to follow the cliché plot however a mystery film can result in anything.

Mystery fits most with the narrative as the audience will question themselves as to what has happened. In our thriller key enigmas were how has the protagonist found himself upon his grave? What will happen after he wakes up? This enigma created from the opening will make the audience want to watch what does happen next as it will entice them like enigmas should do.

Psychological sub-genre fits perfectly too as it plays on the harsh reality of sub conscious fears such as stalker issues and possibly toys with the idea of kidnapping as it hints that the “stalker” has kidnapped and effectively made a grave ready of him.

The typical conventions an audience would expect when watching a thriller include, low key lighting, high pitched sounds and/ or uncomforting music, a numerous amount of high tension scenes , change in camera angles to confuse and disorientate the audience and lastly enigmas are key as it’s what keeps the audience watching because the guessing adds excitement. We know that our target audience would expect high tension scenes and enigmas throughout, we know this because when researching our ideal character profile we made a VoxPops to really get to know our audience this helped us understand what our audience actually knows about thrillers and what they notice.

As a group we decided to use most of these conventions. We included enigmas, suspenseful music, a range of camera angles and a variety of high tension scenes. However as we filmed outside we were very weather dependant, ideally we would of liked it to be raining when filming to create pathetic fallacy but on the day of refilling it was windy but the sun was just about setting so for the final product we didn’t get the low key lighting and pathetic fallacy we were desperate for.

The conventions of a thriller are portrayed through the use of camera work, the narrative, editing, sound and mise-en-scene.

When thinking of our narrative we decided on the graveyard scenes however we wanted to keep it lively by adding enigmas to the plot and add more mystery into it so we chose to use a dual narrative, we thought an evidence board would be appropriate as it would tell the antagonists side of the story compared to the grave yards scenes which tells the protagonist side of the story. The use of the prop would add more of a story line and keep the narrative moving forward as the dual narrative would reflect the past tense of the antagonist leading up to his plan on the protagonist and the present presenting the actions of the  antagonist within the narrative. We looked at existing media that uses evidence boards and in True Detective they use it on an extreme level the show True Detective uses a storage locker where the character played by Matthew McConaughey’ to contain all his conspiracy-clutter evidence of a “sprawl” of child abuse and murder, three walls of chipboard, newspaper cuttings, “Missing” posters, vintage video equipment, notes, maps and photographs. This is a similar theme to the evidence board that we will use.

Thrillers are usually located in an area of suburban surroundings which are associated with everyday life, such as a city or country side and rarely in exotic place however the subgenre may terminate this idea as the location may depend on the narrative, for example you wouldn’t expect it.  However, they can also take place in exotic settings and locations, for instance foreign cities and deserts. For example, you wouldn’t expect to see a sci-fi thriller based in the doesn’t but whereas you may find that an action, conspiracy or disaster tend to be the genres that fit hand in hand with thrillers located in suburban locations. Films such as Inferno and The Day After Tomorrow are both set in inner cities which many people can relate to, creating realism.

In our final product we based our thriller opening in a graveyard as this dark setting and the eerie atmosphere connotes death and mystery therefore it is very conventional of a thriller. We chose this location because not only was it appropriate for the narrative but as we researched a grave yard is a suburban area therefor it adheres to the ideology of location in thrillers. Graveyards are usually in a town or on the outskirts of a city so we decided that it was entirely appropriate to base the location of our opening here. The location must also be appropriate for the narrative and in our case it was perfect because we wanted to film in a grave yard to add the sense of enigma and boost the mystery side.

When creating our product we aimed to use a variety of shot types to make it more exciting. We made it exciting to sticking to the conventional shot types used in a thriller. For example we used close-ups for tension and mystery and low angles to show power.

 

 We used a variety to try to keep the audience interested and not become bored. Extreme close ups are commonly used in most in thrillers as it creates the enigmas by making you uneasy and question what is going on out of the shot, this links to framing as they has purposely left out the  rest of the shot to add the enigma. Extreme close ups also appear as a lack of space and create an effect for the audience. This effect is very conventional for thrillers and the unnerving effect works well with the unbearable sounds/music that are often used.

Using extreme close ups of a face creates tension because the audience are focused on the face they read the facial expressions and the emotions on the face, the ECU either gives to a lot of detail so you know what’s going on or very little to keep you guessing. For example when doing our research before producing our opening we looked at the shot types used in thrillers and especially in the film Psycho. Psycho is a perfect example of a thriller that uses ECU to give the detail of what’s happened. Psychos shower scene uses an ECU to show that the victim has died. We can immediately connote this after the ECU shows that the woman’s pupil has dilated. This use of ECU allows the audience to follow the narrative more closely.

An example of an ECU to create to create tension is Kill Bill, the use of the ECU on  the characters face creates enigmas and tension, the shot makes watchers question what is she looking at, as she is not holding direct gaze it gives a more sinister feel as you know she’s looking at something off screen and the mise-en-scenes use of makeup connotes that the character has been involved in some incident to the audience ask themselves that maybe she could be looking at who has done this to her? Quentin Tarrantino often relies on ECUs to manipulate the strength of the characters vice.

 
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In our opening scene we used a close up in the same way that kill bill used the shot type. We decide to use the shot for the protagonist and antagonist. We used the ECU of the antagonist on just the right had side of his face as we wanted to avoid letting the audience see his whole face until the end of the sequence. The antagonist close up was darker lighting which created a sinister atmosphere. We aimed to making the antagonists ECUs come across as he plotting something or has achieved something already. The blood shot eye also adds the eerie mise-en-scene and notifies the audience that this is the antagonist. However, for the protagonist we still didn’t use his full face but we concentrated on using 2/3 of the right hand side of his face so that the audience could get a better idea of the identity of the character. For the protagonist we focused on portraying the character as confused and clueless. We used more of his face in the shot allow the audience to detect the characters facial expression. The character avoided direct gaze and looked around the location avoiding the camera lenses to show a dazed state and confusion.

Canted angles are also often used to create a sense of disorder and chaos. We used a canted angel in our rough edit to foreshadow the events that were going to be shown in the opening sequence however we decided against it as post re-filming it didn’t fit with the continuity. However it would have been better if we re-filmed it because it would have added another shot type to the range we already had.

Editing our product we had to ensure that the pace of the sequence matched the music. Therefore the first thing we did was include the music before editing anything. The pace of the music was fast and crescendos in the middle. There is also a beat that occurs throughout so we aimed to make the beat match the action. For example when the blood drops on one of the titles the beat matched perfectly. Other scenes also have precise match on action with the beat.

via GIPHY

Thriller films tend to construct their narratives through a dual narrative or flashbacks. In our thriller opening we edited the narrative to include both these common elements. We used a dual narrative between the cross cutting of the graveyard location and the corkboard scenes of the evidence board. This use of dual narrative keeps the excitement going and avoid the narrative becoming boring to the audience, it also helps the audience to keep up with the narrative and give more info about the current situation. The juxtaposition of the mysteries dark, claustrophobic corkboard scenes compared to the empty and isolated graveyard in the daylight creates dramatic tension for the audience as the audience is left waiting between each cross cut on the edge of their seats.  We also used flashbacks at the end of the sequence. When the protagonist is down the alley and stands up to look around when you think he’s got away, he gets a flash back of what’s happened in the previous scenes to ad tension to the scene.

via GIPHY

We used non-diegetic sound in our thriller through the music. The music we chose was fast paced and crescendos through the middle, we decided on this soundtrack as it would really add to the suspenseful scenes we wanted to make. We also edited the music as it was not long enough we had to edit it as of when the title came in. I think that the final of the soundtrack worked well with the product over all. When editing it after the music was too short for the shots we had we wanted to avoid the music getting boring and repetitive. I think we achieved avoiding this by changing the pace suddenly.

For our font types for our titles we decided to include those in the mise-en-scene rather than super imposing , I think that this is unconventional for thrillers however the openings that do include them in the mise-en-scene are often very effective and work well with in the mise-en-scene; they are they think that it worked well including them in the mise-en-scene because it meant that because of our dual narrative we could use a range of props for our titles. However we decided that we would use a super imposed main title for the name of the film. We chose to super impose this title because we liked the idea of using a specific font to detect the film. We liked the scratched effect of the font type we chose because it add to the mysterious and thrilling genres, it also reflects the mise-en-scene.