Question 1

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

A thriller is a genre of film that tends to raise the viewer’s adrenaline levels. They produce a high level of anticipation through fast editing and a villain driven plot where he or she presents obstacles that the protagonist must overcome. Thrillers tend to use literary devices such as red herrings (a clue that turns out to be not used in the final plot. For example a gun which is suggested throughout the film as a murderer weapon, and in the final moments, the murder weapon is a knife and the gun was a pointless prop) or a cliff-hanger (where the plot isn’t solved in the film. The plot may never be revealed (like the Italian Job) or the plot could be solved in a follow up film (the Bourne Trilogy).
Thriller films, such as Batman – The Dark Knight, tend to have a fast paced opening to make the viewer want to watch more. Some key elements used to try and attract the audience’s attention are:
A big question; If there is a big question in the first 2 minutes of the film which attracts and engages the audience, it’ll make them want to watch the film to find out what the answer is. This means that the movie draws the audience in quickly. Another key aspect is pace. If the film is too slow and boring then the audience will just pick another film. With just these two elements, the opening will successfully draw in the audience.

In The Dark Knight, the actors themselves are asking questions – Who is the Joker? Why does he hide his identity etc. etc. Batman’s opening is also very fast paced and keeps the audience on the edge of their seat. 1
In insanity, we used both unconventional and conventional camera shots and angles. The conventional camera shots were the shots were we included a lot of things in the frame. For example, when Hayden is leaning over the victim’s body, you can see nearly all 4 corners of the rug and the killers batch of candles on the floor. We also used shots which involved lots of depth of field changes, for example, the focus changes from the graffiti on the wall to Hayden’s face.
Thrillers can either end in the plot or end in a cliff-hanger, so the film can have follow up films. Thriller openings normally end in cliff hangers before the titles, this makes the viewer want to know more and ask questions. In our opening we make the viewer ask the questions, who is the masked killer? Why has he killed that guy? What is he doing? This is conventional because it we are making the viewer want to know what is going on and what has sparked the opening.
Another conventional aspect of our thriller is the use of sound. In thrillers, sound plays a large part in making the viewer feel uncomfortable, scared, happy etc. etc. This can be seen in many different openings, such as Batman – The Dark Knight. The opening starts with an eerie high pitched tone; this makes the viewer uncomfortable because they don’t know what is going on. This then leads into a low frequency boom which smashes the glass. This comes unexpectedly and could make the viewer jump.

The Dark Knight Opening Scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYBEquZ_j0

We decided that a masked killer would be more interesting and is sticking to he convention of hiding the killers identity but through a different way – a mask. It meant that our camera angles and lighting wouldn’t have to restrict us from being right up in the killers face. If we hadn’t masked him, then we would’ve had to use different camera angles and adapt our lighting so the viewer couldn’t see his face. The use of an actual mask is quite common in action films such as Batman, Spiderman, films where the villain can be portrayed as crazy.
We also felt that because our thriller was a Psychological thriller, a mask would fit in to the conventions because of 2 reasons. Firstly he may not like his identity because a physical or mental scar from the past or he may find that he is a different person when he’s wearing the mask.
We decided that a conventional title should be used. A one worded title is often used (Batman, Spiderman, Leon, Eraserhead, Scarface, Spartacus, Jaws, se7en). This is because it makes the film easy to remember and stay in the audiences head. The simpler the word, the more memorable the film (UP)
At the beginning of our thriller, we open with a quote. This is quite unconventional. The only other thriller film with a quote is the Butterfly Effect. The film opens with the quote 'It has been said that something as small as a flutter of a butterflies wing can alternately cause a typhoon on halfway around the world.' The quote intrigues with the audience and gets them thinking. This quote makes the audience realise that something, even as small as a flutter of a butterflies wing can cause something devastating such as a natural disaster on the other side of the world; and effect people that the butterfly doesn't even know, ruin people's lively hoods. Our quote, written by Albert Einstein, is a definition, 'Insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.' The quote is saying that a person can be found as insane if they do the same thing over and over again whilst at the same time expecting different results. We all may do this at sometimes in our life, does this make us crazy? The quote is also ironic how it is coming from a scientist, one of the human race's most famous scientists, a man who does experiments over and over again and expects different results. Does this make him insane? It then makes the audience ask why I the quote being shown? It'll make the audience prejudge what is going to happen in the film, is it going to be the villain killing people over and over again and the protagonist trying to prevent the deaths from happening.
We decided that we should utilise the use of the mask by doing lots of macro close ups of the mask. This would have made the audience uncomfortable because the line of sight makes the murderer look like they're staring out at the audience, making the audience feel uncomfortable is a convention of thrillers, but doing it by having the actor stare down the lens so it looks like they're staring at the audience is a very unique and unconventional way of doing it.

We also decided to use the conventional way of showing the victims body which is leaving it until the end. We felt that this built up tension for the audience, and with all of the other inputs from the sound and the camerawork, we felt that it would make the user want to watch what happened. We did this through editing all of the body shots to cut out the body or only show a little part of the body, for example the feet. We would then leave all these body shots until the end.

The editing used was both conventional and unconventional, as it built the tension through slow editing and leads into fast editing. The slow editing is quite conventional for a thriller as the pace is picked up in the moments of tension. The editing then builds up as more is revealed, the body, the wound on the body, the identity of the body etc. etc. The editing then gradually gets quicker to the point where there around over 6 shots in fewer than 2 seconds. This is a montage of the killer’s faces and was put in to make the audience remember the killer and feel threatened.

We chose to have our titles all wearing the mask because it would keep the sense of mystery of who was behind the mask. We also thought that the font used fit in with the psychological thriller theme, it was weird and overcomplicated if it was written out. This is quite conventional as the

The location was a secluded area under a bridge, surrounded by fields and trees near the A1, just outside of Stamford in Lincolnshire. The walls were covered in graffiti and there was a river. The area also had a train track. It meant that under the bridge looked like it had been deserted and no life had been there in years. The light was poor and was coming from behind the actors when a long shot was used. This gave a silhouette effect and made the villain look even more suspicious and scary. When we didn't want the actors to be in silhouette, we simply turned the camera round, still using the 180 degree rule, to be looking towards the train track, this meant the light was coming from the side, lighting up what the camera was seeing. This was good because it meant that no external flashguns were needed to produce extra light and filming was made much easier.

The setting was quite conventional as it was very secluded and was in a peaceful area which is where murders would happen.