Question 1

Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

 

A thriller, the genre of film we had been assigned to plan and film for ourselves is a tense edge-of-your-seat style movie. It often consists of a protagonist trying to complete an action or objective and an antagonist trying to stop them by creating obstacles and/or ultimatums to get in the way. Alongside this typical foundation for thrillers there are many conventions that run parallel to it. We chose to do a psychological/crime thriller since there is a lot one can do when it comes to forming plot ideas, adding to the complexity of the narrative and the characters’ personalities. It is very difficult to push the film into a different genre, we gave this a lot of thought since doing an action thriller may push the risk of making it an action film instead of action thriller, and also thought against using a supernatural thriller since it is easy to turn it into an horror.

There are many conventions to Thrillers that are traditionally used in the vast majority today, which usually consist of a protagonist and antagonist in battle, or having a fight of power in the movie until one overpowers the other and therefore succeeds with their intentions. The protagonist fights for the greater good, and always disrupts the plans of the antagonist, and of course vice-versa.

In between all the battles the two main characters have, there is a big climax and many scenes of tension to throw the viewer off, leaving that sense of unpredictability to the storyline.This climax is to create a sense of enigma leaving the viewer wondering who will prevail in such a tense and heated situation.

There are many thriller sub-genres; commonly used sub-genres come under action thrillers, or psychological and supernatural thrillers. Other interesting uses are historical and political thrillers however they are usually based on true stories and have to be well informed and accurate.

Music and editing are key features of the tension-filled and climactic storyline, with very dramatic and quick music to signify a lack of time for the protagonist possibly, just to show that the characters are under pressure, effectively passing that on to the viewer. There are two types of music that can be used, which are synchronous and asynchronous which are both common musical conventions applied to thrillers. Synchronous being sound that matches the action, so perhaps in a tense thriller using fast pace music that crescendos and introduces each instrument in time with the action of the music, such as the song ‘In The House, In a Heartbeat’ from ’28 Days Later’.

An example of asynchronous sound would be ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’ by Tiny Tim, made famous by its use in ‘Insidious’ since the song is so innocent and almost comedic. It is used in such a tense and psychopathic scene that it has become one of the most famous examples of asynchronous sound used in a tense horror/thriller. In the end we chose to use a conventional approach and stick with synchronous sound, since asynchronous can be very difficult to grasp for some styles of Thrillers. We used a horror/thriller style track called ‘Days of Chaos’ by Kevin McLeod, but we broke conventions of many other thrillers by doing our own thing to the track. I pitch bent the song upward and reduced the cents to allow a more macabre feel to the track therefore making it synchronous but pitch bent to a more horror-thriller style torture opening. It may branch across further to the iconic classic horror style music since it now sounds very similar to the song used famously in ‘The Exorcist’ and it was compared to that. However, I believe that it can be used in our Thriller and some of the sounds used in the song match the action of our film very well. Such as the chain grab and the drop of the bat at the end.

Cross cutting is often used, to pack plenty of information in and to ensure the viewer understands whilst simultaneously creating further tension and suspense within the plot. Fast paced editing and establishing shots are the most common combinations of camerawork conventions that we chose to adopt for our opening. They are good for establishing a key foundation of both information and tension simultaneously, which saves time in filming to establish both at different times. This convention would only be broken in a deep thriller that breaks chronological order, such as films like ‘Pulp Fiction’ to answer different enigmas at the intended time at different points in the film. We decided to break this chronological order with the use of flashbacks in that Pulp Fiction style of order and editing, with a mix of montages and cross cutting to pack information in a short space of time and therefore increasing the tension through the use of fast-paced cuts. Simply put we used an unconventional style of order and editing by mixing conventional and unconventional features of a thriller.

There are usually scenes where the protagonist is held in danger by the antagonist, to which they have to form an ingenious way of escaping from the trap or ambush that was set for them; this links to the location too, as the location of all these events have to link to a theme. If the antagonist traps the protagonist, the scene must be barren and empty to show the viewer that the protagonist is alone isolated and must find his or her own way out. We followed this convention by trapping and ambushing our victim, by placing him in an empty and desolate location where nobody can help him. Therefore he is trapped and cannot escape. However, usually victims are aware of their capture since they are usually already running from the antagonist prior to their capture such as the victim from the ‘Casino’ torture scene with Danny DeVito, or the capture and entrapment scenes in Friday the 13^th where the victims are trapped in small cabins or wooden houses.

 

All of these conventions link back to the theme of tension and suspense, as well as a trace of isolation in many popular Thriller films. They create the mood and set the scene constantly making sure that the viewers are on the edge of their seat, the camera work, sound, editing, body language of characters and of course the setting all work together to create the themes commonly found in the most popular of Thrillers.

In terms of shots: close-ups and extreme close-ups are conventional during high paced scenes to build tension, it usually zooms in on reaction to convey that to the viewer. On the other hand, many long shots and extreme long shots are conventional for establishing scenes and settings and even the atmosphere of the film. Distorted shots such as low and high angle shots with sway of the camera are very conventional in scenes of tension, as well as POV shots to show the intensity of the scene from the eyes of the designated character. We followed the POV and close-up shots in particular since we wanted the viewer to see, and be in the eyes of the victim. We intended for them to see how the victim sees, and feel how the victim feels. Sticking to conventional shots we believe we got the best possible results for manipulating the mind of the viewer.

In a lot of thrillers, such as that of Psycho show that mise-en-scene is a powerful and one of the most important structures of a thriller. Costume answers who the character is, where they stand in society, their strength and authority as a character and even their sexuality to a degree. The lighting on the face of the character is obstructed by hair that almost hangs over the face, which expresses a theme of evil and negativity so it all exploits the role and intention of each character. We stuck with the idea of giving our antagonist a somewhat excessively big knife to present that they are meaning harm and can and will inflict it. Not only that but we used blood make-up to imply that harm has already been inflicted upon the victim, creating enigmas for the viewer, questioning how the victim got hurt and with what instrument.

 

Location establishes the setting of the film, establishing the atmosphere of the environment. Barren locations show isolation where as a city shows plenty of ways to escape so the population, scale and surroundings of a location make all the difference to the atmosphere. In Se7en the city was used to represent a vast maze in which the two protagonists will have to hunt for the antagonist, or will be hunted themselves so location plays a key part in film. We chose a more barren, isolated approach for location. There are many conventional location types, but ensuring whether or not they fit the style of the film is completely different. We wanted a more psychopathic, amateur feel to the torture so having the scene set in what would be assumed is farmland makes it seem more improvised and less professional. However, if we filmed in a town or city centre it would be more of a political thriller that would have to be government based and of course, professional so we followed the convention of farmland and the countryside.

Props mainly drop clues or signify authority. In Psycho the character holding the knife is clearly the killer and in power, since the victim is cornered in a shower, with no clothes on with a shower curtain for defense. The knife is an explicit representation of death and danger, and usually when a knife appears as a prop in a thriller (knives are conventionally used) someone is going to die or be severely injured.

We adopted this from Psycho since the prop determines power, therefore giving our antagonist the knife and our victim being restricted by rope to a chair, it is clear who is in power.

The location, costume and props determine both significance and power. In Se7en, a police badge and gun instantly portray power and authority in Morgan Freeman so props can also be used to express power within Thrillers. However props can also be used as clues to the viewer and to drop hints for the viewer to keep in mind for the more complex of Thrillers.

A thriller opening I studied was Silent Hill: Revelation using artofthetitle.com to review the editing, typography, sound, mise-en-scene and order of the titles. I came to the conclusion that the producers and writers are named first with a gap to show more images, which is then followed by the main actors, then the extra actors who have a smaller part in the film. Next come the editors, sound producers and photographers as well as costume designers and make-up artists. Finally, they credit the original minds behind the film (game franchise by Konami), which is followed by the name of the film. Our opening title was structured similarly to that of the Silent Hill one, with the title of the film being shown towards the end of the title sequence, and we placed our crew sooner throughout. However we mixed the producers in with the costume designers and such to break the structure and order completely, which challenge the conventional sequence. We believed this break from convention and order was fit for creating the psychopathic air that we intended since a lack of order unsettles the viewer.

I gained a lot of inspiration for shots from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the low below-the-head-shots and showing weapons and tools etc. I gained inspiration for the method of torture for example how Ronan was strapped to an old chair from James Bond: Casino Royale. I combined the two to make a much less dark taste and a more thriller style torture scene that still held that psychological, conventional feeling of entrapment. For typography, I gained inspiration from the opening of Taken and found a font very similar called Blacklist on dafont.com.