Evaluation Q1 rough

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

Before working on the thriller opening, I thought about what makes a thriller a thriller, and what differentiates it from the horror or action genre. Doing this, I found that common themes of thrillers were mainly around envy, terrorism, violence and romance. Generic locations included dimly lit, cramped environments, car interiors, staircases and urban streets, to name a few. I also found that generic characters included innocent victims, psychotic individuals, menaced women and femme fatal. It was important to recognise these differences between the film genres as it meant we wouldn’t use conventions of another genres when making the film and could focus on including the generic conventions of thrillers.

I watched various thriller film openings and analysed how they present these common thriller conventions through camera, editing, mise en scene and sound. By doing this, meant I could begin to think about ideas for our thriller film and what kind of inter-textual references we potentially put into use to establish more evidently the genre.

Locations

The locations we used both develop and challenge thriller conventions: 

On the outside, the house is a usual terraced house; open and uniform. This challenges generic thriller locations as they often tend be claustrophobic, cramped and dimly lit. In contrast, we developed the thriller genre with our interior locations- the lighting becomes much less radiant and a lot more ominous.

By having this contrast of environments helped us build tension because the opening starts off outside, creating a relatively comfortable, care-free setting, until the characters go inside the house and so the mood becomes much less so.

As a result, even though we challenged some generic thriller locations at times, also meant that we could build common thriller themes such as excitement and agitation by having this contrariety of environments.

Characters 

One way our film challenges forms and conventions of thriller films is through our use of characters. Our film is a realistic contemporary British thriller about ordinary young people who experience an extra ordinary event. We did not name the characters as we don’t have any dialogue so there was no useful need to, and because they all represent the same kind of characters– normal British teenagers, so we simply named the characters by the people who played them. However, it can be argued that the character Tillie (the character who is accused of murder), and perhaps the character I play (a dead person) are innocent victims- these are characters who are good, innocuous people and are very typical of thrillers, for example the character Eve from Once Upon a Time in America is killed by a violent gang, or the mother who is murdered by her children in Heavenly Creatures. 

(Tillie)

 (Me)

Costume

I would argue that our costumes did not challenge the thriller genre. But at times we narrowly developed it. Common thriller costumes for women are very elegant, luxurious and fashionable. Whereas for men they are often dressed very smart, simple and uniform- usually suits and ties. It is this way for example in Once Upon a Time in America, but this is likely because of when the film is set, and where it is set- our thriller film is set in the present day, and in the UK, so this therefore effects what we wear. Also, the fact that we are 'ordinary teenagers' it wouldn't make sense for us to wear suits or elegant dresses as it is not the norm for teenagers to wear them in 2016.

 For example, Hammad wore streetwear- a branded crewneck and black skinny jeans, this is a common style worn by many teenagers today. Tillie also wore black skinny jeans and a jacket. The only character who could be seen as developing thriller costume conventions is Louisa, who wore a fur coat, generally not very conventional of teenagers like ourselves, but it is conventional of noir-thrillers. Louisa also wore skinny jeans with this coat to somewhat blend film noir with modern culture.

Hammad and Louisa

Lighting

The lighting used is in the interior shots is conventional of the thriller genre. Most of the shots are quite dull and lifeless. I say this because the rooms lack any vibrant colours and there is also a lack of light in most of the inside shots. We used low-key lighting, this was a necessary element in creating the chiaroscuro effect. By using the flash torches on our phones, we could focus this light on characters faces to accentuate facial features and expressions. Here is an example of chiaroscuro lighting as seen in The Third Man:

This lighting technique is used very often in The Third Man. Distinctly, the environment swallows the characters body leaving a glowing pale face. 

Our use of chiaroscuro lighting is not as conspicuous as this image above but can still be observed here:

Another way we develop the thriller genre with lighting is through our use of shadows. Here is an example from our thriller below:

Shadows were also heavily used in 'The Third Man' and the 1920's expressionist film ‘Nosferatu':

(The Third Man)

 (Nosferatu)

Shadows create a darkness behind the character, literally and figuratively. Use of shadows create an uneasy atmosphere and a fear of the unknown as we wonder what is lurking behind them. This is the case for the two examples above, however, we use shadows in a different way, in that you can see who is casting the shadow so use of them are to make a character more mysterious and raise the viewers suspicion of them.

Sound

Examples of diegetic sound from our film are footsteps, doors opening and screaming.

Here is an example from the Kill Bill opening scene showing use of footsteps.

Sounds of footsteps heighten a mood, in this case they build tension as the viewers feel as though danger is coming. 

The shot of Hammad walking up the stairs in our thriller opening has low lighting so we hear the footsteps before we clearly acknowledge who the character is. This creates a sense of mystery.

We also have a shot and sound of Louisa screaming, the sound is quite startling and thrilling which creates panic to the viewer as screaming is a response to fear.

A sound bridge of a running tap was used at the beginning of our film. By using a sound bridge we developed the thriller genre as we could establish a theme of mystery and confusion. Sound bridges were also used in the opening of Kill Bill and Once Upon a Time in America

I made a soundtrack which contributed to the non-diegetic sound of our film:

The opening soundtrack from the TV drama 'The Bridge' influenced my composing:

One way the soundtrack was influenced by The Bridge's soundtrack is by being quite minimalistic- having a long repeated phrase with the volume fluctuate over time; my soundtrack gets louder over time as more textures are introduced to create a build in tension. I also use extremely high frequencies such as the kettle whistling sound to try and build a foreboding response.

Camerawork

Here is a shot from The Third Man:

This shot creates claustrophobia from how it’s an enclosed space, underground and in a tunnel. I think this shot creates connotations of death from how there is light at the end of the tunnel- a common idea associated with death. Therefore, this shot becomes quite unnerving and intimidating.

Similarly, here is a shot from our thriller opening:

Tunnels or tunnel-like environments are claustrophobic as there are only limited ways out and are quite confined, hence making the viewer feel trapped. These feeling are intensified when using low lighting as they're combined with fear.

Another way we made the viewer feel trapped through camerawork is by creating a barrier between the viewer and character as seen in Essex Boys and Seven:

(Essex Boys)

(Seven)

(Our thriller opening)

The reflection in Essex Boys may represent iron prison bars; we tried to use the banister rails to the same effect. By doing this viewers can sympathise with characters more as they are on lookers of their situation- they see what the character may be feeling- trapped, isolated or withdrawn for example.

This shot of Tillie pulling back the bed covers is an intertextual reference to Once Upon a Time in America:

Enigma

In our thriller I would argue that we developed the the character type 'enigma'. An enigma is a person or thing that is mysterious or difficult to understand. Hammad could be seen as mysterious through costume and shadows. He wears all black clothing, this colour is associated with evil, death and mystery so this really adds a dark side to him. He also casts shadows which have connotations of evil and the unknown. The sounds Hammad creates are quite menacing as well such as footsteps which make him more intimating.

Narrative

Thriller films do not all follow the same narrative structure- some are linear (Essex Boys, Shutter Island, The Third Man) and some are non-linear (Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Trance, Premonition).

The story of our thriller opening is told through a linear narrative of events, they occur in chronological order. Films that are non-linear tend to be quite confusing in the beginning so to avoid this we wanted the viewer to understand the plot as clearly as possible with a linear narrative. On the other hand, using a non-linear narrative could have been used to place the viewer outside their comfort zone thus developing themes of the thriller genre. I think non-linear narratives requires skilful editing in order to be effective otherwise the viewer may lose interest if they don't understand what is going on.