Evaulation Question 1

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

·         Camera

·         Titles

·         Special effects

In our opening sequence we attempted to conform to the conventions of the psychological thriller genre with the camera, titles, and special effects. We used forms and conventions for our psychological thriller through the use of our camera movement/angles. One way that we used the camera movement to focus on the conventions for when it is the graveyard scene we used a camera movement that makes it twist.  The roof of the building twisting around represents the emotional turmoil of the character as they are unsettled disturbed and confused. The camera angles in our opening sequence shows conventions of a psychological thriller. The use of the crab shot at the start fits with convention as it doesn’t reveals the identity of the character so add more mystery to it and that makes the audience want to know what will happen next. The titles we used fit very well with the conventions because of the front style we used  ‘rough typewriter’ which fits in well with the conventions because for a psychological thriller you would not expect to see a font style that would be for a comedy we use black and white so that it fits even more because you would not use pink font colour for a psychological thriller because it would just ruin the mood completely so altogether the font style and colour goes with the genre that we wanted it to, the most frequently used colours in psychological thriller titles are red, black and white. The special effects fitted well with the conventions because for the murder scene we put it into black and white and the graveyard scene it was sepia which fitted really well because it created an eerie atmosphere for example in the film  “The Blair Witch Project” they use black and white footage for effect.

In our opening sequence we conformed to the conventions in our product by using camera, titles and special effects. Yes we did achieve this our titles were well fitted with the convention of a psychological thriller because we use black and white writing instead of using colour because it give it that effect to it. The special effects achieved the conventions because of the sepia and black and white effect we use. The camera I think did not achieve the conventions that much because we did not use that much camera movement although we have the part where it looks like it twists but nothing else is really that affected. There are a few areas where we could improve because even though the title and special effects were effected the camera angles/movement is not so if we had to redo it all over again we would make sure that all the camera footage fits the conventions.

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

In our opening sequence we attempted to conform to the conventions of the typical physiological thriller genre with the plot, mise en scene, sound, use of the camera, titles and special effects.

·         Storyline/plot (themes): We abided by many of the typical conventions associated with the storyline and plot of a physiological thriller in our opening sequence. For example we had a more complex storyline, with the twists and turns this genre of film is famous for. For example in our opening sequence, after you have seen what seems to be the death of a character, they walk past the gate. This is an unexpected twist and it is unclear what it will lead to. This technique is demonstrated in the physiological thriller  ‘Prisoners’ where the whole way through the film the audience are lead to believe that certain characters are responsible for the crime, but at the end of the film it is revealed that they are victims and a different character is the criminal. This makes the genre of film more interesting as the audience are constantly attempting to second guess the twist and work out what will happen. We also avoided too much blood and gore in our opening sequence. This follows convention, as physiological thrillers are known for being ‘creepy’ and ‘jumpy’ and, although some violence is bound to be included, extreme violence and gore do not fit with the conventions of this genre. If a film contains too much brutality and bloodshed then the clever storylines can get lost in the violence and the film becomes more of a horror than a physiological thriller. We also attempted to enrol many of the themes typical to the genre into our opening sequence; death, mystery, confusion and uncertainty. These are themes conventional to physiological thrillers which help to add atmosphere to the films and make them ‘spooky’ and ‘creepy’. They also tend to develop ‘ordinary’ characters to create a sense of realism and so that the audience can associate with the characters and understand them. We interpreted this convention into our opening sequence by creating teenage characters with ordinary backgrounds, which our target audience would be able to relate to.    

·         Mise en scene (setting, lighting): The settings we used in our opening sequence fit well with the conventions of the genre. For example we used a graveyard and an alley way which are both typical settings for physiological thrillers. They are stereotyped as ‘creepy’ locations so fit well with the themes of the genre and helped to add atmosphere to our opening sequence as people subconsciously associate them with scary scenes. This technique is demonstrated in the film ‘The Woman in Black’ where a graveyard scene is used to create a sense of foreboding in the audience.  Also, the settings we used were deserted, other than the two characters of our opening sequence. This is typical of this genre as it creates a sense of apprehension; no one is there to help. We used a darker lighting throughout the majority of our sequence and added sepia and black and white effects to some scenes making them appear darker and fairly dull, this is a technique often used in conventional physiological thrillers to add atmosphere to certain scenes as the lighting then represents the mood of the scene. This is shown in films like ‘Paranormal Activity’ when all the action takes place at night as the darkness is often linked to fear and danger. However we didn’t follow convention so tightly when it came to costume. Our characters wore casual clothes and light colours, whereas in many typical physiological thrillers darker, more mysterious costumes are often worn, such as large dark coats. We chose to challenge conventions here to emphasise the normalness of our characters and their lives before the events of the film. We believed that this would add to the effect of the opening sequence by making it seem like this could happen to anybody, adding to the realism.

·         Sound: Many physiological thrillers have limited dialogue as too much speaking can spoil the atmosphere and any suspense that has been built up. More atmospheric sounds, such as ‘creepy’ music are more common. A perfect example of this is ‘The Woman in Black’; the film has very little dialogue but has lots of atmospheric music and exaggerated bang and creak sound effects.  We conformed to convention in this area as we didn’t use any dialogue in our opening sequence but did incorporate atmospheric music and a heartbeat sound effect. We decided to conform to convention with our use of sound as it was the most effective way, using sound, to add suspense and tension to our opening sequence. It creates the appropriate atmosphere for the genre and is one of the characteristics of the stereotypical physiological thriller that improved the effect of our opening sequence.