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.
