1) In what
ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
In the narrative we establish the plot before
and after the title sequence which goes against some of the usual conventions
where the plot may be established after a title sequence, like in North by
Northwest directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
In our two minute opening sequence the plot is
established with a significant event before the title sequence and then a
complication afterwards – the passing out of the main character is the
significant event while the death of the cousin is the complication.
Our film was designed to be linear but with
events that would confuse the audience, as our film is a psychological thriller
so it needs situations like this to be successful. Flash-backs may have added
to the psychological confusion however, like in Shutter Island where Teddy
Daniels experiences brief flashbacks to events before the time the main film is
set.
With our camera angles, shot movement and
positions of the camera we generally stayed with the norm, except in one shot
where the camera is positioned far to the left of the character it should be
focused on. This is something usually found in horror films, but they can and
usually are incorporated into psychological thrillers to add a more tense
atmosphere, as the space that is not occupied by another character could be
invaded by something at any point, which in turn would cause the audience to
jump. However we used it as a device to build the tension in the atmosphere
which is something that is found often in the darker genres of film.
With the continuity and editing, we did an okay
job in terms of creating a smooth film – there weren’t many jumps in the final
cut. The pacing and rhythm of our two minute opening was quite fast but it
wasn’t choppy (at least not until the end, where for some reason our two minute
opening didn’t render properly).
In the background of our two minute opening, in
the beginning, the diegetic sound of the opening of Cape Fear can be heard. We
did this to try and subliminally translate to the audience that the film was a
psychological thriller, like Cape Fear. It adds impact to the opening scene,
which was something we wanted to achieve since our full film would have been
designed to be fast paced. In the scenes before and after the title sequence,
the sound heard is all diegetic. We did this to make the film seem more real in
a way, to try and immerse the audience more. However, this could have been
achieved more successfully through silence.
The ‘costumes’ used in the two minute film
opening were all things that we owned ourselves. We were given different roles
to play and we tried to show this through our clothing. The location was one of
our group members’ houses, where most of the full film would have been set.
This is not usual for a mainstream film – for it to be set in one specific
location. Though, it is not completely unusual as films like 127 Hours and
Harry Potter is (for the most part) set in one specific location.
The props used were all bought ourselves or
they were things that we had on hand at the location.
The font used in the title sequence was bold and was a sans serif font. The size of the font was around 16, while the main
title was around 36. We used an effect on Final Cut Express to add an effect to
the font that would make it look more rough and distorted.
In our two minute opening we didn’t have many
pieces of iconography due to the fact that it’s difficult to do this with
psychological thrillers at the beginning. Psychological thrillers are about
building up the psychological aspects slowly, so we only got three pieces of
iconography. One of these was the lighting – our film looked very dark and
almost like it was shot in black and white even though it wasn’t (this can be
linked to mise-en-scene too).
We also filmed a shot where there was a big
amount of empty space next to one of the main characters. This is a typical
convention seen in most horror and psychological thriller films as the empty
space is supposed to make the audience wary of something that may or may not
“jump in” or appear on screen.
