Evaluation

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

Enigmas – Enigmas are questions that are set up by leaving information unclear. They commonly used in Thrillers to make the audience feel confused and uneasy, possibly to help the viewer identify and empathise with the character on screen. They are also used as a device to keep the viewer thinking so as not to lose their attention. As you see in our opening sequence, we never fully show our characters full face; it is always obscured.

Title screen – Thrillers usually have very plain title sequences, more often than not just simple white text over a black background. We decided that this was very effective as it doesn’t distract from the actual footage, as well as being suitable to the sombre genre – bright colours and cartoon-y graphics would be completely out of place here. We also decided it was suitable as it looks quite sophisticated and professional. Another type/colour of text could easily have looked amateur and tacky.

 Extreme Close Ups – These shots focus very closely on one part of an object. Often it will be used to obscure what the object is. Similar to enigmas, these shots are used to make the viewer feel uneasy – it is unusual for a person to see an object from that perspective. When preparing to create our Thriller, we watched the opening credits to Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’, which solely uses extreme close ups of a woman’s face. We thought that in conjunction with the music used, this created an incredibly eerie effect, which we wanted to recreate. 

The very beginning of our opening scene starts with extreme close up shots of a young woman putting on make up. We liked the effect this gave as it helped to create the enigma of the girl’s identity. We found that it also helped to form confusing, contradictive shots; the girl is doing something incredibly everyday and normal, yet we have used these uncomfortable close ups to show it.

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Question: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Although not technically a social group, we have tried to represent the mentally ill. We wish to put audience in our character’s shoes we want them not just to understand, but to feel, how lost and confused she is. We wanted to show that she has no control over what is happening to her; it is involuntary.

In films, the mentally ill are almost always presented as the antagonist. We wanted to make an impact and to change people’s opinions – they are not ‘freaks’ or ‘psychos’, but people who are ill. Just because a person is ill does not mean that they deserve less respect than anyone else.

An example of a film that has a main character with a mental illness is ‘Black Swan’. She is not presented as a bad person, but she is still presented as violent and crazy. What we wished to do was go deeper and educate our audience. We wanted to represent our character with honesty, not with the usual image of a crazed psychopath but not a romanticised idea of a girl who is completely frail and helpless either.

The other group we represent in our Thriller is the ‘lost youth’, badly behaved and misunderstood teenagers. All over the media teenagers are presented as villainous, truth being the majority are not. They are not violent, they do not take drugs and they don’t run around having unprotected sex. However a number of teenagers are like this and we wanted to show why. We wanted to explain why and show the reasons behind crime/ drink/drug abuse – these are the result of other social and political problems.

Futher Costume Commentary

As mentioned before, the girl in our thriller wears a white dress to connote innocence and purity, contradicting what you see on the screen.
We also put a red cardigan over the white dress in some scenes, as this has the obvious connotation of blood and death. In the scenes where she is 'innocent' we had her wearing a red headscarf. Again the red connotes blood, but this was not our main intention for this detail. What we wanted to show was childishness. This happy, cheerful scarf is in absolute contrast to the black satin-y one we use when the girl is 'crazy'. 
We focused on quite a few details. For example, we decided to use a dark green nail varnish rather than the obvious black or red. Still a suitable colour, but not cliche.
We have left her hair wild and undone (we felt a sleek hairstyle wouldn't fit).
We had just simple make-up, as anything more complex could distract, although did have quite heavy eye make-up, as quite a few of the clips we use focus on her eyes. We felt that this would add emphasis.

Although neither the song, nor the actual content of the video is particallu relevant, I really like this style of montage. The way it seems to be almost random, yet all fits perfectly is a sense that I would really like to get across in our own montage in our thriller opening.

No Country For Old Men //Thriller Opening Analysis (better late than never!)

No Country For Old Men

Thriller Opening Analysis

This film begins with the sound of wind, followed by the title of the film. It is shown in plain white lettering that stands central against a plain black background. Having such simple title graphics tells the viewer that this is a mature, serious film, as for something such as a comedy bright, friendly-looking lettering is usually used. Lettering like this does not distract from what we are about to see.

The wind sound effect continues, and a non-diegetic voice over begins. Shortly following this, scenes of a desert/ sand dunes begin to be shown. In conjunction with this, the speaker has a heavy Southern accent, and is telling us of being a sheriff, we can safely assume that the location is the Southern States of America. These bleak, empty shots give the viewer a feeling of hopelessness. It feels as if we are lost.

After around a minute and a half of this, a policeman is shown walking a handcuffed man up to his police car. Here the voiceover continues, but it is accompanied by the diegetic sound of footsteps, car doors and the like. The policeman puts some kind of oxygen tank into his car. It seems that this tank belongs to the criminal, as it is unlikely that anything differing from the norm would be carried by a policeman. The camera angle then changes and we see another car behind the police one. It is obvious that this is the car of the criminal as there is no hint of anyone other around, apart from the two we have just seen.

All the shots at this point have been fairly dramatic and surprising rich in texture and colour for somewhere as bleak as a desert. A wide angle lens appears to be used, which adds to the effect of massive scale (and being lost).

Thriller opening practice piece

This is the first sequence of our opening, this sequence is just before the montage and is where we are going to have a few credits between clips! This will have a non- diegetic soundtrack added to it, we also wish to refilm the clip of both eyes closing and opening!!!

Lindisfarne - James Blake

Me and Billy really like this video and feel that the 'uneasy' atmosphere is relevant to our thriller. As well as this, there is quite a sense of mystery that hangs around this video. Several enigmas are raised;

Who is this girl?
What are they doing?
   - drugs?
   - are they a cult?
Why does the girl cry at the end?
   -is it because of what happened?
   -is it because she doesn't want to leave?

Are among some of the questions we asked.

We like this video because it's abstract, which is something we'd like to get across in in our piece, although we feel it's something that is quite difficult to convey, as it's a fine line between being abstract and being completely random.

The girl has a slightly innocent, yet rather haunted look. She also looks lost, and as if she is not entirely sure what is happening. We would like our girl to have this look.
The song is also strange, and builds up in complex layers, which is similar to what we wish to do with our soundtrack. There is no diegetic sound, only the non-diegetic song (apart from where the man appears to be singing the song), which we wish to do.

Location planning

.Close up of her putting makeup on - shot in a bedroom
.Montage - loads of random locations, They will be a mix of inside and outside shots
.Close up of her face, but in a dark room with a light-Shot in a dark room, e.g shed, wardrobe etc
montage  shot and location
.different body part shot - shower
.close up of her smoking - outside
.walking -field
. nervous hands - bedroom
. screaming - field
. close up for her self harming - bath room
. close up of her walking - road
. staring out the window - upstair window sill

Mise en Scene

Costumes.
For the montage of the girl scared, we will dress her in a white dress as this shows purity and contradicts everything else we have seen on the screen creating numerous enigmas within the viewers mind.
This will also allow the girl to stand out as a majority of the shots will be taken in a very dark room.

Planning for Testing Footage

Plan of testing footage

These are the microelements we have chosen to use within the opening of our thriller.

·      Micro Elements combine in a build up of suspense

·      The protagonist will be seen in peril in one or more scenes before the resolution

·      Themes of identity

How we’re going to portray these microelements.

1.     Micro elements combine in a build up of suspense.

The music will be very distorted in order to make the viewer feel uneasy, this will then be added to by the mise en scene. Our character will be in a very confused state (shown by the distress in the facial expressions) She is also in a dark room, which has connotations of being sinister.

When filming this the camera will use an extreme close up of the character we are filming, this will make the scene very intense and won’t let the viewer escape from there discomfort zone. It could also makes the viewer feel claustrophobic in the same way the character does.

2.     The protagonist will be seen in the peril in one or more scenes before the resolution

In-between the montage clips the main character will be shown in distress. This will be portrayed by the camera shoots and the makeup we will use. There will be an extreme close up of the characters eyes closed and her eye makeup will be smeared in the way it does when a girl has been crying excessively. Another shot could again be a close up of the girl rubbing here arms, this is often done when some one is nervous alerting the audience that the character (for some reason) is feeling scared and/or unsettled. 

3.     Themes of identity

As within our opening the character is shown with two completely different personalities, one, which is ‘normal’, and one which seems very confused and distressed. This will be shown with a mixture of shots, half showing the character in blatant distress and the other half showing her doing normal things like showering or painting her nails. However within these shots there will be slight hints showing that the shots are not as simplistic and straight forward as the eye would have first seen it, for example when painting her nails the colours will be dark and not colours you would associate with young, happy teenagers.

Names

These are a few ideas of names that we thought could work for the film we are planning to produce.
In the picture you can see we chose 'Silent Minds.' This is because throughout the opening the main character does not have a voice and does not speak however is over powered and surrounded in demanding voices that shout at her and thus seems most relevant to the story line and appropriate for the genre.