evaluation task one - conventions in our thriller

8/12/2019 Evaluation Task One - Conventions in Our Thriller

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Task 1: Conventions of thrillers

How does your product use, develop or

challenge conventions of real media

products?


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In our thriller we used two main props: an axe and a knife. The reason why we chose to

use these two items its because not only are the obvious symbols of violence but they

are also things that are used by families all the time. This enhanced our main idea of

lulling the audience into an almost false sense of security as they are unsure whether

hey should see the axe and knife as tools or weapons, consequently going against the

convention of them being deadly objects as we wanted them to be also seen as normal

household objects. Now an obvious film to compare this to is The Shining as both

items are used in the film as weapons (and probably as tools initially). Also, The

Shining has a rather similar quality to our thriller as it involves a man trying to kill his

wife and child (whilst in ours the wife tries to kill the husband).


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For our actors we went against the normal thriller conventions and ideologies.We did this through the plot. We set our male character (traditionally thepowerful survivor in such thrillers) to be strong through the log chopping scenebut then undermine it when he is killed by the wife; making him seem weak bynot being able to put up a good fight. For our female character we set her upas a stereotypically domestic woman (in the kitchen cooking a meal) but then

completely undermined the stereotype by showing her as a fierce andterrifyingly strong character. In short, we made our characters seem liketraditionally stereotypical characters, but we then completely undermined theconventions by flipping them on their head. An example of a film similar to thisis the original Paranormal Activity a film with an ending almost identical toours. In the ending the woman is possessed and the man, despite his strength,is powerless against her and is killed.


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We also did the same thing with lighting. Using the same example from before,

Paranormal Activity, we can see how they chose to go with no light at all and

only being able to see through a cameraadding tension as the audience

cannot see as well and consequently may be aware that something may be in

the room with them but they cant see it. For ours however, we yet again wentagainst the convention of darkness in thrillers as we wanted to catch the

audience off guard by making them think that what they were seeing was a

perfect family image. To do this we lighted everything naturally, using light

from both the kitchen and from outsidefurther providing that normal and

domestic look.


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As for our settings, we did go with the convention of isolation with our thriller.

We wanted to make the locations seem isolated as the audience would be

therefore able to immediately acknowledge and understand this as they areaware of isolated areas being usually scary due to the fact that usually no-one

can help the characters. We see the isolation in our thriller through our opening

shots and through our establishing shot of the house. A film that similarly uses

a house in the middle of the woods is the remake of the 1981 Evil Dead film.


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Four our kitchen scene, we used a popular convention in thrillers which is when

you can see something that other characters cannot. In our thriller, we can see

the wifes emotionless and empty expression, suggesting that something is

wrong. Meanwhile, the husband is completely unaware of this and

consequently doesnt realise that something is wrong. This dramatic irony is

very effective at increasing the tension in the scene as we are unable to warn

the husband about the wife. A scene that is identical to this one (that also uses

abodes to this convention) is Side Effects. It also involves a wife killing her

husband against her will and the husband is also completely unaware of this

even though we are. Here is the clip from Side Effects (at 34:45):htt : viooz.co movies 16271-side-effects-2013.html
http://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.html


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We also followed the convention of juxtaposing low angle shots and high angle

shots to show whos in power. However, we do go against gender stereotypes

here as we use the high and low angle shots to show the woman in power and

the man as the weaker character in an attempt to do something different for

the audience so they dont see the same thing over and over again. Yet again

Side Effects is similar to this as they do the exact same thing in their stab

scene.Here is the clip (at 35:45): http://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.html
http://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.html


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We also went with the convention of adding ambient sound to our clips to add to the

verisimilitude. We felt like this was extremely necessary as it made the world more

believable and therefore people would be more immersed in the clip. Examples of the

sounds used are birds singing, wind blowing, etc. This is of course used by all sorts of

media products set in the countryside and is rarely ignored for the reasons mentionedabove. Here is our example when we use it in our opening/establishing shots (bar the

axe noises): http://youtu.be/OCyFG6SklJE. Here is a clip from The Village where they

used ambient sounds (wind and birds) to create the isolated feel (picture above):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hVevQea4h0(clip at 6:13 - 6:34)
http://youtu.be/OCyFG6SklJEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hVevQea4h0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hVevQea4h0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hVevQea4h0http://youtu.be/OCyFG6SklJE


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Another example of editing in our thriller is the lifting of the sounds of the axe

and the knife in the sound mix to emphasise yet again increase tension by

creating the loud noises of the weapons. Whilst films of many types do this

technique in all sorts of films (The Shining, Side Effects, Halloween) the

one Ive decided to pick is the opening scene from Scream when Drew

Barrymore is killed at the beginning. Whilst the sound isnt as lifted as much as

it is in ours you can tell that it has been lifted slightly. In our video the sounds I

am talking about is at 0:00 until 0:18 (axe noise) and the knife sound is at 1:20

until 1:25. For Scream it is at the beginning of this video:

http://youtu.be/gVgsadEybgQ
http://youtu.be/gVgsadEybgQhttp://youtu.be/gVgsadEybgQ


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For our thriller we wanted to go against the convention of letting the audience start to

get to know the main character as we wanted to really catch the audience out by not

using regular film conventions. Here, we let our male character have the most

screentime, tricking the audience into trying to understand him, what hes doing, whohe is, etc. However, when the kitchen scene occurs, we quickly kill off the character in an

attempt to shock the audience as it is such an unexpected event. A film that similarly

uses this is the opening from The Sixth Sense. We are introduced to Bruce Willis

character at the beginning in what seems to be a normal, domestic environment.

However, suddenly an ex-patient comes out of nowhere and shoots Willis, killing him on

the spot. This was a big shock to the audience as it was so sudden and unexpected. Here

is the link to our thriller: http://youtu.be/OCyFG6SklJE. Here is the link to the clip from

the beginning of The Sixth Sense: http://youtu.be/SZi3BmrUVrc.
http://youtu.be/OCyFG6SklJEhttp://youtu.be/SZi3BmrUVrc.http://youtu.be/SZi3BmrUVrc.http://youtu.be/OCyFG6SklJE


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One last thing that we did to go against movie conventions is to have a slowediting pace at the murder scene. Rather again like the stabbing scene in Side

Effects, we used a very slow editing pace to change things up a bit. We didnt

want this death scene to be overly dramatic and seen as a big deal. The fact

that it is done so casually is what I think makes it effective as it is so unusual

and so out of the ordinary that it really surprises and shocks the audience. Hereagain is that clip (same time as before): http://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-

effects-2013.html
http://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.htmlhttp://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.html


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Also, for the titles used in our thriller, we went with using the Trajan Bold font.

This is because it is used in many thriller (such as Insidious which uses a

rather similar type of text in its title sequence). We decided to do this as it is a

very popular font due to its pointed serifs, which almost look like knives

reminding the audience what the tone of the film will be like. Also, we chose to

not put our titles on a black/blank screen. This was because we wanted to not

break up the tension being built up here.

evaluation task one - conventions in our thriller

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