IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF

REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

Marcia Rumsey

Most sound in psychological thrillers seemed to be non-diegetic. The music we used is disjointed and dramatic. We also added sound effects which made our music similar to the music used in the film

Se7en. However we went against the common convention of having a voice over which is used in The Secret Window and The Prestige. We did this because it helps the audience immediately know

it’s a psychological thriller a they are familiar with the type of music used.

MUSIC

For our credits we used white font in the style of a typewriter on a black background. We then added an effect to make it shaky and thus adding tension. This style is

very similar to the credits in Se7en, the only difference being the font used in Se7en is more like a handwritten font. We used this type of font as it helps too further establish a character (another common convention) as it

gives the impression of someone typing it out.

TYPOGRAPHY

Credits in Se7enCredits in our opening

Barthes theory stated that one narrative code used in the media is hermeneutic codes. This means the audience is presented with enigmas and ask questions. In all the openings of psychological thrillers we looked at, a

common convention that occurred was the use of hermeneutic codes. In our opening we have many

hermeneutic codes. The most obvious question being asked is “Why are they playing Russian Roulette?” However there

are were many more like this: Who are they? Where are they? Why are they doing this? What is their

relationship? We tried to present many hermeneutic codes to the audience as it also helps to make the piece more intriguing and therefore people are more likely to watch

it.

NARRATIVE

A common convention is to not have a physical weapon, the idea being the killers mind is the weapon. However in our piece we had a gun which

features heavily in our opening. We chose to feature a gun as it helps intrigue a wider audience of those who like action. Our set was a dark room and the actually location was ambiguous. We originally wanted it

set in abandoned warehouse but later realised this would be impractical and hard to achieve. We therefore used a dark room because of its

ambiguity which helps create more hermeneutic codes. However in the openings we looked at you can see the location although they are dark

still. For the costume of the male he was wearing a suit which is similar to the costume of the protagonist in Memento.

MISE EN SCÈNE

No ties

Suit

Our lighting is low key and sometimes chiaroscuro. In most of the openings we looked at low key lighting was

used, especially in Se7en and The Secret Window. Therefore most of our shots use low key lighting and some contrast with bright light on the subject yet dark light for the background. We used this lighting as it helps

create tension and a sinister atmosphere. It also suggest there are still thing hidden to the audience.

LIGHTING

Se7en Faces in shadow

In our opening we added effects to make our piece more distorted. For example we used a rewind effect on some

shots to disorientate the viewer. This is similar to the opening of Memento which is all in reverse. We also added an effect to make some shots bad quality and some shots

not in order. This is seen in many psychological thrillers, the aim being to confuse the viewer. We also used these effects to make the story less clear and to

effectively disorientate the viewer.

EFFECTS

We reversed some shots