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- 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
- 2. What is a thriller and why are they soWhat is a thriller and
why are they so popular?popular?Definition of a thriller: - a
novel, play, or film with an exciting plot, typically involving
crime or espionage. There have been many ideas about why thrillers
are such popular genres of films, maybe for recreational purposes?
Interest? However one of the main theories I found interesting in
explaining why cetain genres are so popular is the Zeitgeist theory
created by John Fiske in 1987. John Fiske asserts that generic
conventions embody the crucial ideological concerns of the time in
which they are popular. This suggests that genres tell us something
about the way of the world in the time in which they are popular.
So, in application to 2015 there is a lot in the media which makes
audiences question, these genres automatically involve audiences
everywhere as a lot of films of late raise modern issues. For
example dystopian novels such as the hunger games have been a
massive deal for the nations, as it is appealing to audiences due
to it being a popular book, big actors and actresses but also the
fact it does raise questions about what the world is going to be
like when resources run out and which governments and countries
will becoming powerful and which ones will fall. Thrillers are now
even more popular due to the fact the internet allows audiences to
look into conspiracy theories online. Thrillers usually raise
issues that are current in the news, for example, environmental
destruction, over population, increasing the roll of science and
technology. It also brings up many controversial points which
further involves audiences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAzGXqJSDJ8
- 3. The conventions of the thriller genreThe conventions of the
thriller genre It was really important for us to incorporate our
research of the thriller genre into our film. To begin our research
we studied the different sub genres of a thriller, this helped us
decide which direction we wanted to go in terms of the content of
our thriller. The contents of a thriller usually include fast
paced, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the
plans of more powerful and better equipped villains. Literary
devices such as suspense, red herrings and cliff hangers are used
extensively. We tried to use some of these techniques in our
thriller opening. We used a cliff hanger at the end of our opening
to try and encourage people to want to keep watching. However we
opposed the traditional contents of a thriller by not creating a
heroic character but instead a sense of mystery as to what was
really going on with our characters. We were making the audience
think rather than just feeding them the information. Here is some
of my research I did about thrillers and how it shaped our main
task!!
- 4. What are the genres and sub genres ofWhat are the genres and
sub genres of a thriller?a thriller? There are many types of sub
genres within the thriller genre. Before deciding the content of
our film we had to decide which direction of thriller we wanted to
go in order to recognise what kind of locations we might need to
film in, what kind of characters would be realistic and also what
kind of props we would need to help tell our story. Here are a few
of the types of thrillers we could have done: Spy thrillers-
typically a government agent who must take violent action against
agents of rival governments. Political thrillers- have features of
conspiracy thrillers. Military thrillers- normally uniformed
military officer. Conspiracy thrillers- hero confronts large
powerful group of enemies. Forensic thrillers- forensic experts.
Psychological thrillers- conflict between the main characters is
mental and emotional rather than physical. Horror thrillers in
which conflict between the main characters is mental, emotional and
physical.
- 5. What sub genre did we go for?What sub genre did we go for?
We decided that we wanted to do a psychological thriller. We chose
to create this sub genre of thriller because we thought it would be
interesting to change typical human behaviour. We knew we could
interpret this genre anyway we wanted to and wouldnt have to know
any facts to make it realistic and believable. By doing something
psychological we could bring in all our previous ideas into our
film and incorporate lots of different elements. We really wanted a
strong psychotically unhinged female presence in our film and these
women were some of the leads that inspired our female
character:
- 6. A bit of brainstormingA bit of brainstorming As part of our
research we did some brainstorming, we wrote down any creative
ideas we had and tried to incorporate these ideas into our film. We
have come up with a large range of ideas that we think will work
excellently. We want to twist the typical stereotype of a thriller
and create something new. Also we want to change the empowered man
(typically seen in a thriller) but instead, create a strong
empowered woman in our thriller who creates all the danger and
drama. I adore Lana Del Rey videos that are full of short clips of
different scenes with vintage effects put over them, so I would
love to incorporate this in to our main task. This was my original
blog post when planning our thriller.
- 7. How did popular thrillers shape ourHow did popular thrillers
shape our ideas?ideas? Whilst doing our research and planning I
decided to do three textual analyses of some thrillers that I
thought would help shape our ideas. When brainstorming for our film
we decided we wanted to do a type of psychological thriller, so I
decided to analyse the bone collector, Sherlock and seven. These
real media products helped develop our film and ideas about
thrillers.
- 8. SevenSeven I found the opening sequence for this film really
interesting and useful in terms of giving me alternative ideas to
the basic title sequences I had previously seen. I never noticed
before how much key information is hidden in a lot of title
sequences and I knew when I had analysed it that that was what I
wanted to do with our film. In order to keep the audience involved
the whole way throughout the film. Here is part of my analysis for
seven: We learn a lot from the mise en scene of this section of the
film. During the opening title we learn different things about the
killer to prepare us for what is to come. Everything the killer is
doing is very precise and articulate, he sees pages together and
pins things. Showing his great psychotic attention to detail. In
one particular section of the title sequence we see that the killer
highlights/ crosses out certain words of phrases. The words
pregnant, intercourse and transexual are crossed out. Later on in
the title we see the killer cut out the word god. Presumably we
could assume from this that the killer is a religious character and
has a hatred for anything that goes against god. After analysing
this opening I knew I wanted to create hidden meanings behind the
majority of the footage we used. On the next slide there are a few
examples of where we did this!
- 9. How we used media products in ourHow we used media products
in our thrillerthriller We used this shot to show the beginning of
their relationship and the lighting of a flame between the couple.
However we slowed the clip down and made it linger to present that
psychotic mind set of being somewhat mesmerised by the flame. The
slight twisting of the wrist to move the flame shows the strange
obsession. Although this is not a very clear shot when screen
grabbed, we see the flame go out which could represent that
something is about to change. It could also represent a change in
our character. We know this character is a woman as she has petit
hands and nail varnish. This could suggest to the audience there
has been a psychotic change in the female character, representing
the fact she will be the character to cause havoc in this thriller.
This shot shows the slow burning of a candle and the melting of the
wax. We decided to use wax melting as opposed to the typical clock
shot you see to represent time, to show that time is running out
for one of our characters. The candle light also creates a
mysterious and melancholy feel to the scene. In this shot I edited
two pieces of footage together and altered the opacity on one of
them so we could see the female characters reflection staring back
at her from a different angle. I was really proud of this shot as
it really represents the psychological change in the character. It
makes it look like her alternative personality is watching her,
making her
- 10. Does our thriller adhere to theDoes our thriller adhere to
the conventions of a typical thriller?conventions of a typical
thriller? In some ways our thriller adheres to the typical
conventions of a thriller. When creating the soundtrack for our
film we wanted to incorporate something different but still making
sure it had the same creepy tones that a thriller generally has. So
we decided to use one of our favourite groups songs every breath
you take by the police. We changed the song up so it sounded really
psychotic and disturbing. Me and my sister recorded a cover of the
song on my iPhone 5C using the voice recorder. Later during the
editing process I put an effect on the audio track so it had a echo
and slight ringing in the background, giving it that uncomfortable
sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOGaugKpzs the police
version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJBSLP83f0U our version on
our thriller
- 11. Part 2- Our storyboardPart 2- Our storyboard In terms of
the storyline in some ways its quite typical as we know a murder
has either already occurred or is going to occur. We also uses a
cliff hanger which is quite regularly seen in all different styles
of thrillers. Here is our original storyboard:
- 12. Is our thriller at all unconventional?Is our thriller at
all unconventional? In many ways we intended to make our thriller
unconventional. In lots of different ways we altered the typical
perception of characters and the plot of the film. In our film I
wanted to use this theory as a way of contrasting and subverting
the typical roles of women in the media. This is why we reversed
some of the typical roles around. For example we made the male in
our film passive and the female active. We don't present our female
character as a sexual fantasy or objectify her, instead we give her
the power and make the male the victim. In this shot the chaos is
beginning and the femalecharacter is still looking calm and
powerful.