Question 1 -9th March
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Mise en scene
Throughout our thriller opening mise en scene has greatly supported the conventions of a professional and successful media product. Typically in thrillers, the protagonist/damsel character is often relatable to the audience as a everyday person. This is so that the audience will be able to relate to the character when danger comes there way. This is why we decided that our victim in our opening was going to resemble the characteristics of an ordinary teenage girl. This would allow the audience to assume that the situation is one that could happen, which in effect helps create more suspense. Also, due to the character being female, it allows the audience to fear for her safety as stereotypically females are viewed as vulnerable and helpless. The main female character was shown to be wearing a white top, which you could slightly see through her hoodie. The colour white helped connote the girls innocence and vulnerability, thus allowing the audience to become worried for her. We also made sure that our main female was blonde, as we wanted to follow the stereotype of a typical blonde damsel in distress, as we felt it would be more familiar with our audience as they would of been used to the damsel being blonde the majority of the time, as society suggests that blondes are less intelligent to other hair colours. When deciding on on antagonist character, we thought it was impotant to follow stereotypical traits you would expect an antagonist character to obtain, in order for the audience to indentify that this character was a threat and therefore become wary when he was present. The antagonist is seen wearing an orange convict costume. This will be recognisable to our audience as many thriller films often contain criminals, and typically criminals are often placed in orange prision uniforms. The use of the uniforms immediately alarms the audience that this character is dangerous as convict costumes are associated with fears such as harm and possibly death. Thus allowing our audience to assume our antagonist character has a background without us actually explaining it within the extract. The use of the antagonists clown mask also relates to typical conventions of a thriller film as masks are often used by the antagonists character to hide who they really are, so they cannot be caught. This creates tension for the audience as they will feel the need to want to catch the antagonist character and therefore identify who he really is. As the fear of an unrecognisable face is considered quite scary within stereotypical thriller films. One other way mise en scene represents typical conventions within our thriller opening is through the use of the setting. The extract is shot within Shouldham Warren, a popular woodland area. The use of the woods creates a mysterious atmosphere. Around 20 seconds in there is an extreme long shot of the antagonist standing in the middle of the woods, the use of the woodland area all around the antagonists shows the depth of the woods and therefore creates the effect that there is no escape. This is conventional of a thriller film as the audience will begin to worry for the victim as the woods are stereitypically a dangerous place filled with many threats of harm. Also another stereotypicaal convention used in thriller films that we decidied to use in our extract is low key lighting. The use of lown key lighting connotes danger and fear. This allows the audience to become anxious and it keeps them on the edge of their seat. Low key lighting is used throughout the whole of our thriller opening, however it begins to get much darker towards the end. The helps connote that the danger is getting closer which in effect will create tension for the audience. Below are some examples of costumes, the setting and the lighting.
Camerawork
One of the first shots we decided to use in our thriller opening was an upwards panning and establishing shot of the setting, the woods. Opening the extract with an establishing shot is very conventional in thriller films as it is used to help familiarise the audience with the surroundings. Also, with our setting being in the woods, the audience will most likely make assumptions about what may happen, as typically woodland areas can be viewed as dangerous and mysterious places. This will result in a tense atmosphere as the audience will be curious about what will happen in the woods. Another camerashot we used throughout our thriller opening is shot reverse shot. Shot reverse shot takes place up to around 32 secounds in, we have shown continuous back and fourth clips of both the victim and the antagonist character. The use of shot reverse shot allows the audience to be aware that the clown is getting closer. This causes dramatic irony as the audience is aware that the girl is in danger however she does not. This is often done is thriller films as it makes the audience anxious as they feel they want to warn the victim, which in result keeps them intrigued as to whether they get harmed or not. Around 25 seconds in, we have used a slight low angle shot of the victim. The low angle shots allows her to be seen as confident and courageous. However as she is walkig towards the danger the camera angle changes from low angle to a regular mid shot. This will alarm the audience as she is now shown to be i danger as her condidence has gone and she is walking towards the danger helpless. Our choice to start with a low angle shot challenges typical thriller films as normally the victim/damsel will be shown from a high angle shot, to show their vulnerability and unability to escape harm by themselves. However by challenging this, we felt that the audience would become more intrigued as it appears that she is going to face the danger. However they will quickly realise that she is once again back in danger and the atmoshphere will become tense. At around 51 seconds, a slightly titled medium close up has been used to show the victims NVC. She appears scared as if she is facing the antagonist. The use of the medium close up allows the audience to emphathise with the victims fears and the tilted angle also connotes courruption. Medium close ups and close ups are typicaly used in thriller films in order to show emotion, whether it be fear, love or grief. Therefore we felt that we should include a medium close up in order to show the audience how the character is feeling. At 38 seconds in, we have used another panning and establishing shot of the woods. We decided to use an establishing shot half way through our opening to show that the victim is all alone after her friends walked off within the first few seconds of the extract. This allows the audience to fear for the safety of the victim even more as she may not be able to defend herself, while alone. This is results keeps the audiences attention as they will want her to be safe. The use of an establishing shot to show the damsels vulnerabilty is often used within the thriller genre as it represents danger. Therefore we felt it would fit our opening perfectly. For the last few seconds of our opening, we decided to do a ranger of panning shots of the victims body laying on the ground. However we never showed the full body at one time. We decided as a group that by doing a range of small panning shots of different parts of her body would leave the audience intrigued, as they will not know whether the victim is dead or alive. This will create mystery within the opening, which is what you want to achieve when making a thriller opening, as a typical thiller openings aim is to make the audience want to watch the rest of the film and not to give away to much information. Which i felt my group successfully achieved through our choices of camerawork.
Editing
When we began editing our thriller opening, we took into consideration that we wanted it to look professional, therefore we felt that by using a range of fairly basic editing techniques it would look smooth and realistic. Our first shot is of our production company, Blumhouse Productions. From this a straight cut has been made into an establishing shot of the woods. During our establishing shot of the woods, we used a fade effect to gradulally fade in the title of our film "The Escapist". This allows the audience to understand that the woods is a vital part within "The Escapists" plans. From the establishing shot, a fading effect has been used onto a black screen in which the title of our film is displayed. This has been done to allow the audience to regconise the name of the film as it will stand out. From the black screen, another fade has been used into a long shot of the girls walking. We felt that by using fades throughout the first few scenes when the titles are shown, allows it to run smoothly and look professional as it does not appear too powerful and in your face. Throughout our opening, we decided to use straight cuts. We felt that the use of straight cuts portrayed a more realistic nature to the extract. However at around 42 seconds, we have used a fade from an establishing shot of the woods to a long shot of the victim running. We decided to use a fade transition here as we felt that it portrayed the idea that after seeing how alone the vctim was through the establishing shot of the woods, she became scared and ran. Linking the two shots together. Another editing technique that we have used throughout our thriller opening is cross cutting. The majority of the cross cutting happens from a scene of the victim to a scene of the antagonist. For example during seconds 17-21. The use of the cross cutting represents dramatic irony, that the audience knows that the victim is in danger however she herself does not. Cross cutting is very conventional to use in thriller films as it creates tension and keeps the audience intrigued as they will want to know what happens to the victim. Below is an example of how we edited the opening titles with a range of fade effects.
Sound
When we started our thriller opening, our group decided that we wanted a range of non-diegetic, diegetic, ambient and a backing soundtrack involved. We felt that by adding in all of these techniques, we coulld create a tense atmopshere. When we began filming we wanted to make sure that we did not pick up any background noise, as this is something we struggled with in ur preliminary task. However when we began editing myself and Grace decided that we should add in a backing soundtrac and delete all of the natural sound we had recorded while filming as we did not feel it was up to the standard that we wanted. Therefore we began searching for copyright free music and sound effects that we could use. While researching we found a spooky instrumental that we have used for the backing sound. We felt that it was the best pick for our thriller opening as the sound gradually increased from dimmuendo to crescendo, which increases the anticipation of danger approaching. Also, the 'ding' like sounds you hear, connote those of a childlike nursey rhyme. We felt that this was appropriate for our thriller opening as our plot is based on a convict clown. Also the childlike nature of the backing sound creates more tension as it appears unpredictable. The non diegetic 'ding' sounds are in major key while the victim is present, showing the innocence and vulnerability of the younf girl. However when the antagonist character is shown, the 'dings' change to minor key, the majority of the time. This connotes the antagonists danger and evil nature, making the audience fear his character. This is stereotypical in thriller films as the minor key often represents negative atmospheres such as fear, death, depression or loss. Therefore making the audience feel a certain way. At around 1.03, non-diegetic sounds of footsteps can be heard when the audience is shown the panning shots of the victims body, this creates a tense atmopshere as the audience is unaware whether it is the clown or not, however the footsteps begin to fade out at around 1.23, when we can see the convicts feet standing this. This allows the audience to assume that it was the convict that was circling her, and that he was probably the one to hurt her. Non diegtic sound effects such as footprints are typically used in film genres such as thriller as they create mystery, as the audience can hear someone but cannot see them, which creates anxiousness. We have also used ambient sound in our thriller opening to help set the atmosphere. During the first few seconds of the opening, a diegetic camera click can be heard. This allows the audience to think that here is some importance to the camera, which towards the end of the opening they realise. Also because the other girls have been used to show blocking while the main click stops to take a picture, the ambient sound effect makes the audience wondered what was so important that she had to stop and take a picture of, and what was it she saw. Thus why the girls are used for blocking, to help build mystery. Also at around 26 seconds in, diegetic sounds of the victims footsteps can he heard. The fact that the audience can hear her footsteps connotes that she is alone and helpless. The use of diegteic footsteps is often used in thriller films to help connote the danger that the damsel is in which in effect will keep the audience intrigued.
Titles
Typically in thriller films, the credits are either black, red or white. The use of red credits can symbolise blood and danger, and black and white can symbolise mystery and tension. When deciding on the colour of our credits we considered this and as a group decided that white credits would be the best choice for us. This was because we wanted to connote a mysterious atmosphere but also because the majority of our thriller opening is shot in low key lighting so the colour white would be able to stand out above that, yet not become too distrating. We decided to use a serif font s we felt it looked quite sinister and dark, which represents our opening. When deciding of the position and size of the credits, we looked back to our research and discovered that we wanted the credits to be fairly small however big enough to read and we wanted to position them to the sides of the frames. Therefore they would not distract the audience from what is happening within the plot. The only exception to this was the title of the film. We decided that we wanted to place "The Escapist" in the middle of the screen, with a fairly large font. This was to make the audience familiar with the films title. This is tyically done in proefessional films, as the producers of the film want their audience to be familiar with the name of the film in order for brand regocnition later on. Therefore we felt that this was important to include in our opening. We also plaved the production companies name at the very beginning our our opening to symbolise their importance within the film, this is done in almost all film genres, not just thriller so we felt that it was neccessary we followed the same order as other major films. We also felt that by placing the name of the film at the start instead of the end, it appeared more like an opening to the film, rather than a trailer.
