Our thriller incorporates conventions of mystery in the first scene by not showing the identity of the main character straight away. By doing this we conformed to the conventions of the thriller genre as use of mystery is a fairly typical convention in thriller movies we have studied.
We decided to use a range of image flashes instead of repeating the same ones. which is different to many other thriller movies that have a recurring flash for a desired effect. we felt that having a difference in the flashes would keep the thriller unpredictable which is a key feature of suspense.
this is an example of an image flash from the excorcist, the flash is 30 seconds into the clip.
The image on the right is an image we made in photoshop for a flash.
These are some examples of the different flashes we used in our thriller
The fact that we decided to change and subvert from a typical convention of thriller movies shows how we have developed them. the fact that our thriller contains conventions of horror from the suspense and connotation of murder. Our thriller would clearly come under the sub-genre of thriller/horror. In the context of the whole movie thee are religious aspects featured however as these are part of the plotline and not part of a theme i would contend that thy do not affect the subgenre of the final product. Our use of these conventions indicates that we have drawn inspiration from thrillers such as Se7en and silence of the lambs as these have similar themes of suspense and horror
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The social group represented in our movie would be upper-middle class, based on the home of the character; the age represented in mid-late teens from a white background. As it is revealed later in the film; the character also has special needs and so this could also represent a particular social group. The gender of the character is represented in a stereotypical way to some extent as the male character has all of the significant actions and is the focus of much of the thriller opening. So some would argue that he has a dominant role. However there are no female characters to challenge the dominance of role, therefore i would argue that largely he is not depicted with a stereotypical gender representation. Also as he is handicapped, it may make the audience feel sorry for him as it is a vulnerability, especially in our mirror clone scene.
These are some examples of the different flashes we used in our thriller
The fact that we decided to change and subvert from a typical convention of thriller movies shows how we have developed them. the fact that our thriller contains conventions of horror from the suspense and connotation of murder. Our thriller would clearly come under the sub-genre of thriller/horror. In the context of the whole movie thee are religious aspects featured however as these are part of the plotline and not part of a theme i would contend that thy do not affect the subgenre of the final product. Our use of these conventions indicates that we have drawn inspiration from thrillers such as Se7en and silence of the lambs as these have similar themes of suspense and horror
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The social group represented in our movie would be upper-middle class, based on the home of the character; the age represented in mid-late teens from a white background. As it is revealed later in the film; the character also has special needs and so this could also represent a particular social group. The gender of the character is represented in a stereotypical way to some extent as the male character has all of the significant actions and is the focus of much of the thriller opening. So some would argue that he has a dominant role. However there are no female characters to challenge the dominance of role, therefore i would argue that largely he is not depicted with a stereotypical gender representation. Also as he is handicapped, it may make the audience feel sorry for him as it is a vulnerability, especially in our mirror clone scene.
For this reason we have actually subverted from the typical lead male role of a thriller film, such as Brad pitt's character in se7en
This links to the target audience as it offers them a degree of familiarity which they can relate to. This is because white males are typical lead characters in thrillers e.g. Sy in One hour photo. However as previously mentioned we have subverted from this image slightly as the main character in our thriller is not overtly masculine or attempting to assert his dominance frequently [see image above also]. This will offer the target audience a new perspective on the thriller genre.
What kind of institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our thriller could be produced by a major hollywood institution because it contains conventions that are typical of many blockbuster movies such as cliffhangers and long establishing sequences at the beginning which allow later plotlines to be introduced one after another and makes it easier to offer a solution to some of them at the end of the feature. Similar movies that do this would be se7en and The Village.
I feel that our media product would be a cinema feature predominantly as it is not implying any metaphors for artistic purposes which tends to be a feature that arthouse theaters look for. Also our thrillers content and target audiece would not be compatible with an arthouse production. Our thriller would also be too articulate for an internet only release and would not suit a tv only release as it contains many similar conventions as existing blockbusters such as Se7en and silence of the lambs. Our thriller movie would be released as it has the potential to become a cult hit like movies such as Shaun of the dead this is because it has an iconic and unique character in the sense that it subverts the genre to have an autistic/handicapped lead role. There are opportunities for a sequal due to unresolved sub-plotlines at the end. Merchandising would be possible due to the iconic & simplistic costume and appearance of the lead character this could be in the form of t-shirts or action figures such as these from the movie: The punisher
From these conclusions it could be said that the visual style of our thriller is dark and mysterious which is a look we were aiming for due to our sub-genre. This is also due to the quick cuts we used in the house which helped to make those particular scenes feel creepy to the viewer. which contributed to the mysterious style overall. Our use of the shovel prop was aimed to further contribute to the sinister themes in the opening. This is because a carries with it connotations of crime i.e. that the character has just buried a body. we see it being shown right at the start which sets the tone for the rest of the opening.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Because the lead role of our thriller is a teenager we would expect a largely teenage/young adult target audience. As this would allow them to better relate to the movie. We could possibly expect a largely male audience due to the dark themes of murder being expressed in the narrative, which stereotypically appeal to a more male audience. Films like se7en and silence of the lambs are similar to ours. They also appeal to largely the same target audience. However the lead characters in both of these films are adults and so it could be said that teenagers may be less interested in them than our thriller because they wont be able to relate to it as well.
How did you attract/adress your audience?
In our pre-production we outlined that our target audience would be mainly middle class teenagers to young adults. We adressed this by using themes they can relate to, such as sadness and horror. The mirror clone effect would appeal to the target audience as it is a visually interesting effect.
mid-shots and long shots were key to our thriller as they allow a suffiecient amount of ambiguity for the character without ever showing everything that is going on. Pov shots were used to differentiate at key moment and to make sure that the movie did not become too monotonous. During the POV shot the audience are somewhat asked to put themselves in the positiion of the character while he is walking through the house. this has an immersive effect of the viewr and makes the film seem more sinister as they are witnessing eerie things first hand.
The generic convention of the creation of suspense as outline by Alfred Hitchcock are conformed to in our thriller film due to the aforementioned conventions.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
One major weakness of the camera equipment was its lack of ability to function in low-light settings even if our lighting was sufficient. A strength was that it was reliable and did not have any underlying issues for us to worry about. As mentioned above, we faced lighting problems which we resolved by using a cars headlamps to provide sufficient lighting for the camera. We had difficulty aligning split screens for the mirror clone effect, however this was resolved by cropping the image and superimposing a credit over the trim-line.
We used fairly new apple mac computers to edit our thriller which helped greatly as they were reliable and user-friendly. Sites like Photobucket allowed us to upload location shots also. We began learning how to use key frames and using motion key frames to speed up certain parts like the going through the house sequence
This also became useful for our time-lapse technique in which we had to set the speed to a higher percentage
We then learned to superimpose text for titles and how to include and fade in music from external sources such as Soundboard which were used toward the end of the clip
Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
For research on the genre we looked at several thriller movies such as Se7en, One hour photo and silence of the lambs to gain an understanding of the conventions used. Whilst storyboarding we carefully planned out what shots to use and when, this is where we gained most of the ideas for our music choices and how to fit it into the different camera movements which led to the whole production running much smoother. From the preliminary task we learned how to successfully incorporate shots such as the POV, mid-shot, and close up which helped us with our filming greatly later. Overall this led to a huge boost in confidence whilst using the equipment
In conclusion i feel that our thriller achieved everything we were aiming for in a successful manner as deadlines were met, conventions were all appropriate and matched the genre expectations we researched. Our blog also shows large evidence of our planning and pre-production meetings. So overall we feel our thriller has fulfilled the task brilliantly.
This links to the target audience as it offers them a degree of familiarity which they can relate to. This is because white males are typical lead characters in thrillers e.g. Sy in One hour photo. However as previously mentioned we have subverted from this image slightly as the main character in our thriller is not overtly masculine or attempting to assert his dominance frequently [see image above also]. This will offer the target audience a new perspective on the thriller genre.
What kind of institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our thriller could be produced by a major hollywood institution because it contains conventions that are typical of many blockbuster movies such as cliffhangers and long establishing sequences at the beginning which allow later plotlines to be introduced one after another and makes it easier to offer a solution to some of them at the end of the feature. Similar movies that do this would be se7en and The Village.
I feel that our media product would be a cinema feature predominantly as it is not implying any metaphors for artistic purposes which tends to be a feature that arthouse theaters look for. Also our thrillers content and target audiece would not be compatible with an arthouse production. Our thriller would also be too articulate for an internet only release and would not suit a tv only release as it contains many similar conventions as existing blockbusters such as Se7en and silence of the lambs. Our thriller movie would be released as it has the potential to become a cult hit like movies such as Shaun of the dead this is because it has an iconic and unique character in the sense that it subverts the genre to have an autistic/handicapped lead role. There are opportunities for a sequal due to unresolved sub-plotlines at the end. Merchandising would be possible due to the iconic & simplistic costume and appearance of the lead character this could be in the form of t-shirts or action figures such as these from the movie: The punisher
From these conclusions it could be said that the visual style of our thriller is dark and mysterious which is a look we were aiming for due to our sub-genre. This is also due to the quick cuts we used in the house which helped to make those particular scenes feel creepy to the viewer. which contributed to the mysterious style overall. Our use of the shovel prop was aimed to further contribute to the sinister themes in the opening. This is because a carries with it connotations of crime i.e. that the character has just buried a body. we see it being shown right at the start which sets the tone for the rest of the opening.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Because the lead role of our thriller is a teenager we would expect a largely teenage/young adult target audience. As this would allow them to better relate to the movie. We could possibly expect a largely male audience due to the dark themes of murder being expressed in the narrative, which stereotypically appeal to a more male audience. Films like se7en and silence of the lambs are similar to ours. They also appeal to largely the same target audience. However the lead characters in both of these films are adults and so it could be said that teenagers may be less interested in them than our thriller because they wont be able to relate to it as well.
How did you attract/adress your audience?
In our pre-production we outlined that our target audience would be mainly middle class teenagers to young adults. We adressed this by using themes they can relate to, such as sadness and horror. The mirror clone effect would appeal to the target audience as it is a visually interesting effect.
mid-shots and long shots were key to our thriller as they allow a suffiecient amount of ambiguity for the character without ever showing everything that is going on. Pov shots were used to differentiate at key moment and to make sure that the movie did not become too monotonous. During the POV shot the audience are somewhat asked to put themselves in the positiion of the character while he is walking through the house. this has an immersive effect of the viewr and makes the film seem more sinister as they are witnessing eerie things first hand.
The generic convention of the creation of suspense as outline by Alfred Hitchcock are conformed to in our thriller film due to the aforementioned conventions.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
One major weakness of the camera equipment was its lack of ability to function in low-light settings even if our lighting was sufficient. A strength was that it was reliable and did not have any underlying issues for us to worry about. As mentioned above, we faced lighting problems which we resolved by using a cars headlamps to provide sufficient lighting for the camera. We had difficulty aligning split screens for the mirror clone effect, however this was resolved by cropping the image and superimposing a credit over the trim-line.
We used fairly new apple mac computers to edit our thriller which helped greatly as they were reliable and user-friendly. Sites like Photobucket allowed us to upload location shots also. We began learning how to use key frames and using motion key frames to speed up certain parts like the going through the house sequence
This also became useful for our time-lapse technique in which we had to set the speed to a higher percentage
The final effect of this was an effective time-lapse.
We then learned to superimpose text for titles and how to include and fade in music from external sources such as Soundboard which were used toward the end of the clip
Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
For research on the genre we looked at several thriller movies such as Se7en, One hour photo and silence of the lambs to gain an understanding of the conventions used. Whilst storyboarding we carefully planned out what shots to use and when, this is where we gained most of the ideas for our music choices and how to fit it into the different camera movements which led to the whole production running much smoother. From the preliminary task we learned how to successfully incorporate shots such as the POV, mid-shot, and close up which helped us with our filming greatly later. Overall this led to a huge boost in confidence whilst using the equipment
In conclusion i feel that our thriller achieved everything we were aiming for in a successful manner as deadlines were met, conventions were all appropriate and matched the genre expectations we researched. Our blog also shows large evidence of our planning and pre-production meetings. So overall we feel our thriller has fulfilled the task brilliantly.
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