Question 1: In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

In AS media out task has been to create a thriller opening sequence; for this project I worked with Beth Ryman to plan, film, produce, and edit a professional thriller opening. 

A thriller stands for a broad genre of media created with the intention to make the audience watching on edge, feel tense and give a rush of adrenaline; they aim to emotionally affect the audience by causing them to feel emotions such as fear, danger and paranoia.

The common conventions of a thriller movie are:

Whilst researching the conventions of a thriller I looked at a few thriller openings to see if they followed the common conventions of a thriller and whether they were effective or not. 

Element	Why it is used?
Close Up Shots	To show facial expressions, reactions such as fear. It also makes the audience feel more engaged with the film and makes them feel confronted by the character.
Quick Cut Editing	Used to build tension by confusing the audience into what Is going on and give away little but unrevealing information in quick bursts.
Non-diegetic sound	Non-diegetic sound used to create dramatic tension with grim sounds that don’t sound nice to the ear.
Mise-en-scene	Used to cut out information that might give too much information away too soon within the storyline as tension is created with confusion.
Dark / Dim lighting	Works alongside Mise-en-scene to cut down the information that could be given away from setting. Also can be used to make a focus point on a person or object. Dim lighting makes the setting look mysterious and unpleasant.

The thrillers I looked at were:

Whilst looking at these thrillers we developed knowledge on the conventions of a thriller and how films used them effectively to draw the audience into the film within the first few minutes of the thriller. In the thriller genre it is important to instantly create tension and mystery to aid the storyline to be dramatic causing deep curiosity and interest from the audience which pulls them into the film. Title sequences are also very important to thrillers as they can create an atmosphere of mystery and confusion before the film has even started so it is important to ensure it is effective, unique, and rememorable in order to produce a good thriller. Somewhere in the opening of the thriller there will need to be a title sequence, this is very important in a thriller because it can help build a lot of tension without giving away too much information about the actual storyline as it does not have to make sense.

Atmospheres of tension and mystery can be created through:

• ·         Sound (Non-Digetic, but also Digetic)  - Non-degetic sound is used right at the start of Shutter Island to signify the approaching of mysterious and dark land helping to create tension with the low minor notes.
• ·         Shots (Quick camera movements, close up shots, reaction shots) – Reaction shots used in Shutter Island as they enter the island focused on Leonardo De Caprio.
• ·         Props (Wepons) – Used in Leon to show status of the characters by weapons carried through authority.
• ·         Editing (Quick transitions, Flashes to Black/White) – Cuts to black used in The Butterfly Effect to add tension and mystery to the storyline to only be revealed in the end.
• ·         Flashbacks – Used In The Butterfly Effect to reveal the story at the end and what happened in the flashbacks.
• ·         Lighting (Dim Lighting, Flashes) – Used In Leon when the setting is first introduced and characters are moving throughout it.
• ·         Mise-en-scene – Used in The Butterfly Effect to make the storyline vague and mysterious but then to be revealed at the end.

For example in the opening of the film ‘Shutter Island’ many conventions are instantly used to make the opening mysterious  draw the viewers in and instantly create tension. From this screenshot we can see that the convention of dim lighting has been used to create a dramatic and dull scene of a boat appearing from fog. Mise-en-scene has been use as the boat fades in from white it isn't instantly clear to the viewers whether it is a boat at the start and the mystery of the scene comes from not being able to clearly see the boat or anything around it apart from the sea its on.  This creates instant tension and causes the viewer to want to know more information drawing them into what is happening in the film, non digetic sound is also instantly used with the low brass notes that are very loud overpowering the sound of the crashing waves. This is a typical location due to the amount of mystery within it and cuts out too much information being given away purely through setting, in these shots there is nothing given away apart from there is an old looking boat carrying two people sailing in the sea. At this point the audience do not know where the boat is going, why its there or where it is, making the audience entrigued and  engaged in the movie through curiousity. 

This is another screenshot from Shutter Island and is a typical thriller shot. This shot is a close up shot and also a reaction shot so you can see the facial reaction of whatever the character is looking at, this helps the audience to relate to the character and feel the fear that he displays. The lighting is also dim in this shot which relates to mise-en-scene in the way that the dim lighting helps cut down what is seen from the shot as here we see nothing behind him at all. This is tightly framed  to be extra dramatic to the audience, by filming so close rather than further away it makes the audience feel claustrophobic and feel like they are close to what his facial expressions are reacting to.

The Thriller Sub- Genres Are:

For our thriller opening we chose to work around the  elements of a psychological thriller as from watching and analysing thriller openings we felt that psychological thrillers work very well in engaging the audience and getting them emotionally and psychologically involved in the film, the more the audience relate the better the movie will be. By aiming to connect with the audience with the film we can cause the emotion of fear and cause suspense much more successfully which will help our movie achieve many of the elements used to create a good thriller movie.  There will also be incorporated elements from the mystery and drama genre in addition to the typical traits of  the thriller genre.

Typical themes of psychological thrillers are:

• ·         Reality – The quality of being real. Characters often try to determine what is true and what is not within the story line.
• ·         Perception – A person’s own interpretation of the world around him through his senses. Oftern characters misinterpret the world around them or their perceptions are altered by outside factors.
• ·         Mind – The human consciousness; the location for personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. The mind is often used as a location for narrative conflict where characters battle their own minds to reach a new level of understanding of perception
• ·         Existence/Purpose – The object for which something exists, an aim or a goal humans strive to understand their reason for existence. Characters often to try to discover what their purpose is in their lives and the narrative’s conflict often is a way for the characters to discover this purpose.
• ·         Identity – The definition of ones self. Characters are often confused about or doubt who they are and try to discover their true identity.
• ·         Death – The cessation of life. Characters either fear of have a fascination with death.

A common convention with psychological thrillers is that the title sequence does not always feature at the very start of the film and the film starts straight away with no introduction, alike the film Shutter Island where the opening scene is a mysterious boat rather than a tile sequence. This technique is effective because it adds to the feel of mystery and engages the audience as they are trying to figure out what is going on in the start of the film and why. In our thriller the credits feature in the middle of some of our footage during the opening sequence, this works with the convention in the way that the movie starts off very mysterious with the intention to engage the audience however it also challenges it by the way that the credits are incorporated within the footage of the opening sequence rather than another separate section of the film that may not entirely relate to the storyline. We have also challenged the convention by separating the movie title from the movie credits as our movie title does not appear until the end of the opening sequence. However we feel that this works well in our thriller by signifying the end of the opening sequence and certifying the change in time from the past to the present.

Also common in psychological thrillers is the location, in psychological thrillers the location is usually a setting relating to reality such as a normal house within a city. This  dramatically adds to the effect of the psychological thriller in the way that the audience can relate to the film much more easily due to the realistic setting similar to the one they live in with unusual events happening in a familiar setting. Our thriller complies to this  as towards the end of our opening a normal bedroom and bathroom are featured as the protagonist awakes all flustered from the terrible dreams he  was having and goes to rinse his face. However as the first part are unknowingly the dreams of the protagonist and are filmed in an old part of a factory, it also challenges the common psychological thriller theme.

Other conventions that our thriller complied is the costume that the antagonist was wearing which was very smart signifying that he is not a stereotypical killer. This helps out the theme of  the psychological thriller as it is something out of the ordinary and makes the audience question why these tragic low level events are being carried out by someone who appears very sophisticated and upper-class  Also we introduced non-digetic sound of a piano playing extremely high and extremely low pitch notes as they give an eery feel; this starts as soon as the opening starts which is also very common within psychological thrillers and even other sub genres of thriller such as Psycho.

In the film ‘The Butterfly Effect'  the narrative of the film is based around a lot of unknown information and uses the element of flashbacks to tie together all the loose ends in the film. I think this works well because it at first makes the film very confusing with the mystery and encourages the audience to try and guess why certain things are happening  within the film. This gets the audience interested and involved in the film and helps the film be effective overall. The editing on this is very important are many cuts to black within the film to help signify the change in time from past to present, non digetic sound is also important here to help trigger the drama that is about to happen in the flashback.

When watching The Butterfly Effect these conventions that influenced us was the way that it was set in an everyday setting. This is generally an uncommon convention but can be conventional with a psychological thriller; we thought this element was very effective for a psychological thriller as it interacts the audience more as the film is more in relation to them and is set in the kind of setting they live in.

The Bourne Identity influenced us in the way that it used flashbacks to create tension, mystery and a way to show past and present in the movie. This is a commonly used element within a psychological thriller and helps there be a clear separation between past and present, without this it may not be clear when there is a time change or one may not be able to be used. We thought this was an effective element and would work well in our thriller as it would enable us to link two contrasting locations together which would add an effect of mystery to our thriller. The way we linked the two settings together in our thriller was to have two different time periods one starting in the past and then changes to the present by a close up shot of the protagonist waking up signifying to the audience that what they have just seen was a dream. As well as making our thriller more interesting it also adds mystery as at this point it isn't known whether the dream was a dream from memory or if it was all fiction and just thoughts of the protagonist. When our thriller goes on to show pictures of the woman from the dream and she is also revealed in the bathroom mirror, it links the girl in the dream to the protagonist but a large part of the story line is unknown. These small give always of information keep the audience intrigued and drawn to the storyline.

In our thriller we have used a few close up shots and some reaction shots which are very common in thrillers, in our thriller they are effective and come across dramaticly to the audience as intended; they also allow us to show fear within the characters facial reaction and see facial expressions very clearly. We have also used non digetic music almost throughout our film when editing  to add tension throughout the film. Mise-en-scene was very important whilst filming as we where filming in two completely separate locations and in order for the storyline to work it was important that some features of the room where kept out of shot. Whilst filming in a house it was important that any famly photos unrelated to the film where not in the shot.