Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The definition of a thriller is a work of fiction that depicts crime, mystery, or espionage in an atmosphere of excitement and suspense. It is an exciting experience that holds the audience’s interest by using suspense and adventure.

Conventions of a Thriller Opening

-One of the opening shots of thriller films tends to be the establishing shot. This shows the setting and can sometimes give the feeling that a character (or characters) is being watched. The images below are examples of establishing shots in the opening of thriller films.

-The camerawork at the beginning of a thriller movie is often tracking and pan shots used to show the audience what a particular group of characters/character is doing and makes a scene more fast-moving because the pans are used to follow action. Close ups are used to show expressions of characters in important parts of the narrative. If someone is harmed or is shocked by something there will usually be a close-up to emphasise how they are feeling.

 

-Some thriller movies include a red herring, which is something that is misleading and distracts from the main story. They are used to keep the audience’s interest and create twists in the story. Alfred Hitchcock used these for a lot of his films.

- Music plays over the top of the opening in thriller films and increases in volume for suspense to build at key points. Non-diegetic sound can complement visuals by matching the pace of it, like if the music crescendos for the build-up and then goes silent at the climax. The high-pitched screech sounds used in Psycho for the murder in the shower adds horror and is eerie as it is a non-diegetic sound, yet matches the stabbing movements in the scene. There are also many non-diegetic sounds in the credits for ‘Seven’. We here screeches and thuds that create a sound collage to make a more disturbing and complex atmosphere.

 

- Editing is another way that filmmakers can build tension in thriller openings, in particular by using certain techniques like dual narrative or flashbacks. Dual narratives can juxtapose themes in the film like good and evil. They can create suspense because it could show two different characters in different situations that are getting closer together and the audience don’t know what will happen when they clash. Flashbacks give background information on characters that could impact future events. They allow us to empathise with the characters when bad things happen.

-Narratives in thrillers often show a fight against good and evil, and involve an increasing amount of threat and danger for the protagonist. The narrative is often shown from the perspective of the protagonist. A common narrative technique is the flashback which can be seen in the opening of ‘Shutter Island’ when we find out about the protagonist’s family.

 

-Thrillers mostly have two main characters: the protagonist and the antagonist. The protagonist is usually familiar with danger, for example a policeman or spy. The protagonist will persevere with defeating the villain even if things are not going to plan. Villains in thrillers are typically men, work on their own and have had an experience that has changed their attitude to life. An example of this is the villain Hannibal Lecter who lost his mind after a traumatic event in childhood.




 

-Weapons, police cars and fake blood are conventional props for thrillers. The weapons show what power the characters have, and also give a feeling of suspense as violence or a fight could easily occur. Conventional settings are often old houses or small rooms. Examples of films taking place in small spaces are The Panic Room and Phone booth. This can give a claustrophobic feeling to a situation and it can be made worse when the protagonist cannot escape.
The following are examples of thriller sub-genres:

 

We chose psychological to be the sub-genre of our thriller opening. This was because it was a very popular answer in the questionnaires that we handed out and we would therefore know that people would be more likely to enjoy watching it. I also really like this sub-genre, and I thought that it was important to create something that I knew I would appreciate watching myself, as I would have a good vision of what it should be like. The fact that I like psychological thrillers very much means that I had a lot to compare ours to as well, and had good knowledge of what is conventional and what is not for this sub-genre. It influenced our ideas and style for the opening.

One of the common elements of psychological thrillers is having unusual costumes for characters to make it seem like it is set in an almost nightmarish world. A good example of this is in Donnie Darko; the mysterious character Frank wears a bunny costume with a skull-like mask for a face with lifeless eyes and large teeth. This is incredibly sinister because a rabbit is supposed to be something endearing and loveable but the design of the costume twists this into something that is feared. Along with this, the film takes place around Halloween causing the protagonist to wear a skeleton costume later on. These costumes give the film quite a nightmarish atmosphere especially because it is a very odd and dream-like film anyway. On the other hand some psychological thrillers have the characters wearing everyday clothes that aren’t particularly memorable. This is because a lot of films of this kind are supposed to take place in an ordinary environment that the audience can recognise and be familiar with, adding to realism too which is important in a thriller. It makes them feel like the events in the film could easily happen to them, making it a more thrilling experience. An example of a psychological thriller that shows this is ‘Psycho’. Another way in which this technique creates tension is that the killer in the film is wearing clothes that any ordinary person would. There would be no way of knowing that he is the killer, because he is not dressed in a memorable or rare fashion.

In our thriller the protagonist wore a white dress. There were many reasons why we chose this; the white colour can represent innocence and purity, it also looks slightly angelic so foreshadows that the girl is soon to be murdered and it is quite unusual that a teenage girl would be walking around on her own on a cold day in something like this. It is also quite an old-fashioned style so works with the style of the house and the doll.  The thriller film ‘Orphan’ was partly an inspiration for our costume choice. The antagonist is a young girl that wears an old-fashioned kind of dress. This breaks conventions for a thriller because the villain is made to look innocent and harmless, and we took the idea of looking innocent but for a more conventional character. Having a victim made to look innocent gives the idea that they are helpless when they are in danger. The dress being white is also important for the narrative of our opening because it is the same colour as the dead girls’ T-shirts in the photos, foreshadowing that she is next to be murdered.



The lighting is an important aspect of mise-en-scene and is conventionally dark in thrillers. I know this from watching many thriller films that include it, and that it also rated highly in our questionnaire responses. There will usually be lots of shadows and not everything will be easy to see. Low key lighting makes it hard to see what is happening, if someone is approaching etc. Lighting can also be used to represent characters, for example if there is low key lighting used as the antagonist of the film enters, it could reflect the darkness within them. The lack of light can be because the particular part of the film is set at night or in a dimly lit room. Sometimes the only thing supplying the light is a few candles or very dim lights. In our opening we used this convention very well. We used mostly the natural light coming through windows so it was dark, but not so that you could not see anything. The only time when we used a light in the house was when the girl switches one on when she enters the messy room. We also put a filter effect on the film after so it would be even darker, and there would be a sense of the footage being old and dated. We originally planned to use candles, but we felt that the light in the house was ideal anyway, and candles may not show up well on camera.

In the opening credits and opening scene of ‘Seven’ there is an extreme lack of light. It is quite eerie because it is difficult to see what people are doing, and that anything could happen. It is also very appropriate as the mood of the film is very dark, as are the characters.

 

Conventional props that the audience will expect usually give the impression that there is danger soon to occur or that has occurred. Examples include blood, dead bodies, body parts and disturbing images. These are examples of props that show something unpleasant has gone on, while others like a gun, knife, other weapons and alcohol foreshadow that disturbing or violent things are likely and soon to happen. Props can also be just objects that are unusual to see in a particular environment. In our thriller, we had an old-fashioned Victorian doll which was quite haunting because it seems out of place in the house/room that is covered in rubbish, blood and disturbing photos. It is therefore more memorable because it is so strange to see. We used a lot of these props in our film; blood, a dead body, disturbing images and a gun (although this was not seen, you could hear the sound effect). The props that gave quite a distressing atmosphere were revealed more as the film went on. The dead body, gun and most of the blood were shown more to the end. However, we did challenge this by having the blood covered photos appearing at the beginning. This helped the narrative to stay interesting, and not on one level. The picture above is of one of the scenes towards the end of Evil Dead, which is a hybrid of thriller and horror and I found it very useful to look at because it was a good example of a thriller that builds tension. An enormous amount of blood is seen along with a chainsaw. This will obviously be a scene involving danger and harm, making the audience feel suspenseful because you don’t know who is going to be killed or when, but you know it will happen.

The settings of psychological thrillers work similarly to the costumes. They are either completely extraordinary, making it bewildering for the audience because they do not know what to expect. An example of this is in the film ‘Shutter Island’. The movie is set in a mental asylum on an island. It is eerie because the audience are unlikely to know what asylums are like, the island is isolated from anywhere else and the main character will be trapped there with dangerous mental patients. The other option for settings in psychological thrillers is that they can be set in a normal environment, so it is even stranger when events that are out of the ordinary happen. We followed the first convention and set ours in an old-fashioned house called Red Hall. It was ideal because it is very large which gives the feeling that anything could be hiding in there and it was built in the 17^th century, which helps our objective to make the audience unsure of when the film is taking place. The doll, the dress and the hall are all of quite an old style, but other parts of the opening contradict it; in the photo of the girl being stalked she is wearing jeans and a T shirt and there are modern newspapers on the floor in the room. I think that this was effective because the confusion of the time in which it takes place is unclear- it could have been recently or a long time ago.

Sound is another important part of the mise-en-scene of a psychological thriller. There will not usually be a lot of dialogue in the opening. I know this because people answering the questionnaire said that they find it builds tension as opposed to having a lot of talking. I have also seen the convention in thriller openings such as ‘No Country for Old Men’ and ‘Alien’, and found it to build tension very well, so I was influenced even more to do it. The soundtrack, or music, can also create an atmosphere when used effectively. For psychological thrillers, the music will usually be ambient and will build along with the action on screen to emphasise the tension. It will usually crescendo as the action reaches its climax. Sometimes the soundtrack is made up of a collection of noises like a soundscape. A perfect example of this is in the opening of ‘Seven’. It is made up of a lot of different sounds like screaming, screeches, thudding etc. This opening was a really big inspiration for me, especially with the soundtrack.

 

We researched on the internet to find a website where we could get appropriate sound effects from. We found one called freeSFX.co.uk and as we knew the sorts of sounds we wanted we were able to find some quite easily. We downloaded a range of them so that we had a lot to choose from. We also recorded some of our own sound effects. I own an electric piano that has sound effect settings on, and one of them was a heartbeat. We used this in the build up to the climax when all of the disturbing images are flashing up on screen. It helps the audience to understand how the protagonist is feeling, to sympathise with them.

Flashbacks and dual narrative are common conventions in editing for psychological thrillers. Flashbacks help to give past background information of the protagonist and the dual narrative can be used to show opposite sides to a story. We challenged the convention of using flashbacks, because we thought that the audience should have a lot of questions that they want answered, and it would be too soon to answer them in the opening through this technique. Also – as discovered at the end of the opening- the girl will not be the main character, so it does not matter as much about what her background was like. It could be said that we used dual narrative, because as the girl enters and walks through the house we see cutaways of things that can be found in the room. This could be a form of dual narrative because two parts of a story are being told, however these are more likely to be classed as cutaways. Dual narrative can make a plot much more interesting, because it will not be linear. Psychological thrillers often begin halfway through an event because it is disorientating for the audience and brings up questions as well. Our thriller follows this because it starts off from seeing the girl going to a house, but we do not know why she is there or where she has come from.

Establishing shots are very common in the openings to psychological thrillers. They help to show the setting for the film, in a lot of cases a vast and isolated location - so when unusual events happen there will not be anyone to know or help. We did film an establishing shot that showed the whole outside of the house where the story is set. In the end we did not use it because we had too much footage of the girl approaching the house and we thought that this dragged out too long, and the audience may lose interest.  Another conventional shot is the mid shot which allows the audience to see the expressions of characters, and know how they are feeling while also seeing what they are doing and what is happening in the background. We used a lot of these shots because they were useful in showing the fearful expression on the girl’s face, but you can still see a lot of the room in which the girl is standing. Close-ups are also used to show expressions and can give a claustrophobic and disorientating feeling. This works well because psychological thrillers are intended to make you feel uncomfortable and uneasy. The only close-up that we used was right at the end when the girl is shot. I think that this gives it more meaning as it highlights how dramatic the moment is, because it is the only time this shot is used. It also shows the shock the girl gets, shown by her stunned expression.

By comparing our opening to that of the thriller film ‘Evil Dead’ you can see the conventions that we used and developed, and others that we broke.

 

On the left is the first shot of our thriller opening- a close up on the girl’s hand covered in blood. This can be seen in ‘Evil Dead’ also, as the girl is walking through a forest with blood dripping down her hand. The convention here is that there is a close-up on a blood covered body part, which builds tension as someone has been injured and there is danger around. One of the differences is that in our shot it is framed so that the hand is central. However in the other thriller the hand is in the right third of the screen, but it is still the focus point.



 

  

We can see similarities in these shots as they both introduce the main female character. It is also difficult to see the girl clearly in each one because of the low key lighting which creates an air of mystery. This means that we followed a convention in narrative because there is a lone female victim in a strange environment (in ours an old house, in the ‘Evil Dead’ a forest). The camerawork is different though, as our shot is still, but in the professional film it is a slow panning shot. We did not follow this convention because it can suggest that the camera is the point of view of someone or something that is watching the girl from further down the corridor. A similarity is that both characters seem to be eager to get somewhere, but are both still hesitant about what they might find.

This is another interesting comparison because both shots are close-ups on the feet as the girl travels further. This is a convention seen in thrillers because –like the shot of the arm- the composition used means that we only see one part of the body. By only seeing parts of the picture we put them together to understand what could be happening. If we do not see all that is happening at once, other things could be going on that we are not aware of, which will make the audience feel on edge. Our shot differs from the one on the right, because another reason for using it was to emphasise the presence of the doll. The viewers’ eyes will be drawn to the doll and will realise it is a significant prop.  

 

A convention of the titles for a psychological thriller is that the text will be a contrasting colour to the background, usually black and white or black and red. This means that the screen will be just two colours, but we broke the convention by having an image as our background. This allowed us to continue the action of the film while having the credits throughout. I think that the image works really well and is far more interesting than just two colours. Text will also usually be bold and in capitals but we did not follow this convention either. We did plan to have the text actually written on the photo, but as we were running out of time we decided to use a font on iMovie. I feel that this did not work as well, because it was not very bold and I’m not sure that the font was suitable; it should have been much larger.

 

We used a popular convention in our opening and that was the protagonist hearing a noise and there is a reaction shot of her being scared. This actually appears in ‘Evil Dead’ as well. It is useful in building tension because there is a chance that someone is following or watching the character. The difference is that in our narrative, it turns out that –this time- the noise was just the door closing and the girl was being paranoid. In ‘Evil Dead’ the girl has actually heard someone that is following her.

 

In ways, this part of our opening followed a convention and in other ways it didn’t. The fact that it was an unusual object/character that is seen a few times and we know it is significant and that it will be of importance later on. In the professional thriller a figure is spotted in the distance, and this could be said to be similar to ours as it is something of importance that appears more and more. The doll in our opening is different to the figure though because it is not a human being, but is assumed to be responsible for the murder at the end. I think it is very effective because it is an inanimate object but appears to move. In ‘Evil Dead’ there a lot more characters, and we decided to only have one human character, because it shows how abandoned the location is and can give an apocalyptic atmosphere as there is no one else around.

These two shots are very similar. They are both over-the-shoulder shots that show a table with blood-covered items on. The convention that we followed here is having blood as a prominent prop, like earlier on the newspaper and on the girl’s hand.

We included a conventional prop- a sacred book. We had a defaced bible that showed how obsessive the antagonist is. In ‘Evil Dead’ they have a book that seems to be from some sort of disturbing cult because when read from, bad things happen.

These two shots show a similarity in the narrative of our thriller opening and that of ‘Evil Dead’. In both stories, the girl that we have been following and that we think is the main character throughout the film is killed at the end of the opening. It is a twist in the story and shows how unpredictable the film is. However, in the professional film it turns out that the girl was possessed all along and had to be killed in order to save others, while in our film the girl is still completely innocent and was wickedly murdered.