Evaluation question 1

EVALUATION QUESTION 1“In what ways does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?”

Our opening sequence is a psychological Thriller. A psychological thriller is a Thriller story which emphasises the psychology of its character and their unstable emotional states. In our Thriller, our main character clearly shows how

frantic he appears and this type of psychological Thriller can be engaging to watch. In my research, I found some similar films that challenged and used similar conventions used in my Thriller.

SAW V

• SAW V was a premiered in 2008 as a Canadian-

American horror film.

• It was directed by David Hackl and written by

Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan.

• This is the fifth SAW movie of the Saw franchise, and

was released on October 23, 2008 in Australia and

October 24, 2008 in North America.

In these two scenes, both characters are presented with keys above their head. Arguably, SAW V is a horror

movie and The Salvatore is a Thriller, however both are put through their paces. In both scenes, the similar

shots show their daunting task above them. In SAW V, the scene involves

team work and survival of the fittest, whereas in our Thriller, only one person is involved. The camera

angles in these scene are similar, as the mise-en-scene long shot shows the keys above the characters. With

the keys above them, it creates a more intimidating feel for the scene. Moreover, in these similar scenes,

there is an element of a time limit. In SAW V, they have to complete the

tasks before each other; presuming that the last one dies so they are all very frantic. In The Salvatore, the

character can hear gun shots being fired and he knows that he must

escape before he gets shot. The idea of the countdown engages the audience more and the frantic

atmosphere makes it more engaging for the audience to watch.

JAMES BOND - SKYFALL• Skyfall, released in 2012 is part of the long running

series of films, James Bond. It is the twenty-third

James Bond film produced by Eon Productions. It

features Daniel Craig in his third performance as

James Bond, and Javier Bardem as Raoul Silva, the

film's villain.

• It was directed by Sam Mendes and written by

Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan.

• It was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

and Columbia Pictures.

We based our character on a James Bond-type of spy. In the movie Skyfall, James

Bond shows his vulnerable side and provokes the

audience to empathise with him. In our opening

sequence, the aim was to make the audience engage with the character, as you would want him to escape.

As you can see in both screen grabs, the spy

characters are both dressed smartly, even though their attire is not appropriate for

the situation they are in. The two characters are similar as

they both appear to be in complete control but at some

point in each Thriller, they become helpless. The

characters’ behaviours differ from each other as James

Bond never shows emotion and calmly gets himself out of situations, whereas the character in our sequence

panics easily when he thinks he is in danger.

HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the first Harry

Potter film in the series.

• It was released in 2001 and was a fantasy film directed by

Chris Columbus and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

• It is based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling.

The film was written by Steve Kloves and produced by

David Heyman.

• The story follows Harry Potter's first year at Hogwarts as he

discovers that he is a famous wizard and begins his

magical education.

In both of these scenes, the mise-en-scene is very similar. In both of the scenes,

a task lies ahead for all of the characters. In

Harry Potter, the genre is very fantasy family type of movie and the keys added a magical effect, much like the rest of the movie. In the making of our

Thriller, we used clear wire to hang the keys from the ceiling. We

used this to create the effect that they were floating. Obviously we could not edit it like in Harry Potter, however

it had that same surreal and dream-like

effect.

THE MAZE RUNNER• The Maze Runner is the first book in a young-adult

post-apocalyptic dystopian science fiction pentalogy

of the same name by James Dashner.

• The novel was published on October 7, 2009, by

Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, and

was made into a 2014 major motion picture by 20th

Century Fox.

• The novel spawned two sequels: The Scorch Trials

(2010) and The Death Cure (2011).

The two contrasting characters are put into similar isolated

situations. Both characters are stuck somewhere they do not

want to be and both are awoken with unease. However, both background stories are very different. In our Thriller, the

situation seems more realistic than The Maze Runner, which is more of a dystopian aspect. In

The Maze Runner scene, the lift is moving which gives the character

a sense of distortion and inThe Salvatore, the character has just woken up which creates a surreal

effect for him. They are very contrasting personalities,

however the claustrophobic space makes them react in similar ways.

The lighting in the maze runner gives the illusion of freedom, as there is light shining through the elevator. This was effective for

the audience as it made it seem like there was hope of escaping for the character. Contrasting to that, in our Thriller we only had

artificial light to create the effect of no escaping and give no clues

as to how the character can escape (apart from using the

keys.)

WHAT CHANGES HAVE YOU MADE AND WHY? WHAT IS ARGUABLY MORE EFFECTIVE AND WHY?• In our Thriller, we did not use all of the Thriller conventions that

are stereotypically used in films.

• Firstly, we decided not to have loud non-diegetic music in the background. We wanted to keep it as simplistic as possible, so nothing detracts from the Thriller itself. We only had water dripping throughout and gunshots of people dying. We thought this created an eerie atmosphere for the audience and added a horror element.

• Moreover, instead of having a big and dramatic set,we only used a minimalistic room. One of the reasons was due to our low budget but we thought the small and intimate room made it more personal and made the audience empathise with the character more so they would want to keep watching to see what happens to him at the end.

CONCLUSION• Watching other well-known Thrillers, our group realised that we missed some

vital Thriller conventions in order to make it better.

• If we were to re-edit our Thriller, it would be faster paced and less swearing would be shown. Our Thriller was quite slow paced which detracted some of the thrill and it could have been better to machete more tense. Moreover, the amount of dialogue sometimes took away from the mise-en-scene and mislead the audience’s attention.

• Similarly looking at other Thriller’s, made the group realise that the lighting in our Thriller was too bright and created a more friendly atmosphere, rather than haunting. Even though SAW V is a horror, the lighting added a thrill to the scene which would have been effective in our Thriller too.

• However, I am happy with how our Thriller compares to big budget films like SAW. From this, we were able to take on all of the feedback and know how to improve for many other media products come in the future.