Question 1

EvaluationQ1) In what ways does does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Costume: I used the generic convention of the femme fatale, with slightly smudged lipstick, referencing but challenging the idea of vulnerability with her casually modern outfit and her determined persona. Referencing Psycho’s Marian with

having her being determined and quite strong-willed.

Body Language: The convention of an anxious and nervous female is something we used, yet not portraying her to be

weak. Instead, her relentless attempts to escape associates her as someone who is a strong-willed and determined,

referencing aspects of Thelma and Louise in their strength, power and authority.

Props: The Newspaper we used to frame, in the foreground, the bottom of the shot where our male character enters the house for the first time in the background.

The prop was our creative way to subtly introduce the title of our film into the scene. Also, as it’s presumed the house is the male character’s the idea of ‘The

Unseeable’ resting on his furniture may be seen to reflect his intentions and sums up this character:

How he’s unnoticed by society, and goes around unsuspected, when underneath this, is the hostage of the young woman.

Costume: I used the thriller convention go generic character archetypes; the male suit costume relates to him being

unsuspecting and a ‘normal’ looking character, with the idea of him walking back home on a regular day. A sense of

sophistication with the suit costume also adding to the idea of him being a regular person, someone you wouldn’t

associate with what appears to happen.

Body Language: I used the convention of our male character appearing to be a respectable man, who actually is labelled as a dangerous misogynist. Relating to the character persona created appearing normal and unsuspecting, similar

to Norman Bates in Psycho.The audience is positioned with the trapped female, referencing of the

2008 ‘Elisabeth Fritzl Case’ in Austria, a seemingly normal household was

the location of her 24 year entrapment, her Father responsible. Making connections with this male to our own male character; seemingly

normal, who’s in fact a monster.

Also referencing Harry Limes in The Third Man being good

company and witty, yet is involved with the black market and the

death of children. On the surface appearing approachable, yet deeper this darker and more

dangerous temperament.

EvaluationQ1) In what ways does does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Location: We conformed to the thriller convention of a small, confined alleyway. Dimly lit, with ambient street lamps, the street damp and quite grimy. Conforming to the thriller conventions of the location being

darkened and developing the male character to reflect the darkness also, with hidden intentions and connotations of mystery, leaving the audience to question his motives.

This references ‘Essex Boys’ with a similarly dark and desolate location at the beginning of the film. Establishing the criminal underworld and reflects the wrong-doings that are to come; something we tried to capture and twist for our thriller opening. We chose to use a lonely, isolated pathway and one-source back lighting to convey a similar mood. Reinforcing the reference to Jason Locke with his psychopathic lack of

empathy and morals, emphasising his predatory nature.

Lighting: The choice of lighting in the female shots was mainly non-ambient key lighting, with us having to arrange lighting presence in order to make the footage readable but also dimly

lit. The choice to film at dusk pays tribute to the conventions of noir films; the darkness reflects the corrupt moral landscape which our characters operate in.

For our female character, the use of a small claustrophobic locations emphasised the panic and tension created by her entrapment. The classic thriller convention of small spaces is

something we knew would be successful in portraying the young woman’s fear of where she is and the unknown about what will happen. An extreme example of this referenced is in ‘Kill Bill 2’ where The Bride is trapped in her grave, limited to barely any movement, yet she still

manages to escape the horrible situation.

We used the convention associated with noir thrillers of chiaroscuro lighting, a classic thriller convention, throughout parts of our thriller,

referencing The Third Man, the male character being just a darkened figure. The outside shots of the male character are lit with ambient back-lighting, a thriller convention, from street lamps down the alleyway. This

backlighting silhouettes his frame well, connotes his anonymity. Referencing the introduction of Jason Locke, in ‘Essex Boys’ with the

minimalistic back-lighting, the chiaroscuro look; a convention of thriller films

The use of the lighting coming under the door was using a lamp to shine under, emphasising the approach of our male character. I think the outcome was very effective with the golden light a contrast to the darkened.

EvaluationQ1) In what ways does does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Sound: Some of the aspects creating the opening to our thriller film were given to members of our team, James Coy

created and edited together our soundtrack. Then we individually edited the soundtrack to fit our own thriller

opening edits. I think it compliments the onscreen activity brilliantly. The building intensity with the eye opening and the

end of the piece.

I kept all of our diegetic sound when filming, sometimes increasing and enhancing the volume of the clips where the male character is walking in order to make the sound clearer to the audience. Especially the footsteps, something so normal being

contradicted with the hostage situation and growing suspense. Similar to Animal Kingdom (see film clip below this embedment); creating this sense of creepiness, the audience knowing something isn’t quite right. Animal Kingdom use the

emphasis from the song ‘All Out Of Love’ enhancing what you’re witnessing visually. This can be applied to our own film with the soundtrack growing in suspense, this convention using ambient sound, the footsteps and the females’ frantic escape

attempts add to the drama and thrill of the production. The use of the convention; a sound-bridge, which continues over the candidate information and the James Rollins quote, the

sound of the male character’s footsteps over the top of the fading text. This then matches visually to his movements, anticipating the scene and who and where the person is before you see him,

holding the tension and creating anxiety for the audience.

Referencing Psycho (see film clip below this embedment), in the famous shower scene where Marian is murdered, also has this build in intensity, reflecting that the audience are becoming apprehensive and expectant of the action which will occur;

similarly, the use of the visual eye also connects Hitchcock's film to our own.

Narrative Structure: My film uses the convention of a linear narrative structure, similar to other thrillers like Essex Boys, Animal Kingdom or Psycho where the focus is much more

centred around the character and portrayal of the action.

Unlike ‘Memento’ (Christopher Nolan - 2000) which had a reverse narrative structure and focused on mind games of the plot, indicating the unreliability of memory, which wouldn’t appear appropriate for our production.

Remaining chronological in the order of the events, cutting between male and female, allows the audience to remain interested and keeping on their toes

about what’s happening, being left with the tension of a cliffhanger.

Camera Angles: When filming, we used the classic thriller convention of extreme close-ups;

EvaluationQ1) In what ways does does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

the inter-textual reference of Marian Crane in Psycho, also with an extreme close-up of her eye, the camera on a slight tilt, the same

footage used twice is disorientating to the audience with the cliffhanger looping back to the start, the viewer questioning the action they've just seen, which as a thriller, I think works well.

Another thriller convention in terms of camera angles is a low-angled shot, connotations of the character being authoritative and has high

control. The audience having to look up to them. Our male character is often shown through a low-angled camera shot, connotations with him

having the more powerful stance.

Over-the-shoulder shots are a convention we used a few times during our filming, they are often used to connote placement, status or the audience

taking sides with a character. A high angled almost over-the-shoulder shot is an intertextual reference to ‘Once Upon A Time America’ when Eve pulls back

her duvet to see a body outline made of bullets in her mattress.

As well as an over-the-shoulder shot with our male character so the audience perceive the danger the female character is in.

This comes with an inter-textual reference being built into our film from ‘Once Upon A Time America’ with an exaggerated worms-eye view shot, although these shots are slightly different; they create a similar effect. The dominance of masculinity reflect the patriarchal society where

men have greater power and authority. This is reflected through men with low-angled shots while a female in thrillers doesn’t necessarily have the same power given.

It places the viewer with the character, making them feel involved with the scene and what’s happening. We placed the audience with our female character with an over-the-shoulder shot

when she tries the locked handle, kick-starting that dread and fear of her fate.

EvaluationQ1) In what ways does does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

‘Baskerville’ and ‘Kefa’ are the two fonts I used for inserting text for our credits.I decided to use a proverb, the quote from James

Rollins’ The Judas Strain novel, I loved how simplistic the quote was and how it foreshadows

the rest of our opening.

Transitions of text appearing for our production information fades from a black background into the moving image; overlapping the information,

visually leading the audience into the first scene of the film.The placement of the text was also inspired by being part of the scene and not pulling distraction

completely away from what’s happening on screen.Colour Correction: I did quite a bit of colour correction, only changing small things, in order to make

it visually ore appealing. Altering the colour tint; for the female scenes adding blue and the male scenes sharpening the image and having some red tints created a light change which helped to get

across the mood we wanted to reflect.

Original Edited Original OriginalEdited Edited

The quote highlights how the door is incredibly symbolic and important in connecting the two characters to the audience. This is a convention which

Tarantino uses in order to indicate a quirky style and the black humour used, as in Kill Bill 2 the villains can be laughed at and feared.