Task 1: Conventions of thrillers

How does your product use, develop or challenge conventions of real media products?

In our thriller we used two main props: an axe and a knife. The reason why we chose to use these two items its because not only are the obvious symbols of violence but they are also things that are used by families all the time. This enhanced our main idea of lulling the audience into an almost false sense of security as they are unsure whether they should see the axe and knife as tools or weapons, consequently going against the convention of them being deadly objects as we wanted them to be also seen as normal household objects. Now an obvious film to compare this to is The Shining as both items are used in the film as weapons (and probably as tools initially). Also, The Shining has a rather similar quality to our thriller as it involves a man trying to kill his wife and child (whilst in ours the wife tries to kill the husband).

For our actors we went against the normal thriller conventions and ideologies. We did this through the plot. We set our male character (traditionally the powerful survivor in such thrillers) to be strong through the log chopping scene but then undermine it when he is killed by the wife; making him seem weak by not being able to put up a good fight. For our female character we set her up as a stereotypically domestic woman (in the kitchen cooking a meal) but then completely undermined the stereotype by showing her as a fierce and terrifyingly strong character. In short, we made our characters seem like traditionally stereotypical characters, but we then completely undermined the conventions by flipping them on their head. An example of a film similar to this is the original Paranormal Activity a film with an ending almost identical to ours. In the ending the woman is possessed and the man, despite his strength, is powerless against her and is killed.

We also did the same thing with lighting. Using the same example from before, Paranormal Activity, we can see how they chose to go with no light at all and only being able to see through a camera adding tension as the audience cannot see as well and consequently may be aware that something may be in the room with them but they cant see it. For ours however, we yet again went against the convention of darkness in thrillers as we wanted to catch the audience off guard by making them think that what they were seeing was a perfect family image. To do this we lighted everything naturally, using light from both the kitchen and from outside further providing that normal and domestic look.

As for our settings, we did go with the convention of isolation with our thriller. We wanted to make the locations seem isolated as the audience would be therefore able to immediately acknowledge and understand this as they are aware of isolated areas being usually scary due to the fact that usually no-one can help the characters. We see the isolation in our thriller through our opening shots and through our establishing shot of the house. A film that similarly uses a house in the middle of the woods is the remake of the 1981 Evil Dead film.

Four our kitchen scene, we used a popular convention in thrillers which is when you can see something that other characters cannot. In our thriller, we can see the wifes emotionless and empty expression, suggesting that something is wrong. Meanwhile, the husband is completely unaware of this and consequently doesnt realise that something is wrong. This dramatic irony is very effective at increasing the tension in the scene as we are unable to warn the husband about the wife. A scene that is identical to this one (that also uses abodes to this convention) is Side Effects. It also involves a wife killing her husband against her will and the husband is also completely unaware of this even though we are. Here is the clip from Side Effects (at 34:45): http://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects-2013.html

We also followed the convention of juxtaposing low angle shots and high angle shots to show whos in power. However, we do go against gender stereotypes here as we use the high and low angle shots to show the woman in power and the man as the weaker character in an attempt to do something different for the audience so they dont see the same thing over and over again. Yet again Side Effects is similar to this as they do the exact same thing in their stab scene. Here is the clip (at 35:45): http://viooz.co/movies/16271-side-effects2013.html

Anna Clip: http://youtu.be/OCyFG6SklJE?t=1m18s

Jaws Clip: http://youtu.be/rW23RsUTb2Y?t=1m37s

For our thriller we decided to slightly go against the normal convention of using rather clich musical instruments to signify that something bad is going to happen (e.g. violins). Instead, we took a stock audio clip then distorted it to create a strange and indescribable noise. This still in my opinion however gave the audience a sense that something was wrong as the strange music combined with the slow movement of the knife started to build tension. A fantastic example of something that uses a slow non-diegetic song to create tension is the Jaws theme. Whilst it does use conventional instruments it still creates the tension in the audience as we all associate that music with the shark.

We also went with the convention of adding ambient sound to our clips to add to the verisimilitude. We felt like this was extremely necessary as it made the world more believable and therefore people would be more immersed in the clip. Examples of the sounds used are birds singing, wind blowing, etc. This is of course used by all sorts of media products set in the countryside and is rarely ignored for the reasons mentioned above. Here is our example when we use it in our opening/establishing shots (bar the axe noises): http://youtu.be/OCyFG6SklJE. Here is a clip from The Village where they used ambient sounds (wind and birds) to create the isolated feel (picture above): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hVevQea4h0 (clip at 6:13 - 6:34)

Another example of editing in our thriller is the lifting of the sounds of the axe and the knife in the sound mix to emphasise yet again increase tension by creating the loud noises of the weapons. Whilst films of many types do this technique in all sorts of films (The Shining, Side Effects, Halloween) the one Ive decided to pick is the opening scene from Scream when Drew Barrymore is killed at the beginning. Whilst the sound isnt as lifted as much as it is in ours you can tell that it has been lifted slightly. In our video the sounds I am talking about is at 0:00 until 0:18 (axe noise) and the knife sound is at 1:20 until 1:25. For Scream it is at the beginning of this video: http://youtu.be/gVgsadEybgQ

For our thriller we wanted to go against the convention of letting the audience start to get to know the main character as we wanted to really catch the audience out by not using regular film conventions. Here, we let our male character have the most screentime, tricking the audience into trying to understand him, what hes doing, who he is, etc. However, when the kitchen scene occurs, we quickly kill off the character in an attempt to shock the audience as it is such an unexpected event. A film that similarly uses this is the opening from The Sixth Sense. We are introduced to Bruce Willis character at the beginning in what seems to be a normal, domestic environment. However, suddenly an ex-patient comes out of nowhere and shoots Willis, killing him on the spot. This was a big shock to the audience as it was so sudden and unexpected. Here is the link to our thriller: http://youtu.be/OCyFG6SklJE. Here is the link to the clip from the beginning of The Sixth Sense: http://youtu.be/SZi3BmrUVrc.

One last thing that we did to go against movie conventions is to have a slow editing pace at the murder scene. Rather again like the stabbing scene in Side Effects, we used a very slow editing pace to change things up a bit. We didnt want this death scene to be overly dramatic and seen as a big deal. The fact that it is done so casually is what I think makes it effective as it is so unusual and so out of the ordinary that it really surprises and shocks the audience. Here again is that clip (same time as before): http://viooz.co/movies/16271-sideeffects-2013.html

Also, for the titles used in our thriller, we went with using the Trajan Bold font. This is because it is used in many thriller (such as Insidious which uses a rather similar type of text in its title sequence). We decided to do this as it is a very popular font due to its pointed serifs, which almost look like knives reminding the audience what the tone of the film will be like. Also, we chose to not put our titles on a black/blank screen. This was because we wanted to not break up the tension being built up here.