AS MEDIA STUDIESQ1: In what ways does your media product use,

develop or challenge films & conventions?

L a r a L a w a l

What was the task?The task was to create a thriller opening revolving around the theme of thrillers. This was the project for our AS coursework. The requirements included:

• A maximum of 2 minutes of footage• Research – existing thrillers• Planning – Mise En Scene, Cinematography, characters, target

audience, group roles, storyboard, narrative, etc• Filming – times, dates, actors/actresses, pre-production

paperwork • Editing – conventions, timing, effects, transitions• Sound – diegetic, non-diegetic, music, sound effects, timings, etc• Evaluation

Our aim was to incorporate as much of our learning as possible into the opening, while ensuring it is effective, conventional and encouraging of our intended audience response.

During the process, certain conventions of the typical thriller were challenged by our own ideas and concepts.

Generic conventions of a thrillerIn every thriller, there are certain conventions that are expected. This is due to the success of these ideas in past film history, and what people can associate with their lives or the outside world. The general conventions can be broken down into mise en scene depending on the sub-genre; such as a crime thriller compared to a sci-fi thriller.

There is usually a weapon of some sort. These are portrayed in a negative way, like through killing somebody. A character that holds a knife can automatically be interpreted as an antagonist. According to sub-genres, a gun is often found in crime thrillers; a knife found in slasher thrillers.

Location is another important convention. It sets the mood and tells information about the characters to the audience. A lab is common in sci-fi thrillers, because of the technological atmosphere inside it – including tools, pictures and machinery we link to science. Psychological thrillers on the other hand may use a dark and dingy room to match the uneasy presence of a demented character.

Colour as a convention appears to add a connotation to characters, setting or iconography. To add to the thrill of a thriller, there can be either light or dark colours – dark colours in moments of tension and light colours in moments of action. Therefore light colours suit an action thrillers whereas dark colours suit a psychological.

The lighting in thrillers can vary similar to how colour does. Natural or high key lighting are appropriate in rom-com thrillers, as narratives involved are more realistic than a crime thriller, which would be associated with low-key lighting. Members of the audience may lean toward natural lighting more than low lighting because daily life is rarely dark or dreary.

Generic conventions within my thrillerIn my thriller, some of the typical conventions have been shifted to suit the scenario. I recognized the importance of original ideas, so instead of taking concepts from secondary research of thrillers, I developed them into a particular version for my production.

The weapon used to kill Ivy is a gun. Typical of a crime thriller, but the meaning behind it is different. Lara is not just an antagonist, she in an anti-hero. This means that her actions were due to the belief that Ivy was a potential threat, or antagonist. The power of the gun seems almost meaningless once Ivy is back and Lara becomes the victim.

My location choices make a direct link to thriller conventions. For Lara, she’s placed in a slightly dark and empty room, with one chair, and white walls. Typically, mentally unstable characters are in a similar situation. On a deeper analysis, the white walls around her a neutral which emphasizes that she isn’t normal. Both Lara and Ivy are within the dark alleyway when she is killed, which resembles Lara as the current antagonist but foreshadows Ivy’s next appearance as an antagonist.

Colour in my thriller was largely based around character representation. The clothes that they wore were in sync with the common thriller characters. For example, Lara wore grey in her empty room – representing her anti-hero status, both good and bad, as grey is in-between black and white. However, a slight challenge of conventions is Max – though we clearly know he is not an antagonist, he is dressed in a black shirt while facing Lara; which could represent him as the reason for her miserable future.

My lighting choices suit the scenes according to how much tension there is at the point. In the Max scene, there re having a casual conversation, accompanied by natural outdoor lighting. The Professor also has a somewhat natural lighting, but because of the situation (the audience are wondering what he is up to), his has been made slightly darker than initial filming to indicate something serious.

Iconography - gun Setting – dark alley

Setting – empty room Colour – grey jumper

Colour – black top Lighting - netural

Conventions of target audienceCharacters are an important part of my production as they can ‘reach out’ to social groups within the target audience, by the way that they are portrayed.

Ivy is a character that young people within the audience can relate to. This is because, we meet her when she finds her relationship ruined. This situation is common amongst the youth. Her emotions about this are shown through her mise en scene in the last few shots; her white dress indicating true innocence, but her dark hair covering her up which is the anger she has to cover up the hurt. When we see her face, her eyes are red, which could be a metaphor for not believing what she saw and being scarred.

Young people could also relate to Max, as he was shown to be in a relationship with Ivy. Many teenagers and young women get cheated on or left, so the offenders within audience may link Max’s situation to how they have dealt with their past relationships. The fact that Max doesn’t appear again after the outside scene is like a representation of reality; a young man leaving his girlfriend.

Lara Is similar to Ivy – though she was the other side of the affair, she too was dating Max, which is now lost. During her flashbacks, she has waves of emotions over the events – which happen commonly in real life. For example, the teenage pregnancy. She could also be conventional toward a niche audience, perhaps people that believe in ghosts or believe they have seen a ghost, in relation to Ivy’s re-appearance.

The Professor is a summary of the whole audience. Everyone is going to wonder what is happening and what they are going to find out; much shown by his actions – analysing the papers and computer, with facial expressions that look scrutinizing, surprised and confused.

Mise en scene – red eyes & pale

Mise en scene – white dress

Target audience – represent curiosity

Conventions of opening creditsThe opening credits appeared during the course of the Professor’s scene, in which he his analysing Lara’s file. The credits aid the build up of tension up until the beginning of Lara’s outburst scene. To make the opening credits for my thriller, I developed ideas from my secondary research of Se7en.

Conventional credits could only be done once looking at the typography. So, I took into consideration the colour, font, size, spacing and effects layered on top.

The effects we added onto our credits were:• Minimal Optics – it gave the text a shadowy and bold look, to make it

stand out, and appear thriller-like• Bad TV – this effect made the text shake and jitter, like static on a TV.

The name is self-explanatory, and the appearance of it could foreshadow the two static transitions of Lara then Ivy.

• Colour – the text is red and blue and white, and flickers between the three. It represents the good, the bad and a neutral.

• Spacing – on the final credit, the title of the production, the characters expand then tighten up again. This could represent the actual ‘characters’, who were once all in the same situation but end up in separate lives.

Conventions of characters

Lara | Lara, girlfriend/offender/criminal/pregnant insane womancharacter role: anti-herogender stereotype: slim, British, dark hair, split personalitycostume: light neutral colours e.g. grey tophair & makeup: frizzy hair and smudged makeup at the institution / straightened hair and light makeup in the flashbacksbody language & facial expression: casual happy body language and facial expressions in 1st flashback / overwhelming happiness in 2nd flashback / nervous body language and attempted expressionless face in 3rd flashback / crazy unpredictable behaviour in the mental wardrepresented as: firstly good but an offender of the wife, then a criminal, then a mad womanrole within the narrative: demented woman in a mental institution being observed by a professor. her story is revealed in the flashbacks showing her as a home wrecker and a murderer

Mr. Cosgrove | Professor, observer of Lara character role: protagonistage: 30-40gender stereotype: British, 'smart', maturecostume: white shirt, striped tie, grey/black trousers, glasseshair & makeup: neat hair, no makeupbody language & facial expression: straight posture, elbows on desk, calm yet intrigued facial expressionrepresented as: the intended decoder of Lara's behaviour, with good intentions, though he seems useless after the audience gain understanding and he still strugglesrole within the narrative: he observes Lara to try determine why she is mentally unstable. His perspective is different from hers.

Max | Max (husband)gender stereotype: British, tall, intelligent, maturecostume: smart clothing e.g. white shirt and black tiehair & makeup: neat, no product, no makeup body language & facial expression: casual body language, happy facial expressions, clear ignorance of the presence of his wiferepresented as: secret over of the anti-hero and subject of her reasoning's for murderrole within the narrative: has a secret affair with the anti-hero

Fatima | Ivy (named after poison Ivy, conventional as the is the antagonist), wife/dead womancharacter role: antagonistgender stereotype: alive = slim, British, good / dead = pale, slim, intimidatingcostume: alive = formally casual / dead = ragged dirty white dress, barefoothair & makeup: alive = neat straight hair, plain natural makeup / dead = ragged messy hair, powdered face, contoured facial structure with blood contacts body language & facial expression: casual body language in flashback, then shocked e.g. shaking; facial expression traumatised / intimidating and elegant body language when dead; no expression on face to indicate being deadrepresented as: initially a victim, transitioning into a dead antagonistrole within the narrative: sees the affair, gets murdered by the offender, comes back for the woman, as a ghost