Evaluation- Activity 1

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

Screengrab 1:

This Screengrab shows the entrance scene of the opening of our thriller. As this is the opening shot, it establishes where the action will take place and the surroudings of the House, Car, Garage, Drive and neighbourhood. It so far, portrays that he is an ordinary man arriving home from work. The Large 4x4 car, shows that he could be a family man and could be quite wealthy. The freshly mown grass shows his maticulous nature and how he could be a man with alot of time on his hands and is a man who could be incontrol of the household. The lighting is kept looking natural and early evening as if he's just came back from work.

Screengrab 2:

In this screen grab, the location has narrow and enclosed walls making the scene feel more suspense. The long black cloak shown on the murderer is used on every scene involving Oliver. We did this so it was created as a character identifier. The coat contributes to his blank style of life and to help hide his actual personality with dull clothing. The hallway is empty and clutter free to symbolise his empty family life. The blank white walls shows his lack of creative imput to his home and also exaggerates his perfectionist lifestyle and also his slightly psychotic side. The lighting in this screengrab is meant to appear as natural lighting to show the regularity of his everyday life in his home but we have added the 'Day into night' video effect to keep the continuiety of the lighting throughout the entire clip.

Screen grab 3:

In this screen grab the lighting is again naturalistic with the simple 'day into night' effect to make it look later in the day. The shot of the back garden establishes that he is a normal man living in a normal house with neighbours and nice surroundings which is the opposite of what he is really like and it doesn't show any signs of his psychopathic side. The garden has a birdhouse and flowers which shows a bit of femininity meaning he could be living with a female friend. The grass in the garden is neatly trimmed and mowed which shows he might be a bit of a perfectionist and a person with alot of time on his hands.

Screen grab 4:



In this screen grab, the actor is looking suspicious as it shows him looking over his shoulder to check if anyone can see him this means that he would be covering something that he doesn't want anyone else to see. In comparison to the screen grab of the front garden looking neat and tidy, The planks of wood shown on the right side of the shed shows that towards the back of the house, things get messier showing that he doesn't want people to see the back garden. The high fence and trees shown in this scene shows that it's not easy to see into his garden making him appear a bit cautious and secretive. The font that appears in all the screengrabs look smooth and innocent but the fading effective makes it seem mysterious.

Screen grab 5:

This screen grab is a section of our shed scene. The lighting used in the shed is very dark to add and expand on the tense and scary atmosphere- We needed the lighting to be dark too make sure the postings on the wall look creepier. The newspaper cuttings are used to scare the audience as it makes it more mysterious of why this man has cuttings of murders on his shed wall. They are ripped up messily which is in contrast to his perfectionist nature of what the audience was first introduced to. This makes it seem like he has a pyschotic side to him. The map on the cabinet door was to show how he carefully plans his murders. The petrol container was there to make it look like he could be dangerous and that he could use it as a weapon in one of his murders.

Screen grab 6:

This screen grab is of the second flashback scene. It is filmed in a wooded area surrounded by tall trees and crisped leaves which also shows that he had planned of where he could hide the evidence of the murder. The house in the background shows the domestic and local setting of the murder. The clip was edited with the 'dream' effect to make it look like it was a flashback from the past. The location was quite dark at the time so there was alot of shadows making the scene look more creepy. The leaves were purposely placed infront of the camera to make the area seem like its sheltered and well hidden to hide evidence. The low angle shot we used helped mystify our murder victim till the very last shots of showing her face and body.

Screen grab 7:

This is the inside of the yearbook. The black and white portrait photos shows that it was taken years ago when technology hasn't really updated. The dark lighting used in this shot was great to make the scene more eerie in contrast to the scene in the light. The red coloured ring represented danger and blood which is a typical convention of a thriller and signified that the victim was going to get killed. The close up shot of the page in the yearbook shows what victim(s) he is focused at and also shows the point of view from the murderer.

Screen grab 8:

This shot is a point of view shot. We used this shot to make the audience feel like they are in the scene or watching the murder taking place. The angle is at a perfect position as the main feature, which is the murderer, is in the centre of the screen so your eye is drawn to him but also the surroundings. The victim is reading a newspaper which is a normal thing to do and shows she's not expecting to get murdered. It also shows that she is vunerable.

The dream effect was added again as it was a flashback into his foggy mind.

Screen grab 9:

The screen grab is of the opening title which is positioned at the end of the clip. We used a simple fade in transition because we wanted to make an impact but didn't want it to look too dramatic or to break the contiunety of the shot. We used a bold white font to stand out on the black background to keep it simple yet effective. We used American typewriter font because we felt that it looked proffesional and school like.

Other ways that we have followed the conventions of a typical thriller are by….

-Using the signature long black cloak for character identity as a murderer. This is in comparison to Patrick Bateman in ‘American psycho’, Who also worn the long black cloak and lead a double life. We thought this worked very well for a thriller.

-We also looked at the opening titles of Se7en by David Fincher for inspiration. Se7en has a similar storyline about a book with crossed out photos of victims. We have used the idea of newspaper cuttings of headings such as ‘Murder’, ‘torture’, ‘Girl aged 21 stabbed to death’ as we thought it would be a creepy idea that a person who had just murdered the victim have pinned up the headlines in the newspapers of their death.

-We have used the typical intense music that all thriller movies use. Our product’s opening has a high pitched piano sound as a background noise to hold tension and suspense then a deep piano tone when something dramatic happens.