In what ways does my media product use, develop, challenge forms

and conventions of real media products?

The Production Company;

The Production Company to the left is the one we chose for our film.
The One to the right is from Donnie Darko.

You can immediately see similarities via the way they are both
presented. Donnie Darko is a psychological thriller and the dark
background and small white writing is suggestive of the genre.
Similarly, our film is a thriller and we wanted to create an ominous
effect with an element of menace. As The film Donnie Darko
manages to achieve this, we think that we have been successful in
the format we chose to present our Production Company Logo. It is
this aspect that allows our product to use the conventions of a real
media product successfully.
 The simplicity of these production company’s logos is what has
made them so successful. We decided to keep it simple because that
allows the audience to anticipate what is about to happen and allows
them to consider what is about to happen rather than being too
focused on too much going on.

The Titles;

Accordingly, the title of our film is very conventional. Similar to the

way we chose to present our production company, we consisted with
simplicity and a thriller-themed title.

The Godfather is deemed the number one Thriller Movie of all time
according to http://www.imdb.com/chart/thriller . And as you can
see, the directors of the film chose to keep the title very simple. ‘The
Godfather’ gives nothing away and that is exactly what the audience
want- they want to watch the film rather than be made aware of
what they are going to see from the titles. This keeps the audience in
suspense and wanting to watch more. Again, we chose to keep the
background black as this is a colour associated with fear and
suspense.
Continually, our title ‘Deceit’ makes the audience ask questions
which is what any good film title should do. The audience want to
know who, what, why, when and how. This means that our film is
conventional of the thriller genre and would meet the criteria to
being successful.

The setting/location;

Sin City uses the backdrop of Basin City, almost universally referred
to by the nickname Sin City, is a fictional town in the American west.
The producers have chosen to select a female standing alone
overlooking the city to create suspense, this is created by her
miniscule body in comparison to the largeness of the buildings.
Continuously, everything is black and white bar her dress which is
red. This signifies and element of danger and that either people who
encounter her need to be cautious, or she is going to be involved
with something dangerous.

In our film, we used the backdrop of London City. We chose this

location as it is renowned for its character. We decided that filming
at night and using the lights from the city would be the best time to
film as these elements would be the most successful ingredients in
making the setting. We wanted the setting to be believable and we
thought London Bridge would be a place people worldwide could
relate to. We used the monstrous and daunting houses of parliament
to diminish Chloe’s figure- Chloe is the victim of a love affair gone
wrong in our film and we wanted to suggest this by playing with
proportions in context to one another.

We thought that the lights reflecting onto the water contrasting with
the dark bleak sky was very effective as it created a certain Je ne Sais
qua.

COSTUMES;

The character of Cleo is very promiscuous and is sleeping with

Chloe’s boyfriend behind her back. In order to make it clear that
Cleo is this was inclined; we chose to dress her seductively. We
clothed her in a short off the shoulder jumper which accentuated her
curves.

Similarly, Rachel McAdams who plays ‘Regina George’ is also dressed

provocatively. Though Mean Girls is a comedy, the essence of
promiscuity is still present and that was the most important aspect
when it came to costumes and what would be appropriate for Cleo’s
character.
We chose to dress Cameron in a suit and a coat. We dressed him
formally to suggest that he is being led astray by his secret lover.
Connectively, we wanted to make him appeal to a female audience
we thought dressing him smartly could achieve this as it represents
his masculinity and power as a man.

We chose to dress Chloe in a black dress as she is the character that

is suffering. Black connotes death, mourning and sadness, and the
latter is what we wanted to achieve.

Overall, I think our costumes were very successful in establishing

characters and genre and I feel that they were all very appropriate.

Editing

The next step in making our film opening like existing media products
was editing. Thriller films are renowned for high quality, high budget
editing techniques.

For example; the Matrix is known for popularising the use of a visual
effect known as ‘bullet time’ which allows the viewer to explore a
moment progressing in slow-motion as the camera appears to orbit
around the scene at normal speed. The budget for this film was
extreme and everything from the actors to the editing was very
professional and extremely spectacular. As we did not have
anywhere near the same amount of money and time to create such
effects we took a simple but effective approach.

We wrote a love letter from Cameron to Chloe which expressed that

he would love her always. This was clearly written at a time when he
was not sleeping with other girls and was a letter than meant a lot to
Chloe. We overlaid the letter on the shot of Chloe ripping it up. We
filmed the letter first and filmed Chloe ripping it when we were
happy with the shots we had filmed of the letter intact.

We decided that the overlay would make the storyline clear to the
audience; they would now be made aware that Cameron and Chloe
are connected through a relationship and Chloe’s oppressed
appearance/ state of mind would become clear and understandable.

I would argue that we didn’t conform to the conventions of Thriller

movies here because we didn’t use lots of effects. I would also argue
that this would have been the most effective type of editing anyway
because anything else could have ruined the film by trying to make it
look overdone.

Considering that we didn’t have the time or the money for

spectacular effects, I think that what we chose to do was the best
option considering our film opening. Anything more could have
ruined the whole mood and the audience would not have enjoyed
our film.

Font style;

For the font style, we chose to conform to the conventions of Thriller

movies and we kept it simple.

Comparatively, Terminators title sequence uses simple yet effective

opening credits. The simplicity creates tension alongside chilling
music. The titles are effective in establishing actors and for high
budget films are sometimes paramount in selling the film. As you can
see, the first name to appear in Terminators opening is Arnold
Schwarzenegger who would be the most famous face and name in
this film.

Another reason we chose simplicity was so that we would have more

time to edit and insert special effects elsewhere. We felt that as long
as the titles were connected to the genre, straightforward titles
would be our best option. It would also mean the audience could
focus on the film rather than being distracted by exquisite and
unnecessary titles.

Setting the Scene/Story;

We chose to reveal some of the story while knowing that by the end
of the title sequence the audience would be asking questions. We
didn’t want to make it too confusing so we revealed enough to make
sure the opening made sense but too little to unravel the whole story
in just the title sequence.

You could say we used the technique of an enigma code. The section
where Cameron and Cleo are in the bedroom shows only their
bodies so that the audience want to know who these people are. We
also wanted to make it clear that there was a connection between
Cameron and Chloe but we wanted the audience to ask themselves
what this could be.

On the left is a big close

up from The Silence of the Lambs. This film has also used an enigma
code because it uses very fast flashing images to suggest the
storyline but there is not enough to know exactly what is happening.
For example, who is this person? Why are they important? Are they a
man or a woman? What are they doing holding that metal object to
their lips?

In other words enigma codes are very successful because they leave
the audience wanting more, and I believe the opening of our film
achieves this.

Genre;
As our film is a thriller, we needed to establish this as immediately as
could be achieved. Again, The Silence of the Lams uses similar
techniques to our film opening. For example, the shot of Chloe
standing on the bride and not being able to see her face creates
mystery, furthermore, the low key lighting is even more emphatic of
the genre. Similarly, The Silence of the Lambs uses over the shoulder
shots and low key lighting to establish its Thriller Genre.

As you can see, the two shots are very similar and encapsulate the
thriller genre very well.

Characters;

The establishment of characters in the opening of our film is

alternative. Usually in Thrillers, the person who intends on causing
tension and anxiety is presented strongly and the audience are also
made the fear their character.

Chloe may be the victim, but had our film been its full length, she
would have become violent and possibly a murderer. We did want to
give this away straight away so we used techniques to make Chloe
appear innocent. The most immediate technique we used was to
light Chloe from above to make her seem small and diminished.
Connectively, Fight Club is a thriller movie that has used similar
techniques. Edward Norton is the narrator of the movie and the
character you can see above. He is of weak personality and he feels
his life is relentlessly boring. He is lit from above and behind to
diminish his form and stature.

We felt that this technique would be successful in establishing

characters because it doesn’t give the plot away and doesn’t
conform to the conventions of Thrillers but is still just as effective as
the stereotypical features.

Special effects;

We chose to be minimal on our special effects because although our

film is a thriller, it is also set in every day, normal surroundings. We
felt that if we made it very elaborate considering special effects then
it would detract from the everyday atmosphere. I think our decision
to do this was good because it made our film opening believable and
allows the audience to relate to the setting without feeling as though
it is ridiculous.
To the right is a shot taken from the film Leon. As you can see, the
characters are walking together in a very normal setting. The little girl
is carrying a plant to make it seem even more ordinary. Similar to the
film Leon, to the left, Chloe can be seen smoking a cigarette which is
something millions of people do daily. This is a normal daily activity
for many people. I feel that our decision to have minimal special
effects may be unconventional but was also most suitable for our
film opening.