ESTHER ROWE

What ways does your Media product use, develop or challenge forms/conventions of real media

products?

Subgenre

After looking in depth at the codes and conventions of typical/ well known thrillers, both American and British such as–The Usual Suspects – Psycho – The negotiator, I began to notice recurring themes, such as the way that fear, death and horror is created and I wanted to explore these in more depth by confining ourselves to a subgenre.

Subgenre

From our survey we could see that ‘psychological thriller’ was by far the target audience’s favourite subgenre. So we began to research in depth into this genre; watching films like ‘funny games’ and ‘the lady vanishes’. Both of these are films that were made on reel film and then remade later, so we found it helpful to watch both adaptations and see what the filmmakers did similarly in order to see what they felt was effective in pushing the narrative.

Subgenre

We wanted to input the things that other filmmakers found effective, when creating psychological thrillers, into our film to create the best experience for our target audience. We noticed that in both films and adaptations the antagonist gets in the way of the relationships/ friendships which becomes frustrating for the viewer, who has been investing emotion in the characters.

Subgenre

Therefore we wanted to create this sort of emotional investment in the characters so that when the antagonist steps in, the audience are frustrated/horrified, a key convention of the thriller genre. We decided that we wanted the first few shots to create an emotional attachment between the viewer and the protagonist. So we began to look at films which displayed deep emotional attachments between characters. For example, Atonement, The Great Gatsby or My Sisters Keeper and The Little Princess, though not thrillers they helped us to look at how filmmakers portray relationships.

Plot

Here we decided to USE conventions of the thriller genre. Throughout thrillers that we had researched we found that commonly the male was the antagonist and the female was the vulnerable protagonist. We decided to comply to this convention of media products as we found that our target audience collectively decided in the survey that they wanted to have a female protagonist .HOWEVER we wanted to take this convention further.

Plot

When looking at the typical codes and conventions of the thriller genre we found that a particular code was mixing up gender roles in a way that confuses the audiences pre-embedded ideas. In honour of this convention we wanted to create a 1st scene that explored male dominance, making it seem like violence received from the male was a potential theme. Then we would surprise the audience by having a girl, innocent and pure looking usurp this role and act with violence. Through this we wanted to create an element of the unpredictable in our plotline to comply to the effective conventions of the psychological thriller.

Plot

We also looked at films such as Fight Club and Shutter Island where the protagonist is a male, we found that these films were particularly effective in addressing the enigma code of the genre however we felt that the surprise of the innocent girls taking part in crime was more ‘psychologically’ appropriate. After watching Films such as Orphan, where this surprise is inherently evident we decided to develop this technique with two girls. Who are on an equal level, but one dominates the other, even through her own mind.

Making the protagonist vulnerable:

We were particularly influenced by the likes of films like Psycho, predominantly the attack scene in the shower. We looked at the fettishization of the woman in this scene, the scathing shots of her in the shower which are both powerfully shocking and equally effective in making her look vulnerable. We also looked at how the use of her nudity makes her exposed, the tense music in the background makes us fear for the character – therefore we wanted to input this into our work: creating a vulnerable and susceptible character.

Making the protagonist Vulnerable:

We however wanted to develop this idea, inspired by Hitchcock. So we looked at making the girl completely vulnerable; looking at our society today we found that the most vulnerable humans are young girls. Therefore we decided that our protagonist would be a young girl and that the concept of being attacked by her equal was incredibly strong as well as capturing the psychological thriller theme.

Location: Scene 1

For this whole scene we had one purpose: to make the character look smaller and therefore more vulnerable. After watching films such as Pans Labyrinth, where the main character is under dominant, looming objects that accentuate her vulnerability we realised how effective this technique was.

Location: Scene 1

We also wanted to look at the representation of the classes: Psychological thrillers like the modern Funny Games look at the bringing down of the upper classes and their lack of ability to cope. We also found that in the film Atonement; where a young girl is portrayed as crushed under the aristocracy of her family, we felt incredible empathy for her. Therefore we wanted to exemplify this same domination of class that leads to vulnerability.

Location: Scene 1

With these points in mind, we chose to place this scene in an old manor house, suggesting that the family are high in society which leads to her loneliness and later her madness. Loneliness/isolation was also a key theme when choosing location which we felt would lead to a connection of empathy between the child and the audience. The manor house was therefore left clear of props or obstructions so that all our attention was drawn to the girl who looks small in a big room. We used wide shots to establish her naivety.

Location: Scene2

Here, After analysing Psycho we wanted to mirror the same invasion of privacy that is so effective in building enigma. Here we chose a domestic location, a personal location, a bathroom. In the process of decoration. We felt that the peeling of the paint, the floorboards obviously being fixed all added to the sense that Annabelle’s (our main character)s mind was unhinging. She’s moved from a huge room to a confined space which illustrates her madness, looking further at the conventions of the psychological thriller.

Location: scene 2

Looking at other psychological thrillers such as Funny Games we found that the idea of being tortured in your own household was sickening and also was a eclipse of any safety that you felt in your personal space. It related a sense of enigma and discomfort to the audience which we wanted to incorporate into our video. However we wanted to develop it by having our character drowning in a place that was usually for relaxing, relating again to the psychological convention that safety is removed and replaced with fear. An invasion of privacy.

Colour

Through colour we decided that we wanted to create a platform for Levi Strauss’ binary opposition theory. We wanted to create a contrast, designed specifically to make the viewer feel discomfort. This was something that we hadn’t experienced in our research of the genre, however we had experienced it in our research of theatre. Looking at how ‘theatre of cruelty’ students used juxtaposition to engulf fear inspired us to challenge the industry with new ideas.

Colour

Therefore, during our first scene we created a room full of warm tones, oranges and light reds which helped create a sense of heat in the room, a safety. In contrast to this we created a second scene which was a binary opposite, full of semitone blues and dark grey colours that were able to bring a cold/ melancholy feeling to the scene. This was used to help the audience to sense that real danger was coming, making them feel discomfort.

Sound

Watching films such as ‘The Woman In Black’ and ‘Shutter Island’ we began to see the impact of a film score which was used in both to build up an intense atmosphere for the viewer. Therefore we decided to write a score of our own, we used a call and response platform for our music to echo the relationship of Annabel and Alice but instead of using a drum for a beat we used pencils and whiskey jars to represent the inevitable demise and danger that is engulfed in their friendship. These sharp blunt sounds, we felt, were very effective in bringing in dark undertones that are so essential to the thriller genre.

Sound

Looking back over the use of sound: we found that though the score was effective in building intensity, we wished that we had had more moments of silence to allow enigma to build with natural anticipation. Films like ‘The Other Side’ use long periods of silence, where uncertainty is effective in bringing alive fear. If we were to remake this film this is something that we would definatly incorporate.

Sound

In the first scene, in terms of Diagetic sound we decided to accentuate the sound of footsteps in an effort to make the male seem dominant over the room which complied to the typical conventions of the genre. His loud voice again echoed our dramatic intentions for the scene. We found that Todorov’s Equilibrium theory helped us to make choices on this scene. For example, having sound continuously through the clip suggested how repetitive Annabelle’s life was, when the music finishes we then as a viewer expect a change of equilibrium; Building enigma and mystery.

Mise- En-Scene: props

After delving into the conventions of the psychological thriller we decided to overall challenge the use of props. After seeing a stage production by the group Frantic Assembly, we noticed that they barely had props unless they were used and were inspired by this for our film. We decided that if it were to be psychological then it needed to not have many things that were tangible to other senses, we wanted to have the main focus to be the personalities of the characters and the emotions at play to fully build up intensity without distractions. Therefore throughout the scene we decided to not have any props.

Mise-En-Scene: Costume

For the Girls we wanted to echo the fear created in the film ‘the shining’ when the unnerving two girls wear innocent school clothes which is relatable and builds up fear. Therefore we had them wear childish clothes to accentuate their innocence, as well as having them in pastelly/ creamy colours of white and pink to show their naivety to the outside world. In terms of the adult we had him wear a suit to make distinct his class and his capabilities as a richer male character.

Mise-En-Scene: Costume

Girl in bath: here we wanted to link this scene to Psycho, in which we found the nakedness of the woman in the shower both shocking and fearful. Therefore with our character in the bath we used this same technique to build fear. Alice: All in black, here we wanted to use simple colour symbolism. Black is a colour that connotes misery and death therefore we dressed her in this to give a foreboding sense to both the character and her narrative. As well as to contrast her earlier pastel colours, showing how over time the conscience grows more powerful, adding to the mystery of the psychological thriller genre.

Character

In terms of casting we were heavily influenced by films where children are made to look vulnerable for example: The Little Princess, Orphan and Madeline. We found that pale faces, rosy cheeks and blonde hair connoted innocence and purity which was admirable as well as effective in creating empathy. We also felt that this was effective in creating a shock, when the Propps narrative role of the princess that they seem to comply to is subverted by having one of them turn into the antagonist.

Character

We also kept this same innocent look with the older girls, however we changed their hair colour to darker. We felt that this emphasized how her mind has decayed over time, we also wanted to emphasize the two sides of her mind and how growing up has effected her. As well as this we found that intertextuality helped us a lot with character, looking at books where children were captured as wild such as Alice in Wonderland helped us to understand how children are normally portrayed in ‘madness’ books. Therefore we decided to use the name Alice to perhaps foreshadow the thrilling nature of the narrative.

Character

The research lead us to discover that generally children in thrillers appear to be slightly abnormal, their reactions to horrific and in some cases paranormal events are often less than what would be expected from most children (almost as if they are use to it). However at the same time they have a childlike innocence about them, this innocents makes you wish to protect the child and the audience develops an attachment to the character. Another common convention is the use of dramatic irony, where often the child realises something is wrong or can see something that nobody else can, however the adults think it is there child imagination creating a situation that is not in fact true. The audience knows also that the child is telling the truth and feel sympathy towards the character. This in itself makes the audience dislike the other characters for not believing the child. A good example of this is "the shinning", where the child senses something is wrong however the mother does not straight away believe him.We included a situation of this nature within our product, the protagonist (during the first half of the movie in which she was younger) could see an imaginary girl of which the adult role in the video could not see. The audience naturally disliked the adult role, not only for his strict attitude towards the sweet young girl, but because they have seen the imaginary girl themselves and therefore think she exists. We wished at this point for both of the girls, the real and imaginary, to be portrayed as young and innocent and just having fun. This innocents is broken when the scenes antagonist, the dad is introduced.

Editing/ Lighting

When looking at the conventions of the thriller genre, we noticed that a particular colour used inherently when editing which creates ‘eery’ tones. We decided to follow this convention when editing our bathroom scene as it added to the essence of mystery in the filming which is key in the creation of Psychological thrillers. We also wanted to use rapid match on action shots throughout both clips to add to the enigma of the genre.

Editing

In the beginning scene, after seeing the film Becoming Jane, we noticed how effective fade-through-dissolves were in showing how time passes. Therefore we decided to take this element, although not key to the thriller genre, to create the sense that Annabelle’s life is dull but full of Alice. During the bath scene we also wanted to use short, rapid shots which we felt were important as they contrast to the one long shot in that scene- the murder. Therefore we felt that this contrast evoked fear in the audience which we felt was particularly effective.

Voyeurism

In terms of Voyeurism we decided that, mirroring shots in ‘psycho’, we would have shots that moved down her bare legs, bare shoulders in a way that almost objectifies her and makes her look vulnerable to the viewer adding to the sense of mystery. Throughout the entire piece we used a lot of moving shots, particularly in the beginning in order to accentuate the dizziness and static energy of the young girls as they dance which adds to the confusion of storyline and the enigma code.

Camera Shots

We also used the contrast between close and wide shots to show the difference gained over 10 years. In the first scene we used wide shots mostly as well as canted angles to establish authority between the male and female and their ages. However in the second scene we mostly use close shots which draw attention to detailed aspects of the films and accentuate the personal situation that she is in, making the disruption and violence more shocking.

Camera Angles: Cinematography.

Over the Shoulder shot: During the brief conversation in the scene we were sure to stick to the 180 degree rule to keep the realism of the scene but also aimed to stay on the side of Annabelle to keep the audience engaged with her character. We used other camera angles to generate status during this scene.High Angle shot:We found that angled shots really helped to initiate status during our filming of this scene.We used a high angle in this frame, combined with a medium long shot all with the intent of making our protagonist look smaller and more vulnerable generating more sympathy towards her

Medium Close Up:In comparison to the high angle that Annabelle was shot at, we decided to shoot the father at a close up position to highlight his intensity and authority in the scene. It enabled us to highlight the detail of the way he looks down at Annabelle, furthering our portrayal of status.By using a neutral angled shot instead of a low angled, we felt that this showed that the father didn’t see himself as an antagonistic figure, more like someone who thinks they are doing the right thing for their family.

Camera Angles: Cinematography

Close up shots are used throughout our piece to give the viewer a detailed view of the characters emotion, to add intensity to the scene. We found this sort of filming was very commonly used especially in films like Disturbia. Therefore we decided to develop this technique. For example here, a close up shot enables us to see the older Annabelle’s fear of her imaginary friend, doubling the intensity for the audience as a connection is made, they become an emotional participant in the action.

Cinematography.

Low Angle: During the scene with the two girls dancing we tried to keep the camera on a neutral level in order to show the equality of the girls together. With one exception, this shot. We decided to shoot this from a low angle to make the girls seem like they have authority in the scene. Which would contrast later when they are shot at a higher angle and the father has more authority. This low angle was used to emphasize the confidence that she has in comparison to when she looses it, when she looses Alice.

Editing:

Due to our lack of budget for equipment we found editing and filming a real challenge for this project. Our college’s equipment was something that we had to rely upon but was very difficult to keep constantly working. This made our editing difficult for us as we had to keep changing computers, transferring the file and our quality of video was sacrificed because of this. Due to our lack of budget we also had to film with a old camera, meaning that already our quality was poor- however we followed the old saying ‘make do and mend’ and conducted our filming as planned. In the first scene, while the girls dance we decided to use a combination of cross fades and dissolves between clips as we had seen how effective this was when watching films such as ‘The Little Princess’. Therefore we incorporated this into our piece. When the girls fall over and Alice disappears we decided to use a ‘fade to black’ transition to show the darkness that Annabelle feels in her life when Alice is gone. This was something that we found was particularly effective in early Hitchcock films where he uses fade to blacks to be almost reminiscent of a paranoid heart beat. After this, during the father daughter conversation, we decided to stop layering clips and do normal cuts as it would symbolise the fact that Annabelle has to come back to reality, a harsh transition. No more Fun and Games for Annabelle.

Credits :

Our credits for this film were predominantly created using a Wacom Graphics tablet, Microsoft ‘paint’ software and Windows Movie Maker, to create a flowing piece of Animation. We decided to use this media as we had seen its effectiveness in films by Studio Gibley which often we found creepy and difficult to watch, a key theme apparent in the Psychological Thriller genre. We decided we like the idea of having the animations blinking and disappearing as it initiated our theme of Alice being imaginary, and we felt it helped the audience to engage with the storyline more. We used a basic colour pattern of black and white, decided because we liked the idea of darkness being prominent throughout the piece and also felt that it was almost intertextual to old Alfred Hitchcock films which we made in Black and White.