Evaluation Question 1

EVALUATION QUESTION 1
IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR
MEDIA PRODUCT USE,
DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE
FORMS AND CONVENTIONS
OF REAL MEDIA
PRODUCTS?

USE OF NARRATIVE
EXPLANATION
EVIDENCE IN OUR
THRILLER
EVIDENCE FROM
EXISTING THRILLERS
We were inspired by a variety of sources when coming up with the
narrative of our thriller opening sequence.
We came up with our narrative centred around the theme of jealousy,
after watching the film ‘Safe Haven’. In this film, there is jealousy of a
relationship, which sparks an individual to attempt to kill the other man
that is now with his ex-girlfriend. We felt that including theme of jealousy
in our piece would make the audience feel more hatred towards the guilty
individual, as they would have betrayed the innocent character to please
the one who was jealous.
After watching ‘Double Jeopardy’, we took inspiration from the staged
death element featured in its narrative. We felt that making it look like our
character had taken her own life, as opposed to having obviously been
murdered, would plant an enigma code for the audience. This is because
they would ask themselves whether she had done it to herself, or whether
she had been murdered, and that it was staged to look like a suicide. In a
thriller, the key element of the narrative is to build extreme tension in the
audience, and make them try to anticipate what will happen next in the
film. We added pills, the phone and the glasses strew on the floor in the
shot as a means to make the audience perplexed as to the true cause of
Jazz’s death.
We used a photo montage at the beginning of our opening sequence as a
means to explain the backstory to the characters and portray their
relationships to the audience without the need to include a large section
explaining it. We got inspiration for the photo montage sequence from
‘The Missing’, as their title sequence was a series of images that gave us
an insight into the programme, its characters, and its narrative.
The narrative of our thriller conformed to Todorov’s narrative theory of
equilibrium, disequilibrium, equilibrium. The photo montage at the start of
the piece was representative of the initial equilibrium. This was juxtaposed
by a shot of Jazz’s body lying on the garage floor, which was the
establishment of the disequilibrium. Although it is not shown in our
opening sequence, equilibrium would be re-established by the end of the
film, in which Josh’s character would be brought to justice for what he had
done to Jazz.
Our piece also includes Levi Strauss’ theory of binary opposition in a
variety of ways. Our piece includes good vs. evil, guilty vs. innocent, boy
vs. girl and friendship vs. relationship. The binary oppositions of good vs.
evil, and of guilty vs. innocent is portrayed in our piece via the use of the
shot where the camera zooms into Jazz’s eye, and then out of Josh’s eye.

USE OF MISE-EN-SCENE
EXPLANATION
EVIDENCE IN OUR
THRILLER
EVIDENCE FROM
EXISTING THRILLERS
In our piece, we used two very contrasting indoor locations;
inside the house, and inside the garage. In the house, the lighting
was bright and warm, which is not conventional for a thriller film.
In the garage, the lighting was very dark and eerie, which is
stereotypical of that of a thriller film, as it helps to build suspense
in the audience.
We used the juxtaposition of these shots to our advantage, as we
felt that it would portray a clear divide in mood for the audience.
We felt that the juxtaposition of the dark and light shots would act
as a representation of good and bad, but would also represent
the contrasting times of life, when Jazz was alive, and when she
was dead. The use of these contrasting lightings would help to
create tension in the audience, as the light scenes would
emphasise the sinister nature of the dark scenes, more so than if
all of the shots were lit in the dark manner. The light shots that
were filmed in the house also contrast the characters that are in
them, as it features Josh and Hannah’s characters, who are guilty
of planning and committing Jazz’s murder.
We used the mirror in the shots of Josh and Hannah in the
house, as a means to portray the true reflection of their
characters. Mirrors are often used in thriller films as a means to
show the true, sinister nature of the character, and reflect their
inner demons.
In the shots in the garage, we used the pills as a prop in order to
how the staged death of Jazz. The use of pills is common in
thriller films, especially in ones in which there are staged deaths,
or in which people are murdered via the use of poison or
overdose.
We used the phone as a prop to reflect people reaching out to
the character, and to make the death of the character more
upsetting, as it is evident that someone cared for her.
We used the glasses as a prop to add a mysterious element to
the death of Jazz’s character. We filmed through the glasses to
represent the blurred identity of the guilty character, and to make
it unclear to the audience as to whether she had committed
suicide, or whether she had been murdered.

USE OF EDITING
EXPLANATION
EVIDENCE IN OUR
THRILLER
EVIDENCE FROM
EXISTING THRILLERS
In our piece we used a combination of jump cuts and fades in order
to switch between the shots in our piece.
We used the jump cuts primarily in the scenes of the argument
between Josh and Hannah as it showed the abrupt nature of their
argument, and the sharpness of their tone.
We used fades to switch between the shots of Jazz’s body in the
garage, as they help to built tension in the audience. The fades
between the shots helped to add a sense of mystery, and helped to
prolong the reveal of Jazz’s dead body. This slow reveal built up
tension in the audience as they want to find out more details about
the characters death.
We did not use any particularly fast editing in our film, which goes
against the stereotypical conventions of the thriller genre, as fast
paced editing sequences are typically used to build a sense of
anxiety in the audience. An example of a film that used faced paced
editing is ‘Vertigo’ by Alfred Hitchcock. We felt that quick cut editing
would take away from the suspense of our piece, as there was no
action scenes. Instead, we felt that using fades would build more
tension in our piece. We furthered the tension built by using slow
fade editing techniques, by using lots of pan shots, which meant that
it prolonged the reveal of the shots even further.
In the 360° shot of Jazz, we sped up the speed of the shot to ‘x100’.
We did this as it helped to make the shot run more smoothly, and
we felt that it reflected the manic thoughts of the audience and
further emphasised the confusion of them, too. We felt that
increasing the speed of the shot helped to build suspense in the
audience. As pointed out by Hannah when we were contemplating
the speed of the shot, having it sped up helps to reinforce that Jazz
is the character that has been the centre of all the chaos and
destruction. As it was a 360° pan, the character was in the centre of
the shot, which further emphasised this.
In’The Missing’, which is a show that we took inspiration from for our
piece, they often use sped up shots or time lapses to heighten the
intensity of the action revolving around one the central characters,
and to build more tension for the audience. Scenes are also sped up
to create tension and anxiety in films such as ‘The Conjuring’.

USE OF CAMERA
EXPLANATION
EVIDENCE IN OUR
THRILLER
EVIDENCE FROM
EXISTING THRILLERS
In our thriller opening sequence, we used a variety of different shots,
different camera angles, and different camera movements. We did this
in order to make sure that our piece was interesting, and we used
different shots for a purpose, in order to display different things to the
audience.
We used close up and extreme close up shots whilst filming in the
garage. as a means to show the blank, haunting expression on the face
of Jazz, reflecting her death, and as a way to highlight objects of
significance in this scene, such as the pills. These shots meant that the
audience concentrated on the elements that we wanted them to, and
they did not get distracted by the background of the scenes. These type
of shots are typically featured in thriller films, as there is nearly always a
vulnerable character or a victim.
As opposed to in the garage, we used medium shots when filming in the
house to show the ‘normality’ of the scenes, and to represent that there
was nothing wrong yet. The medium shots also served as a way to
show the body language of the characters towards each other, which
was perfect to show the argument between them, and the bit of physical
conflict. Although the ‘normality’ if these shots decreased the tension the
audience was feeling, the way they were used to show the argument
between the characters helped to try to counteract the sense of security.
The medium shots showed a visible bigger picture, which reflected how
these scenes gave the audience an insight into the bigger picture of the
narrative with the dialogue featured.
We used high angle shots in both the scenes in the house and in the
garage. In the house, we used the high angle shot to reflect how the
characters were about to get into a situation that would get entirely out
of hand, and how it would become a very large, overwhelming issue that
would burden them. Unknown to the audience, it represented who they
would become vulnerable to the law for the crime that Josh committed,
and that Hannah helped him to plan. In the garage, we used high angle
shots as a means to isolate Jazz’s character, and to show that she was
alone and to highlight her vulnerability that lead to her death. This
making the shot more hard hitting for the audience, and more emotive.
In the scene in the garden, the zooming into Jazz’s eye, and zooming
out of Josh’s eye serves the purpose of portraying the contrasting
innocence and guilt of the two characters. As it is said that the eyes are
one of the main features of the body that reflects emotions, we felt that
this would be a suitable shot to use.

USE OF SPECIAL EFFECTS
EXPLANATION
EVIDENCE IN OUR
THRILLER
EVIDENCE FROM
EXISTING THRILLERS
Due to the lack of professional equipment, and the lack of a large
budget, the use of extreme SFX such as CGI, or pyrotechnics,
was unrealistic.
The placement of our titles in our opening photo montage was
influenced by the BBC TV show ‘The Missing’. Their opening title
sequence consisted of a photo montage that featured the titles
set on them in the bottom hand corners of the screen. The tittle of
the programme was the only title in the centre of screen, showing
that this is the most important title.
As we were influenced by this show, we decided that we would
include the titles of the director, the producers and the editor in
similar places to that of ‘The Missing’, as we featured them in the
bottom right hand corner of the screen. We also placed the title of
the film in the centre of the frame/screen, as a means to portray
its importance. Using a photo montage as our opening served as
a way for the audience to gain an insight into what the film would
be about, as did the title of the film, as it is telling of the main
theme of the narrative.
When the name of the film appears on screen, we added a red
shadow to the text, which was white. The title also appeared on a
black screen once it had stopped flickering. We used the colours
of black, white and red, as in a survey on the thriller genre I did at
the start of the process, I found that these were the colours that
people most associated with the thriller genre. The red shadow
on the writing reflects danger, blood and death, which
foreshadows the murder in the film. It also helps o highlight the
sinister plot line of our film, and the anger that triggers the attack.
The addition of the colour to the titles serves as a contrast to the
happiness portrayed in the photo montage at which the title of the
film is displayed at the end of. The flickering nature of the titles
that we added reflects the danger that is faced in the piece, and
highlights the erratic state of mind of the characters. It adds a
sense of foreboding to the piece, especially as when the title
stops flickering, the screen fades to black.

USE OF SOUND
EXPLANATION
EVIDENCE IN OUR
THRILLER
EVIDENCE FROM
EXISTING THRILLERS
The sound that we used in our piece took a lot of debate, as
we wanted it to be just right. We wanted music that would
reflect the narrative of our piece, but also wanted to include
musical that was stereotypical of the thriller genre in order
to create suspense in the audience.
When choosing the first track, we wanted a track that
challenged the conventional music used in thrillers, but also
wanted music that would help to tie in the narrative of our
film. We wanted a track that also helped to portray the
happiness that can be seen in the photo montage at the
beginning of our opening sequence. We felt that having a
song that gave an insight into the narrative would help to
grab the attention of the audience from the start, and get
them contemplating the narrative and how the film would
play out.
We used two different tracks in our piece as a means to
create two different atmospheres, by having two tracks with
different moods.
We wanted our other track to contrast to the first, and to be
stereotypical of one used in a thriller. This is because we
wanted to make the genre of our film clear through the
music. We also wanted the music to be one of the main
tools we used to build tension in the audience and make
them anxious of what was to come next.
When choosing our first track, we decided that we would
use the track ‘Jealousy’ by Frankie Miller. We felt that this
track would be perfect as not only was it unstereotypical of
the thriller genre, but it also helped to tie in the narrative of
the film, as its lyrics portrayed the main theme of our piece.
The upbeat tempo of the piece also reflected the happiness
found in the photo montage at the beginning, despite the
lyrics of the song portraying a totally different mood. This
would make the audience contemplate which characters the
jealousy was between immediately.
We chose our second track, ‘G321 - Thriller Opening Music’
as we felt that it was stereotypical of the thriller genre. The
music would successfully build tension in the audience due
to the feature of low and high pitched string sounds, which
create and eerie and foreboding atmosphere.
In thriller films, high-pitched, non - deistic music is
conventionally used as it serves as a successful method of
building tension and suspense. The high-pitch sounds make
the audience uncomfortable, which reflects the often
uncomfortable viewing scenes on the screen, of possibly a
dead body.
In the BBC show, ‘The Missing’, the non-diegetic music
used in the opening sequence is conventional of that of the
thriller genre. It creates an eerie, sinister atmosphere which
foreshadows danger in the show. This opposes the music
that we feature in our title sequence.

Evaluation Question 1

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Evaluation Question 1