question1: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues

2. GENRE AND CONVENTIONS
• THRILLER
• GENRE CONVENTIONS: Sense of action, tension, heightened suspense, danger,
dramatic lightening
• These established conventions create the idea of a thriller sequence, these techniques
can be seen through the use of sound and camera techniques.
• Sound in our opening sequence builds up and creates a sense of heighten tension.
• Camera techniques that we use are stillness of camera and close ups of seemingly
innocence gestures/objects

3. ICONOGRAPHY
• Mystery behind the conventional blue and white capsules coming out of the surgical
white pill box. Pill is unidentified, usually audience know what the pill is for but in this
case the audience do not know what he is taking.
• Middle class business people in an ad agency

4. CHALLENGING THESE IDEAS
• Our genre doesn’t adhere to most thriller sequence examples as it has slow increasing
tension and there isn’t anything to scare the protagonist or audience with other than the fact
of society becoming so overwhelming you can only overcome it but a new drug to maintain
your happiness.
• The idea with this happiness is that is only lasts so long and then the effects of before come
at an ever greater depth eg. Feeling more suicidal or more depressed.
• There is nothing morbid or gruesome about our sequence making it seem more appealing to
younger audiences although it would be more hard for them to understand the concept of the
drug.

5. COMPARISON TO
FALLING DOWN
We used this sequence from Falling Down as a basis of
what we wanted our sound to sound like. We wanted to
create a claustrophobic environment for our characters
and our audience. This scene also takes place in a very
normal, mundane routine like the office meetings, but
the effective use of sound can create a sense of tension

6. COMPARISON TO
LIMITLESS
The ingestion of the pill can be
compared to the end of my sequence
where the main protagonist also takes
the pill. We used this clip as inspiration
for our opening sequence. The ominous
use of the clear pill was effective as it
draws in the readers to think about what
this pill does. In this sequence the
protagonist actually internalizes these
questions and this is something we didn’t
want to do in our piece as we wanted to
create more ambiguity.
This sequence takes place in a busy city, in the
background you can see lots of thick air pollution
creating a low-key, dark lighting. There are lots of
close up shots and extreme close up shots pulling
the audiences attention onto the objects and action
the director wants us to focus on.The edits are fast
showing that the character is agitated.

7. COMPARISON TO WE
HAPPY FEW
This video game gave our group lots of ideas for
how to create a sense of draining happiness as
this game has a very similar idea to our
sequence. Had our group had more time we
would’ve added colour effects to our piece and
made it seem more realistic and visually
impressive. The game also focused on the taking
of a pill and the effects of it had it not been taken.
It also shows the fact everyone else around the
main protagonist {the game player} is taking the
pills and that you have to take them in order to be
considered normal.

8. OUR PIECE

9. Ourpiece portraysayoungprofessionalstartingoutatanew job,it is clear heisvery outofhis depthandundera lotof pressureto
perform,thisgoes on torepresentthe drug usein anelite workforce,althoughthedrug might beaclinically controlledprescription
drugit canstill beabused.Itis proventhatis farmorecommonforyoungpeopletotakesomething theydonotknowaboutandto
orderit over theinternettorelieve stressin theworkplace.Wewantedtorepresent currentsocialissues in ourfilm tomakepeople
moreaware.
The camerafocusesonthe groupwith lotsofcloseup shotsofeachperson in thegroupfocusing theirattentiononthe new
employeeAiden. Cameraworkalsofocusesclose upona pen anda watch,showing thedistractionofthe maincharacter,he is
agitatedandthis isshownthroughthe shots.The camerais alsovery still, juxtaposingthe stressofthe situation.Theyareall wearing
smartclotheslike suits andtieswhilstKatieis in aprofessionallookingdresstoshowamiddle classworkingenvironment, however
the lighting isproducedthroughneonlights.This lighting is trendywhich showsthisisn’tatypicalofficeworkenvironment,more
like anadagency ormarketingsectorof anew company.

10. SOUND
Theuse of sound in ourpiece is effective as the sequence starts with low tones and the audiences immediately knowwhat to expect. Thesequence
then begins properly with conversational dialogue that tries to present a normalworkingday but as the sequence progresses we overlaid all the
speech to makeit sound overwhelming and distorting whilst also increasing the music playedin thebackground.
This increaseof sound makesthepiecesound uncomfortable and by mixing thesounds with thespeech it gets louder and louder likethey’revoices
inhis head that he has to stop, thelow tone sounds are non-diagetic and its purpose is to createan atmosphere.

11. LIGHTING
Weused naturallighting with a combination of different neon lighting to create more of anartsy vibe inthe first scene, but as wefollow the
protagonist out of the office we go down a harshlylit corridor. Thewalls are white and the light is also verybright white, the effect of this high
keylighting is a verysterile environmentand makesit professional looking. Thelift however, is quite dark adding a darker tone, this is lowkey
lighting it makesthe scene shady, dangerous and unsafe. Not necessarily the location but the situation he is in, his mindset. Inthe society he is in
makesit hard for him to slip and not maintain his level of happiness. Wetransition back into the bathroom wherethereis highkeylighting and
ends being about to see his face in the mirror,which we wouldn’t have been able to achieve in low keylighting.