The document compares shots from the thriller opening sequence "Blank Canvas" to shots from the films "Perfume: A Story of a Murderer" and "Red Dragon". Many shots are similar in conveying a sense of obsession or unease through close-ups of eyes, liquids, or characters interacting with paintings. Some differences are noted, such as gender of the victim, camera angles, or level of graphic content. Overall, the most similarities were found with "Perfume: A Story of a Murderer" since both works involve using bodies to create art.

1. EVALUATION TASK 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?

2. The thriller opening sequence I
have created is ‘Blank Canvas’, a
thriller film which focuses on a artist
who uses human blood to create
paintings with and so kidnaps and
harms people to create his artwork.
The first film which came to mind
when our group was discussing
similar film ideas was ‘Perfume: A
Story of a Murderer’.
‘Perfume: A Story of a Murderer’ is
a thriller/fantasy film set in 18th
Century France, which focuses on
a man who has a unique ability to
heavily smell scents and has
become one of France’s greatest
perfumers. However, he then sets
out to capture the scent of young
attractive women in order to create
a perfume from the scent and
murders innocent females in order
to achieve it, forcing the 18th

3. The other film I am comparing our thriller sequence to is
‘Red Dragon’, a slasher/thriller genre film, which was made
in 2002 by Brett Ratner. It follows an Ex FBI agent on the
search for the infamous Hannibal Lecter. However, he finds
himself trying to get into Lecter’s mindset in order to catch
him and has to confront his past with Lecter.

4. For ‘Perfume: A story of a Murderer and our thriller, the titles are very similar. We used
Times New Roman, in capitals to complete our titles and within ‘Perfume:A story of a
Murderer, they used Janson Text Roman, which created an official, cold opening to both
thrillers. Both of the shots also show black backgrounds, which continues to conventions of a
thriller, because makes the title sequence seem mysterious and eerie. However, our thriller
titles were a very short duration and all had a straight cut into the next shot, whereas
‘Perfume:A story of a Murderer’ had faded titles going into each shot and a longer gradual
shot durations, which almost implies to the audience that the killer will drag out the death of
the victims, whereas our straight cut mirrors the rest of our shots which heighten the tension,
because there are lots of sharp quick shots.

5. These shots show a close up of the victim’s faces, one from ‘Perfume: A story of
a Murderer’ and from our own thriller sequence. Personally, I think that the shot
from our scene causes more of an impact from an audience, because the victim
is staring at the camera and lying down, due to the fact that the victim cannot
move, which heightens the vulnerability of the victim. However, our shot was
used as the last shot in our thriller sequence and so it needed to be a very
dramatic shot, whereas the other shot was used in the middle of a scene, so did
not need to be as dramatic a shot. However, within our scene we wanted to
subvert the stereotype of women as victims and so, used a male as a victim and
so, in terms of the gender of the victim, it is different.

6. Both of these shots, one from ‘Red Dragon’ and the other from our
sequence, show the villain as looking at the painting they are obsessed with.
Both shots are over the shoulder shots and have both the killer and the
painting in the shot. However, the shot from ‘Red Dragon’ is a high angle
shot, which makes the audience feel as if they themselves are looking down
at the painting, which to me seems more successful. Also, the shot from
‘Red Dragon’ is slowing zooming in slightly, reflecting the fact that the
character feels his is being drawn in by the painting.

7. These shots are from ‘Red Dragon’ and our thriller sequence, showing the character staring
at the painting. The ‘Red Dragon’ shot is a low angle shot, which makes the audience feel as
if the character is looking down on them, rather than the painting. Also, the characters have
very different facial expressions in their shots. The shot from ‘Red Dragon’ shows how the
character is being almost unwilling dragged into the painting, whereas our shot shows the
pleasure that comes out of creating the painting for the character. This also shows the
similarity in the look of the characters, both of them have dark hair and a navy blazer/overall
on and both of them are very pale, almost as if they are ill. However, our character is
noticeably younger than the other film’s character, due to the fact that we were unable to get
our original casting of the killer, an middle aged man.

8. This shots are from ‘Red Dragon’ and our thriller opening
sequence. They both show the slightly unhinged character
touching the their paintings and becoming obsessed with the
pictures. It shows the closeness both of the characters feel
towards the paintings and their mad nature. However, the ‘Red
Dragon’ shot is a mid shot, showing more of the character’s arms
and our shot shows the killer’s hand covered in blood, creating a
much more vivid and horrific image. However, this is probably
due to the fact that our shot was placed much later in the scene
then the shot from ‘Red Dragon’ was in it’s scene.

9. Both of these shots, one from ‘Perfume: A story of a Murderer’ and our
thriller, show an extreme close up of the murderer’s eyes. This shot in both
sequences successfully make the audience feel uncomfortable, since the
eyes of a psychopathic killer are staring straight at the camera, making it
seem for the audience as if the characters are staring at them. However, I
think that the shot from ‘Perfume:A story of a Murderer’ is a more effective
shot, since the shot focuses more on the characters actual eye, because
the eye is more open. This makes the audience feel even more vulnerable
and exposed, because the eye is closer and more obvious from an
audience’s perspective.

10. This shot from the film ‘Perfume:A story of a Murderer’, depicting the
creation of the perfume in a conical flask. This compares to a shot of
the water pot in our thriller, because the close ups focusing on the
liquid filled clear glasses, create tension for the audience. This is due
to the rather uncomfortable closeness to the disgusting liquid inside
the glass which gives small indications of the vulgarity of the scenes.
However, in the shot from ‘Perfume: A story of a Murderer’, the glass
is the sole focus in the shot and is much more zoomed in, whereas in
our shot, their is a blurred shot of the victim in the background.

11. Both our sequence and the shots from ‘Red Dragon’ and
‘Perfume:A story of a Murderer’ feature similar shots,
because all of the films feature a unhinged male protagonist
as a killer. However, I found much more shots in common
with ‘Perfume:A story of a Murderer, because the film had a
character using bodies to create their artist objects to sell to
the unknowing public.