This document discusses genre conventions and compares the opening sequence created to films Silence of the Lambs and American Psycho. It summarizes that genre conventions are defining aspects of a genre that audiences expect. The created opening sequence is described as a psychological thriller with mystery built through not showing the victim's body. Similar shots between the created sequence and the two films are highlighted around tension, blood, and characters enjoying murder. David Fincher is proposed to direct for his experience with twisted thrillers.

1. EVALUATION TASK 1

2. WHAT ARE GENRE CONVENTIONS?
• Genre Conventions are attributes you would most typically find in a specific genre. Genre conventions are all
the little elements, from archetypal characters to repeating plot points, that separate one genre of fiction
from another. Most genres have a set of very particular elements that readers or moviegoers expect, and
artists often try to make sure their works include enough of these to keep the audience happy. Genre
conventions tend to evolve over time as artists work to break out of the typical mould and create fresh new
content. Sometimes people eventually get tired of certain genre conventions, at which point these
conventions might even be labelled as cliché.
• Essentially, genre conventions are the defining aspects of any genre or sub-genre. There are tons of these
conventions for each genre, and any given work doesn't necessarily have to include more than a handful of
them; if there aren't any at all, the work may not ultimately fall into the intended genre. For example, a
horror movie without a few recognizable elements — things like monsters, creepy settings, isolation, or
darkness — wouldn't necessarily be considered a "horror" film anymore by most fans and critics.

3. WHAT GENRE HAVE YOU CREATED?
I think our opening sequence is definitely A Psychological thriller with maybe a touch of horror but I wouldn’t
call it a horror movie at all. Its conventions definitely follow a stereotypical thriller but we did try to put our
own twist on it also. By never showing the victims body in our opening sequence it shows mystery and builds
a tension for the audience watching our opening sequence. Tension is definitely a main attribute to any good
thriller movie and we wanted to make the main character a psychopath so that he would be an interesting
person to follow throughout the film and get inside his mind this also makes it a psychological thriller as it is
meant to make you think about the film even hours after watching. The two films I have chosen to compare
our film to are definitely films that I think share a lot of qualities with our film. Our first film were comparing
our opening sequence to is Silence of the lambs which was directed by John Demme. The second film we
have chosen as it is also a thriller with a serial killer as its main part is American Psycho directed by Mary
Herron.

4. WHO WOULD DIRECT OUR FILM?
• I personally think the best man to direct our film would be David Fincher. Although SOTL and AP are
both films that share a lot of similar qualities to our film Fincher has a lot to offer our film and to make
it the best it could be. Fincher has directed films such as Se7en, The Game, The Girl With The Dragon
Tattoo ” . All very good films but also very twisted and that what we want our director to be able to
bring to our thriller something out of the ordinary. David Fincher was born in 1962 in Denver, Colorado,
and was raised in Marin County, California. We feel he could really be the best direction to go with for
our film and that’s why I have chosen him.

5. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
We have really tried to go against the stereotype of a psychopathic killer
being a middle aged man. We used a teenage boy and we decided to make
him even more sadistic than an adult be to subvert the stereotype of a
normal psychopathic killer and this challenges expectations of what our
form would normally be. Apart from that our scene has a lot of tension
and close up shots to create tension which shows a stereotypical sense of
what we normally see in Thrillers especially on the psychopathic variation
of thrillers.

6. TITLE COMPARSION – OUR FILM (BLANK
CANVAS) AND SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
Here are both of the title sequences for the two films. As you can see they are both different yes
but similar in the aspect that there is a dull back round with bold font/lettering. This is to show
the seriousness of the film and that its quite obviously not a happy PG film. We did however
decided to just have it plain black so it could be simple and connote our psychopaths blank mind
e.g. our title blank canvas.

7. One of the films I am going to be comparing our film to is Silence of the Lambs. It an incredibly chilling
film full of blood and gore but also a thriller genre without being too gorey. That is exactly what we want
from our film so when I found a lot of shots that were in common I thought it would be a perfect choice
to choose to compare to our film. I feel our main characters both have quite a lot in common. Hannibal
and our painter both are obviously psychopathic and both are infatuated with the human anatomy. Both
are very sadistic and as you can see here both of these shots are extremely similar.

8. This another screen grab from the film Silence of the lambs and also comparing it to our thriller
opening sequence. As you can see in silence of the lambs they use a close up shot of his hand. This is
to create mystery and show that every part of the victim has been effected. We wanted the same sort
of thing for our thriller so we decided to use a similar shot of a hand but to make it even more
mysterious and create even more tension we shot the shot out of focus slightly so it would keep the
audience guessing even more.

9. Although these shots don’t look very similar they are in fact. This is when both serial killers
feel the pleasure they get out of there killing murderous acts. Our painter is trying to
portray the same sort of emotion as Hannibal in silence of the lambs. As you can see here it
is very similar. Also the blood on both of there faces shows they have definitely been
involved in something that isn't right and also is subject to the horror thriller genre that
they both follow as blood is involved in that genre.

10. Title comparison – our film (Blank Canvas) and
American Psycho.
Here is a photo by photo screen cap of our title sequence and the title sequence from American Psycho. As you can see
they are very different but I also see a big similarity. The font is bold and on a plain background to show it is important
but the difference is on the American psycho title it has splashes of blood which really does cut up the stark colour
contrast but red connotes danger so we already sort of know what we are in store for in this film. While our film has a
bold comparison there is a lot of mystery from the outset which goes along with convention of a thriller and we have
done that on purpose.

11. The film American Psycho also uses a lot of similar close up shots of the eyes and also has
a lot in common with our shots from our film. these I feel definitely create a great sense of
tension and we put it there to put you on the edge of your seat and create a nervousness
and uneasiness within the audience. this is definitely how I felt when watching The
Silence of the lambs and American psycho so we wanted to portray that equally as
uncomfortably as these other films.

12. Again in American Psycho and our film I can notice a lot of similarities. For example both of these
characters are again getting a sick pleasure out of murdering someone, they both have blood on
there faces which I would say is a horror convention yet both of these films are thrillers. It also
has differences though as ours is a close up and the American psycho screen cap is a mid shot
but I think ours is more effective for our particular opening sequence as it makes us feel
uncomfortably intimate with the main character and not far away and distant.

13. Comparing our film to these two films I
think they all have very similar qualities.
They all share suspense, tension and
gore. By having similar shots also it
shows the director in all films have gone
for the same techniques and that also
shows the similarity.