2. • Our thriller piece incorporates generic conventions from such directors as Hitchcock
as we use a black and white filter in a scene whilst also using a macguffin, this is a
plot device that motivates the characters or advances the story, but the details of
which are of little or no importance and was traditionally developed by Hitchcock.
Mark Romanec is a large motif in our plot as he tackles the issues of mental health in
his film One Hour Photo.
Kim Peek
• During our initial thoughts we looked at the film Rain Man, although not a thriller we
wanted to research the lead roll based around Kim Peek, as our protagonist has the
same strain of autism.
• Kim Peek has a remarkable ability to notice things and want to correct them and a
remarkable memory, this is shown in this scene:
Our role notices the time being wrong and corrects the police officer promptly.
Another scene showing his memory is showing our role reacting violently to an image
that reminds him of a murder:
3. • Our thriller challenges conventional conventions because we use an autistic boy as
our protagonist, This challenges conventions because its not the usual stereotype of
a protagonist, e.g. James Bond, Jason Bourne, etc.
• This suggests that we are different from other thrillers although we still know what
our audience wants, this gives us a USP (unique selling point).
• These are pictures showing our lead roll they show how he is afraid, weak and in
need of a lot of help with his day to day life.
4. • Our thriller uses typical conventions of a psychological thriller, we use doctors in
white rooms to show a psychiatric practise and dark blacked out rooms to show
distress in our lead.
• All of our initial thoughts led up to a psychological thriller, we thought of kidnapping
terrorism and psychological as our base, but we found that psychological thrillers are
the most popular and our resources were limited and psychological was the most
cost effective.
5. • I do not believe that our production could become a major Hollywood production as it
is a Indi film, it is very individualistic as we did not spend millions on a huge
marketing campaign.
• Because our production is so individualistic it would be released to a smaller
audience of local private cinemas, friends and family this would be for feedback, as
we would want to make another production based around feedback of our first.
• Merchandising and general intertextuality are out of the question, for this production
at least, our brand could become more intertextual and maybe our future productions
but not at this stage.
• Our visual style is clinical, our mise en scene shows psychiatric practises and dark
dismal rooms this suggests that our production is psychotic and slightly twisted. The
first shots are based in a white room (which is our title) this is meant to show a
contrast of cleanliness whilst our protagonist has witnessed something disgusting.
6. • Our thriller production was aimed at 18 to 25 and mainly aimed at men.
This is because of our character selection, we researched and found that men are more
interested in psychological thrillers and more diverse characters than women, this means that
our audience profile is quite limited, this means that in our next production we should look
deeper into opening our target market potential.
In one scene there is a shot of a woman dead on the floor, this would probably distress most
people, especially young children.
This is the shot:
this is disturbing because of the jump cut before the shot this startles the viewer and makes the
viewer want to know what's going on, this builds tension.
Our use of shots is quite limited, we initially had loads of thoughts about camera angles but
after a while it became apparent that certain things weren't possible.
Although in the end I was pleased, we used high angle shots to show a dead body, we then
rotated the shot by around 80 degrees and went higher up, this gives the effect of confusion
and disturbance because of the jolty changes, we used extreme close ups of peoples faces to
show their expression and emotions which is significant because autistic people often have a
limited control over their emotional expression. At one point we use a high angle shot to create
the effect of a security camera surveying a space.
7. • The intention of our camera angles was to make the audience feel as though they
are standing at the other side of the room viewing at a distance, this is because the
viewer is meant to be almost oblivious to what is happening (whilst the audience is
watching over this side something significant is happening on the other side) this
makes the experience so much more thrilling.
• In such film’s as Hitchcock’s: Psycho the audience is a voyeur, watching the event
unfold in front of them, in our film the audience is still a voyeur but their watching
from slightly further away.
This gives great suspense as when things happen the audience isn't fully aware
(unless it is blindingly obvious).
8. Our production represents 3 social groups, autistic people, women, men and police.
Autistic people are the main social group we wanted to focus on, our autistic lead is
based around Kim Peek, who was the basis of the research of autistic people in Rain
Man.
We wanted to put out autistic man across as serious and not comical what so ever,
this was difficult especially as our practise audience all knew who our lead was and
they are all younger that 25.
Our autistic man is represented as almost normal, the only differences are his
emotional tendencies.
Our murder victim is a woman, this is slightly stereotypical as women are typically
represented as weak and this is what our attacker wanted.
9. • We had slight problems with camera angles, we wanted to use high angle shots quite
a lot and found it hard to suspend the camera, this led to us not being able to use
certain angles.
• Other problems we encountered was my inexperience with final cut express, I am not
familiar with the Mac software and found it difficult to use.
• We found finding locations quite difficult as well, our area isn't the best setting for a
thriller and limited finances made it difficult to dress our sets.
• If we had the chance to try again I would need to have a larger budget and more
equipment e.g. a steady cam, dolly or a crane.
