1 – In what ways
does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
In terms of understanding the continuity of our film, we of
course had previous experience from our production the year before. In that
film, we had understood the aspects of continuity well and in doing so,
produced a film that had continuity that worked quite effectively. So from
this, we had already observed the conventions of this, to an extent.
In order to understand and interpret these conventions
further, I did research into it by looking at videos, to give me a better idea
of how continuity, in particular, should work to the best of its capabilities,
giving me a vision almost of how our film should look in terms of continuity. I
feel this research helped a great deal, as I think our end product is very
strong in this department. Personally, I feel that the continuity and the
editing between shots is what set’s our film apart. We chose to adopt a quick,
snappy, rhythmic style between our shots, making the continuity what it should
be; clear, precise and keeps the viewer informed of any changes that are
happening, as well as making sense throughout.
I believe our film met the criteria of a psychological
thriller very well. We had done research into the genre and found exactly how
it should look, as well as the specific effects needed to give the viewer no
doubt of the genre in which they’re watching. Effects such as zooming in and
out of the eye reflect, I feel, the genre well. It gives us an almost weird,
unusual edge, which I believe is necessary to a psychological thriller. The
‘eye zoom’ especially, gives us a sense of the psychological state of the
subject, perhaps. Also, the flashbacks we see of the main character Brian,
further confirm this genre as it is us seeing what he sees in the future. The
sound effects of something rewinding and the black and white effect over the
film, show this again. At some points in the film, we see Point Of View shots
(POV), where we see what Brian is seeing. This puts us in the mind-set of the
character and gives us an understanding of what he is thinking, or planning to
do next, maybe. As the director, these are the effects I wanted the film to
reflect, by using these shots, such as POV’s and Over the Shoulder shots (OTS).
It puts us in the mind of the focus point and we see everything he sees, in the
same way and context he sees it, which is what I really wanted to get across to
the viewer.
Also, I wanted to stick to the conventions of the genre, and
never planned to subvert the expectations of the audience. I wanted it to be
different and un-expecting, but at the same time, I wanted it to be seen as a
psychological thriller, in which we all know and enjoy.
I don’t see there being any parodies in our film. As I said,
I wanted to keep it close to the conventions of the genre and in doing so,
avoided any parodies and ‘twists’ of the genre, such as blending two genres
together. A part we are particularly happy with is the plughole scene. We
didn’t parody as such, but took inspiration from the great film Psycho, where
we see the same thing of zooming into the round plughole and then zooming back
out of a round, eye. We differ from this as we have a different context, no one
has been killed as there was in Psycho, and there is simply water instead of
blood. This scene uses that effect well but also works cleverly as it flows
nicely with the story, as Brian goes through his morning ritual.
In terms of audience pleasure, I want the audience, as I
said, to get into the mind of Brian and to understand what he is doing and why.
Also, the film builds up this huge expectation of something amazing to happen,
and it does, to an extent. Then of course at the end, there is the twist in
which the film finishes on. This I think will surprise viewers and perhaps have
had them fooled throughout the rest of the film, which I hope they will see as
clever and that it makes a great story.
Comparing our film to real media texts, I think there are a
couple in which we looked at and took inspiration. For the title sequence, we
took ideas and the look from the one seen in Se7en, where we see the text
‘jumping’ across the screen, from its original position. This adds to the
distressed, edgy look we wanted.
The other film would of course be, Psycho. We thought it
would be interesting to take such an iconic scene and give it a twist of our
own, which I feel fits into the film very well and also tells the story in a
different way, whilst still having such clever, eye catching editing.
No comments:
Post a Comment