Evaluation Questions

Evaluation QuestionsEvaluation Questions

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

Our media product is a short clip of three minutes to an opening of a thriller. The storyline is based on a woman beingcaptured by a mystery villain and locked in a basement. This specific choice of storyline builds up anxiety and suspenseadding to the horror theme. Martin Rubin points out that a Thriller should be categorised as a ‘metagenre’. It is consideredone of the most broadest genres in film as it can have many sub-genres coming from it, such as crime, action adventure,mystery etc.Due to thrillers being broad, it is the most difficult to identify, however, there are elements within it that an audience willexpect to see. These include, a sense of unease, danger, tension and anxiety. If a thriller is successful it should keep theaudience on the edge of their seats. This is usually achieved by the particular use of both diegetic and non-diegetic music,camera shots and angels.Before we began filming we all researched a number of thriller films, this was in order for us to learn the conventions that areneeded to create a successful thriller film, we did this both as a group and independently. We focused on their story lines andopenings, comparing them and looking for similarities. The two main films we analysed were “Memento” and “Silence of thelambs”. After having watched the openings to these thrillers we began noticing the similar aspects between them, we alsonoted what the evident conventions that occurred in them, some of these where; narrative enigmas, suspense, mystery, eeriemusic and a sense of uncertainty. These allow the audience to be drawn into the film and feel a part of the charactersexperience. Another thing that really helps create a thriller, is when the audience knows just as much as the character, reallyputting them in the same position. We too tried to perceive these aspects in our own opening, leaving the audience in thedark as well as the characters.Although the films have completely different storylines they both use narrative enigmas in the same way to keep theaudiences attention. As well as both creating an air of suspense and mystery. We used non-diegtic music, it has an eeriequality and fits into the background perfectly, this adds to the tension of feelings amongst the audience watching and makesthem feel on edge. At some points we erased the idea of music and used the technique of silence which added to theuncomfortable, dreary atmosphere, we felt that this helped with the mystery and suspense you would usually achieve in agenuine thriller . Throughout the filming process we decided to use two locations, this was because the house we was usingthat had a basement didn’t look as scary from the front so we decided to use a different house for that specific scene.Both the chosen locations had a weird, creepy feel to them, which definitely fitted our thriller storyline and brought the edgyand hostile feel we needed. The basement (house 1) was dark, cold and very mysterious; it really helped guide us along theway, adding a great deal to the storyline and creating this horror-like feel we aimed to achieve.When filming the basement scene, we shot from various high angled points, helping to create a feeling of claustrophobia forthe audience, therefore putting them in the same position as the actors.

On the Right :

The twofilms we had inspiration from

‘Memento’- with thewomen waking up in anunknown place

and

‘Silence Of theLambs’-with the idea of aserial killer targetingyoung women.

For the front house scene (house 2) we filmed an establishing shot of the old looking Tudor house, which told theaudience where the action was happening before it actually did. Overall, we were entirely happy with our locationchoice as it has all the main elements of a thriller.We decided to keep the amount of characters very simple, the villain and the victim. I felt that this was a goodchoice because it helped express the seriousness of the situation by having minimal actor’s showing a smallerchance of a heroic ending, this leaving the audience questions, what's going to happen next?. All the scenesinvolving the villain where shot from behind, we felt it would be better to keep the characters face anonymouscreating a real tense atmosphere and leaving the villain rather intimidating.We used make-up on our actresses to help add to the realism and also create the illusion of bruises and scratches toshow the horror and pain in which our victim had gone through. Also, the use of blood expresses the pain anddanger experienced.We then began discussing what to call our project, we looked back to the thrillers we analysed. “Memento” was aone worded title we thought this had an impact on the audience, because its fast and striking. It also helps theaudience to think more in depth about what they are about to watch and the main point is that it also links to thestoryline, another aspect I feel makes a good thriller is when everything pieces together at the end, its like a task,trying to work out what's happening and at the end you see if you have achieved this. This keeps the audience busyand into the film, and pretty much ensuring they are going to watch it till the end.We finally decided to name our product “number 24”. We chose a short title which had important relevance to the

1. Continued1. Continued

<- Anna’s being tied up and prepared in the basement byElena A.Me putting make up on Anna to create a realistic feel for both her and the audience.

->

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Upload Date:	05/05/2009
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