IN WHAT WAYS DOES THE MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
Our group's final short film media product, Charcoal, in many ways both used and challenged conventions of it's genre and existing media products.
I knew it was important to both utilize the codes and conventions of the genre we had chosen to explore (which was psychological thriller/horror) in order to convey to an audience what type of film we had created. So I could understand them better, in pre-production our group did lots of in depth research on existing films. In the early stages of pre-production, when we had just chosen our story idea, we originally thought of our film as a full horror film. However upon research, we discovered to create our original story ideas in the horror genre would involve special effects (to create gore and blood) that would be hard to make on a small budget, and would most likely end up looking cheesy and therefore ruining the verisimilitude for the audience. We then decided to make our film a psychological horror/thriller, as we could use camera techniques and editing as well as music to scare the audience rather than the shock of gore and violence.
We also researched existing short films in order to understand how to condense a whole story into a five minute period, as we knew this was vital to showing the audience a fully developed story with fully developed, multi-dimensional characters. This is an important aspect of all films, as if the characters and story are not developed an audience will find it hard to become invested in it.
We made sure to include the basic conventions of films in general, such as: shot-reverse-shot, match on action, the 180 degree line and the rule of three. By sticking to these basic editing and cinematography techniques it instantly gives a professional look to the film, because if they were not there it would look messy to the audience and they could not enjoy the film as well as if the basics were completed properly.
I watched films and studied the genre of psychological thrillers in order to fully understand the codes and conventions of the genre. I watched numerous types of films of this genre and made notes on cinematography, editing, sound and mise-en-scene in order to help develop the story and design the characters. Understanding the look of these films helped me to create the storyboard, with some shots and scenes ultimately heavily influenced by scenes and shots in existing horror/thriller genre films. For example, one shot in our film, that involved us using a steadicam/gopro strapped around one of our actor's chests, was meant as a point-of-view shot showing the killer running through a door up to the protagonist, Deb.
This shot was heavily inspired from a similar shot at the end of the 1981 Sam Raimi film Evil Dead, even to the point of the character mimicking the movement of Evil Dead protagonist Ash, as shown below:
We also researched existing short films in order to understand how to condense a whole story into a five minute period, as we knew this was vital to showing the audience a fully developed story with fully developed, multi-dimensional characters. This is an important aspect of all films, as if the characters and story are not developed an audience will find it hard to become invested in it.
We made sure to include the basic conventions of films in general, such as: shot-reverse-shot, match on action, the 180 degree line and the rule of three. By sticking to these basic editing and cinematography techniques it instantly gives a professional look to the film, because if they were not there it would look messy to the audience and they could not enjoy the film as well as if the basics were completed properly.
I watched films and studied the genre of psychological thrillers in order to fully understand the codes and conventions of the genre. I watched numerous types of films of this genre and made notes on cinematography, editing, sound and mise-en-scene in order to help develop the story and design the characters. Understanding the look of these films helped me to create the storyboard, with some shots and scenes ultimately heavily influenced by scenes and shots in existing horror/thriller genre films. For example, one shot in our film, that involved us using a steadicam/gopro strapped around one of our actor's chests, was meant as a point-of-view shot showing the killer running through a door up to the protagonist, Deb.
This shot was heavily inspired from a similar shot at the end of the 1981 Sam Raimi film Evil Dead, even to the point of the character mimicking the movement of Evil Dead protagonist Ash, as shown below:
The use of the shaky steadicam/gopro on our numerous running and tracking scenes was inspired by a convention of many horror films with 'handheld' footage, most notably Evil Dead (which uses numerous tracking shots that were filmed by two people holding a camera and running with it), as this was a well established convention of these films as it brings the audience in to it - as it almost makes them believe they are this character running towards the protagonist.
The use of the steadicam and gopro did however cause us some problems during filming and editing that the normal camera did not, for example one occasion we forgot to bring the steadicam attachment and had to improvise by using duct tape to strap the gopro to the steadicam. As well as this, Amirah (who was the steadicam operator) was shorter than the actors involved and this caused problems with her holding the steadicam for the tracking shots (as seen below in this behind the scenes footage we took):
On the editing side, gopro footage was hard to match accurately to normal camera footage resulting in difficulties creating match-on-actions. However despite the difficulties, with editing we managed to minimize these effects. During this tracking shot we also managed to gain high-angle shots of the protagonist, showing her to be a 'victim' and weaker than the antagonist, who's tracking shots we filmed on a flat/low angle to give power.
Other issues we had during filming were mostly continuity errors; our film was shot over the course of days spread out over weeks with a completely separate edition at the beginning that was filmed months after. This resulted in obvious changes in appearance, mainly in hair. One actor dyed their hair between shooting and another's fringe had grown out a lot, meaning we had to use clever filming to disguise this as best as possible.
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| a selection of screenshots showing the difference in hair between the re-shoot (centre) and original shoot (left and right) |
Our media product used existing media conventions my adding lots of iconography from numerous existing psychological horror/thriller films. For example, I did lots of research into horror icons' masks and how they are styled so that we could create an iconic mask for our antagonist.
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| three masks we were most inspired by: the scream mask, saw mask, and friday the 13th mask. |
From doing this research and choosing what masks we liked and wanted our mask to be inspired by, I was then able to create concept art and then eventually make the mask using parts of other masks we bought during Halloween season.
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| mask from concept art to digital concept to final product. |
Other codes and conventions we used in our short film was the iconography of a psychological thriller/horror as well as the iconography of the wider genre of horror: we included the murder weapon (knife), a masked villain and a victim who is a female. Our research showed that in 90% of films of this genre, these three conventions are fulfilled and we wanted to carry them into our short film in order to help the audience easily recognize the genre.
We also used more subtle conventions; such as keeping the colour scheme in the black/white/grey tones and using eerie music to create the nervous mood that would add fear for our audience. I researched music/theme songs from our genre and found similar themes within them all and we managed to find some pieces of music that fit these themes. We also noticed many horror films used sharp tones to highlight moments of drama or shock audiences, so we made sure to add some in points where the villain appeared to scare the audience in both ways by incorporating more senses. As well as this, we picked an empty location (a school) and the majority of scenes were shot in the basement study section of the college, meaning it already had an eerie feel to it; as a typical convention of this genre is the use of abandoned locations.
A popular theme of horror/thriller films is the 'last scare' used to shock audiences who have been lulled into a false sense of calm, or believe the movie has ended. This is usually in the form of the 'dead' killer coming back to life and/or killing again (which usually paves the way for a sequel). We recreated this in a short after-credits scene where the mask appears suddenly to jump scare audiences.
We also used more subtle conventions; such as keeping the colour scheme in the black/white/grey tones and using eerie music to create the nervous mood that would add fear for our audience. I researched music/theme songs from our genre and found similar themes within them all and we managed to find some pieces of music that fit these themes. We also noticed many horror films used sharp tones to highlight moments of drama or shock audiences, so we made sure to add some in points where the villain appeared to scare the audience in both ways by incorporating more senses. As well as this, we picked an empty location (a school) and the majority of scenes were shot in the basement study section of the college, meaning it already had an eerie feel to it; as a typical convention of this genre is the use of abandoned locations.
A popular theme of horror/thriller films is the 'last scare' used to shock audiences who have been lulled into a false sense of calm, or believe the movie has ended. This is usually in the form of the 'dead' killer coming back to life and/or killing again (which usually paves the way for a sequel). We recreated this in a short after-credits scene where the mask appears suddenly to jump scare audiences.
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| screenshot from the after-credits jump scare in our short film. |
Another way our film used conventions of, not just our chosen genre, but film in general was the inspiration we took from existing films members of our group liked and wanted to pay homage to in our short film. For example, we tried to keep our shots very symmetrical and neat in the style of Wes Anderson's movies, as our group were a fan of his films and found that they were aesthetically pleasing to watch so we wanted to create that in our short film:
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| comparison of the symmetry in our film and inspirations from scenes in wes anderson's films. |
As well as this, we took other inspirations from psychological horror genre films. For example, a short scene in the dark where the protagonist uses a camera to flash so she can see, was inspired by a scene from Julia's Eyes. We had wanted to mimic this scene from the very start to the point of planning scenes with the excuse to put the camera-flashing technique in. We also did numerous research tests with filming in the dark to test how well the flash of the camera would work when filmed. We were also inspired by Se7en and Red Dragon when creating the opening sequence which involved a book used by the killer.
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| the book from red dragon |
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| the book from se7en |
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| our book, which was made specifically for the opening title sequence |
Our general plot-line was somewhat inspired by the 1996 film Scream, which too has a masked killer stalking a girl who turns out to be her friend & boyfriend (and in our original script and storyboard, the killer in our film was a man and the protagonist's boyfriend; which had to be changed due to casting difficulties). This would have increased our use of stereotypes however as a general stereotype of this genre is a male killer stalking a female victim, and by having to change our killer to a female this meant we were subverting the stereotype as female killers are less common in this genre.
We wanted to make sure our film challenged existing codes and conventions of this genre as well, and one of the ways we did this was through subverting the stereotypes of the psychological thriller/horror genre. As previously stated, one of our subversions came with making our killer a female. Numerous research into both real-life and fictional crime has shown males are more likely to murder:
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| research from wikipedia site on crime & gender links |
Therefore it is a stereotype in films that killers are male; by making our antagonist female we changed a typical convention of this genre.
Another convention we challenged is the one that most films of this genre are dark, with dark lighting and dark post-production editing to create a spooky effect.
We, however, were inspired by the film Funny Games U.S. to make our film overly white and bright and use low-key lighting, as well as make our characters dress in brighter colored clothes, and stick to brightly lit locations with white or pale wallpaper & furnishings:
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| dark lighting in Se7en, one of the most popular psychological thriller films and a big inspiration to our short film. |
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| screenshot from funny games u.s. |
By doing this, we changed the expectation of the audience; as brightness and white is usually associated with good and pureness, an audience would not expect a bright film to be of the horror/thriller genre. This adds extra interest for the audience as it is different to what they may have seen before in existing films. So we used low-key lighting (lighting with sharp contrasts with light and dark), and post-production editing (consisting in upping the contrast and brightness levels in Sony Movie Studio) to create this effect.
Low-key lighting is also an icon of film noir: which our film was also inspired by, as well as our poster. We liked the bright/dark contrasts that were very harsh, and wanted to use this in our film. Film noir is not a typical convention of modern-day horror/thriller films (as most are in colour and much more dull/low contrast).
We also applied some theories to our short film, for example Levi Strauss' theory of binary opposites. We used this in numerous ways, such as: the contrast between black clothes on the antagonist and white clothes on the protagonist, the contrast between height of the antagonist and protagonist, Most audiences would connote black to mean evil, and white to mean good, so by using this we show to the audience who they 'should' be siding with whilst watching the film. The use of height difference between the antagonist and protagonist also helped to show Deb as defenseless and the weaker of the two.
Low-key lighting is also an icon of film noir: which our film was also inspired by, as well as our poster. We liked the bright/dark contrasts that were very harsh, and wanted to use this in our film. Film noir is not a typical convention of modern-day horror/thriller films (as most are in colour and much more dull/low contrast).
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| example of film noir. |
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| a screenshot from our film to show the height difference between the antagonist and protagonist, also showing the binary opposite of black and white, even transferring to the background (as the left side of the background is bright and white behind the protagonist, and the right side behind the antagonist is darker). |
This scene also shows our use of another convention of psychological thrillers, the use of silhouettes and shadows to add mystery and create a puzzle that needs to be solved: who is the silhouette? By doing this, it adds mystery and makes the audience want to know who it is and find out more, meaning they would carry on watching. It also plays on humanity's fear of the unknown, as we don't know who the shadow is. A technique used by film-makers is to make the shadow appear 'deformed' or inhuman in some way, as this lets an audience imagine for themselves what it could be and usually leads them to imagine something that personally scares them as an indivudal. As our mask had black eyes and black lines coming down from it, in the black shadow it looks like just a nose and mouth. As well as this, being unable to see the killer's face adds more fear and mystery as people want to see who it is and see their face to identify them.
As well as film noir's use of shadows, many other films we studied included this icon:
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| left-right: a nightmare on elm street, nosferatu, psycho. this also shows the use of this iconography has continued through time, from the 'first' horror film nosferatu to 2012's nightmare on elm street. |
I believe that our film successfully used, challenged and developed existing codes and conventions of media products. Through the use of pre-production research we managed to find which conventions we wanted to carry into our short film as well as what iconography to use in order to convey to an audience the genre of our film. We have intertextual moments that reference other films that inspired us or are seen as great examples of the psychological thriller genre (for example, our plot inspired by Scream and some shots inspired by Evil Dead; as well as showing references to Wes Anderson's directing style). However, we also challenged the codes and conventions of psychological thrillers by subverting stereotypes for this genre. For example, making our villain a female when most antagonists in this genre are male; as well as using brighter colours and low-key lighting inspired by Funny Games U.S. to show a different side to the genre, and to give the audience something they may have not seen before.
It is important to both break and conserve codes and conventions of media texts and genres for them to further develop within the film industry, as well as to keep audiences interested they must be given a mixture of both old, reliable techniques with new, exciting ones.
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