To gain inspiration for our thriller video, "Silent Waters", we had to research the forms and conventions of real media production thoroughly before deciding on locations, characters and the plot. We decided to develop the typical thriller ideas of the title, costumes etc. However, we also decided to adapt the traditional view and challenge the forms and conventions with our unique location choices.
1) The title of the film
The title of the film was a crucial issue. At times, the group were of two minds as to which title we should go for. Our initial thought was to name it, “You’re Next”. We decided that this would be an effective title for the thriller because it is the subject in the text that Chloe receives in the first scene on the beach. However, members of the group felt that this title seemed too simple and cliché. Furthermore, it was not inventive and gave too much of the story away to the audience. After re-checking the codes and conventions of a thriller, we discovered that short, secretive titles gained the most effective response from the audience – making them feel curious and attracted to the film. Our title, “Silent Waters”, develops the forms and conventions of a real media product because of this.
2) Setting/Location
The main location for our thriller video was a beach. We also filmed in a forest, train station and car park. The reason we chose these locations were because we felt that they went against the original forms and conventions of real media products because not many thrillers are set at these locations. For example, the beach, which we decided to use after watching the horror film ‘Jaws’. We knew that we would face challenges choosing all four of these locations and to keep the videos looking like a thriller all the time but we felt that if we kept with the story line that once it came to editing and putting music to the video then these locations would give a ‘goose bump’ effect for the audience.
3) Costumes and Props
We decided that specifically for Ginny’s costume she would wear a normal running kit but with a white top showing her purity however with dark leggings and jumper showing the darkness of when she gets possessed. We got this idea from Cape Fear when the girl in the beginning is wearing white showing her innocence. Due to this, we felt an immediate emotional connection with the girl and worried what would happen to her as the film progressed. Therefore, this shows the development of the forms and conventions of the thriller by going with the stereotype that the colour white is pure and innocent and black is evil and dangerous.
4) Camerawork and Editing
In terms of camera work, we decided to use two point of view
shots in the forest and car park scene. We chose to do this because we thought
it gave an effect to the video to show the audience what the person is seeing.
We felt this camera shot broke up all the other shots and gave a closer
connection to the audience as if that was the audience who was seeing these
things. In the scenes that are meant to be Chloe’s flashbacks we edited them to
black and white because we wanted there to be a contrast between what is
happening now in present from what has happened in the past. This develops in
the forms and conventions of the thriller because it shows that we have
experimented with different effects and camera shots to try and make the film
as interesting as possible.
5) Title Font and Style
We left the title to come right at the end of the video. We
did this because it was hard for us to choose a name that we all liked and
thought that we should make the film first and decide on the name last minute
so we could get inspiration from watching the film. We decided to use a large
font so that the title would stand out from the background and is clear to the
audience that this is the name of the film. We used a font that had an eerie
shadow to it to fit in with our thriller video. However, when it came to
choosing a style to put our title in, it became an issue. This was because what
we were editing on only had limited choices for us to choose and have in our video.
What we decided to go with went well into the video and we kept the title in a
white colour so that it did not take too much attention away from the video as
it was starting so the audience got an affect from it straight away. This develops
the forms and conventions of a thriller because, after watching a popular
horror film called ‘Cape Fear’, we liked the idea of the white font of the
title because It stood out to the audience watching.
6) Story and how the opening sets it up
7) Genre and how the opening suggests it
We
researched into a number of horror genres before making our decision as to what
genre we would base our video on. We discussed fantasy such as zombies or
ghosts but eventually decided on a psychological thriller. In these types of
films, fear is the main emotion that they want their audience to feel, and we
decided that this would be a challenge but if we did it well, we would gain
very effective results. However, we realised that when the main tension and suspense
is built is generally at the end of psychological thriller films such as, ‘Psycho’.
So we had to find a way to make the audience ask questions to themselves in our
opening. A main aspect of our video where fear and tension is built is in the
train scene. Where Amber is seen at the edge of the platform, then the train
passes and the last shot of the scene is of the blank platform. We believe that
this develops the forms and conventions of a thriller film because the audience
are left asking themselves vital questions. They will wonder where she has gone
and form their own opinion of the plot, which is the desired reaction for us
because we want them to gain as much interest as possible from watching our
video.
Each character is introduced in a different way, however, every character is shown dropping something. Whether it be a bag, bottle or phone they all drop something and this, along with make up, signifies their possession. Each of the girls is our video appear to be average, teenage girls who are carrying out every day tasks. This aspect was important for us because we want our audience to feel as if they can relate to the action and feel a sense of fear that this may happen to them. As our target audience are teenagers, we decided that this could be a possible reaction from them. Some popular thriller films appear to want their audience to relate to the characters, such as Nina in "Black Swan", where she is just a typical ballet dancer but then lets her mental disorder take over her. Due to characters like this, audiences can relate to them and they personally feel the tension created by the action, but some well-known thrillers opposed this idea, such as, "Alien" where audiences know that the plot is fiction and are unlikely to relate to the characters. It could be said that this idea is challenged and developed through forms and conventions of real products, because each film uses different techniques to introduce their characters, but we have decided to introduce ours as average teenagers to gain an effective response from our viewers.
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