Evaluation

Our Thriller Opening was created and based on the work of Alfred Hitchcock; we related our work to that of Hitchcock by the use of the characters, we included a ‘Damsel in Distress’ which occurs in the majority of Hitchcock’s existing productions (e.g. Phsyco) along with a mysterious male protagonist. Although, instead of following in the typical conventions of Hitchcock’s productions, we has the ‘tables turned’ as the Damsel in Distress is uncovered to be the possible protagonist, creating tension, mystery and contrasts the typical conventions of a Thriller.

We also followed in Hitchcock’s convention of being included and ‘showing his face’ by using photographs of ourselves as props (near end, when girl polishes frame) which again, contrasts the convention of Hitchcock and mysteriously twists it to our advantage. Hitchcock also tends to use ‘red herring’s’ to miss lead the audience to unnecessary story lines and importance, we interpreted this convention by using a key. This is highlighted to symbolise the storyline of the female character being ‘locked up’ but is of no importance to the narrative and therefore acts as a red herring due to the highlighting throughout the opening.

To keep the Opening a typical Thriller, we decided to keep the innocent vs. dark, mysterious trait that often occurs in Thrillers. We obtained this by the use of costume, lighting and make-up. For example, we had the Teen girl dressed in a bright dress, with pale, young make-up that has her represented as light, happy, young and innocent and we contrasted this by the Protagonist dressed in a deep trench coat, muddy hiking boots and dark clothing along with greased, combed hair, pale make-up and dark, dark eye rings to connote a sly, devious character that would appear as an obvious threat. We also used the lighting to have the young girl appear in the lightened areas the majority of the time to have her represented to the audience as innocent and vulnerable leaving the mysterious protagonist hidden away in the darkened shadows.

We took consideration when finalising our character choices. We chose to have a vulnerable teen girl to act as our Damsel in Distress and a mysterious male to act as our protagonist as this is a typical convention of a thriller and also represents a wide range of social groups and therefore appealing to a widened audience. As already mentioned, this character choice is typical for a thriller and therefore fits the codes and conventions, connoting a successful thriller opening. This convention will also appeal to a typical thriller audience of young-middle aged males as they can be enticed by the young fem-fatal’s dark and twisting narrative and also relate to the similar aged protagonists antics.

Due to us following the typical, dark, eary atmosphere, the opening will also entice typical thriller audiences as the tension is straight away being built as a mystery is brought the screen with the dark establishing close up of the gory cuts of the girl. But due to the character choices, we may also attract a secondary audience of young females as they may be able to relate to this complex character and her eary narrative, as well as the young, eary soundtrack of the twisted nursery rhyme as the edited edition used is new and fresh.

During the creation of Twenty Days, I think that we will all agree that we learnt a great deal, not only of the codes and conventions of Thrillers, but also the studies of other producers that are incredibly inspirational and therefore developing great understanding of the industry and the individual styles and techniques within. For example we developed understanding of The Coen Brother’s technique of empty establishing shots used to create eary atmospheres. To Alfred Hitchcock’s known technique of Red Herrings to grab the attention of the audience along with adding the mysterious tension and feeling of not knowing. And is why we chose to use these contrasting techniques as inspiration when creating our Preliminary task production and Twenty Days opening.

We also developed a full understanding of soundtracks, sound effects and Diegetic features. We used a number of experimentations to show a full understanding. For example, we tried to create our own Sound effects that were used (e.g. camera shutter, soundtrack lyrics, and chopping noises) and also use as many volume variations as we could to show our understanding of the sound on par with the visual aspects (e.g. we faded in, out, suddenly dropped and varied timings and speed to create tension throughout).

We also attempted to use as many relevant camera angles, shots and movements to show our understanding of this as we earlier regained knowledge of this (as in our Early Preliminary Task we actually ‘broke’ the ‘180 degree’ rule that we were unaware of so hesitantly went back and studied this, along with the understanding of other rules and shot-types that we were unaware/unsure about (e.g. spinning and low, 2 shots and different depths and varied focussing)that we attempted  to showcase throughout our opening production).

Looking back, we all agree that our final production is on a whole new level from our Preliminary Task as just by the use of Sound and Camera angles, it is clear that our knowledge and understanding has significantly developed (e.g. before we used camera shots that were simplistic and of no purpose (e.g. simple 2 shots) whereas in our final opening production we used angles to show the relationships, and relevant shot types to add and release tension in relevant situations (e.g. P.O.V shot when tracking the movement of female to explore into her emotions –help audience to relate, and also to add the tension by exadurating the tensing moment.)

Overall, I am very happy with the outcome and, looking back, I feel that our development is clear and appropriate.


By Nadine Parker