1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I am going to split this question into four main points; genre, narrative structure, form and style.
Genre
The genre of our film was Thriller/Horror. After some research on the genre, and the success of the last year’s work, we decided that it had sufficient success for us to use it for our final sequence. The trilogy ‘Scream’ has a similar style/genre opening sequence, and to date has grossed over $500 million in the box office so this encouraged us to take inspiration from the first film.
In our sequence, we wanted to create suspense and enigma over who the kidnapper is. A similar use of this idea is in the first Scream film opening sequence. There is a telephone conversation with the killer, but we don't find out who they are until the end of the film. This enigma helps prolong the excitement and suspense, which I found really effective.
These are the conventions we followed:
Key: (caps = convention)
FIGHT SCENE – there is a struggle where the girl is KIDNAPPED but there is ENIGMA involved as it is during a blackout so we are unaware of the appearance of the kidnapper. The GIRL’S LIFE IS THREATENED as the news report she listens to on the radio indicates that the kidnapper is Keith Roberts, a MURDERER that has escaped from jail. The HERO is implied through the appearance of the boyfriend. The title of the film is Captive, so further implies that the girl is being held HOSTAGE or has been CAPTURED for motives the audience is currently unaware of. This could be a REVENGE story, and by reading a synopsis of the film, you can see that it is, with Josh’s father being the cause of the CONFLICT. By the end of the story, the hero also manages to KILL THE ANTAGONIST.
As you can see, our plot follows many of the conventions of a thriller/horror, so we initially thought that we would be able to show in a mainstream cinema because there aren’t many unconventional factors. From our questionnaire results though, we found that 60% of our responses said that it should be shown in an independent cinema and 2% said it could be shown in either a mainstream or indie cinema.* From this data we have revised our initial thought of calling it a mainstream film, and now view it as an independent production.
Narrative Structure
Todorov:
Our narrative structure follows the conventions of Todorov’s narrative theory. There was a brief equilibrium with Dannie home alone preparing for her weekend which was followed by the disequilibrium of her kidnap. Later on in the film, the restoration of the equilibrium occurs with the rescue of Dannie by her boyfriend, Josh, and the murder of Keith Roberts.
Most films follow this convention in all of the genres available; for example in Star Wars Episode 4 this is shown.
Equilibrium: Luke at home with Uncle and Aunt
Disequilibrium: Luke’s Uncle and Aunt get killed
Restoration of Equilibrium: Luke blows up the Death Star
New Equilibrium: Luke is a rebel hero
This sequence of equilibrium-disequilibrium-restoration of equilibrium follows the same pattern as our film, so we are confident that applying this theory follows the expectations of the audience.
Levi-Srauss:
We also used Strauss’ theory of binary opposition.
Binary opposites we used:
· Lighting= before Dannie gets kidnapped there is strong lighting vs she gets kidnapped in a blackout connoting danger, confusion, mystery
· Good vs Bad
· Antagonist (Kidnapper) vs Protagonist (Josh)
· Teen vs Adult
· Innocence vs Corruption
Propp:
Propp’s character theory was also applicable in our opening sequence.
The 8 character roles:
THE VILLAINS - The corrupt businessmen/ The prisoner
THE HERO - Josh
THE DONOR - The escaped prisoner who unintentionally leaves clues to Dannie's whereabouts
THE HELPER - Charlotte
THE PRINCESS / VICTIM - Dannie
HER FATHER - Dannie's dad
THE DISPATCHER - Josh's father, who is the primary cause of the disequilibrium
THE FALSE HERO - We do not have a false hero in our story
The use of Propp’s character roles in our film, following the traditional male hero rescuing female victim is similar to many comic-book action films. The representation of women as inferior or weaker to the men is somewhat developed in our film through Dannie’s inability to save herself without Josh.
In Spiderman, the contrast between the male characters and the female ones are quite prominent. The men have all of the main roles, while the only woman with a strong role is the love interest of Spiderman. This character plot mirrors ours, so again I would have hoped that the audience were able to relate to our opening sequence through its similarities with other films.
Continuity Theory:
(The videos used in this presentation are not made by me, apart from the preliminary task example titled, 'The Transaction'.)
Form
The film we made was an opening sequence, so our aim was to make sure that this was understood by the audience. We achieved this by having the titles appear throughout the sequence, ending on the title of our film; Captive. We tried to use the sequence to introduce the primary characters. The girl, Dannie, was introduced on the phone to her dad, telling him that he could trust her to do the right thing; “you can trust me dad,” while carrying some alcohol. This immediately explained to the audience that she is slightly rebellious, a typical teen making the most of a free house. There are indicators in this conversation that something is going to happen to her when she says “nothing is going to happen”. We tried to use the dramatic irony to suggest that something WOULD happen, and believe that this was successful. Her dad is introduced as being away on a trip of some kind and that he was not going to be back for a few days. The boyfriend is first introduced via the text message conversation between Dannie and him, and the audience finds out that he would be arriving late. The radio report introduces the antagonist, and suggests the location of Dannie; London, and that he is heading her way. All of this information was used to show the isolation of Dannie, making her look more vulnerable. 91% of our audience in the premiere thought that the opening sequence was effective, with only 4 people disagreeing. From this we can deduce that on the whole, the film was effective as an opening sequence.
Style
We tried to follow the typical horror/thriller conventions, so our opening sequence had a similar style to lots of other horror/thriller film openings. We particularly took inspiration from ‘Scream’, and the rather ordinary setting and initial events that occur. We used the tripod for basically all of the shots, and this was to create the effect of normality and equilibrium before the kidnapping. The lighting was hardly changed post-production as we wanted the bright lighting that was already quite effective during Dannie’s time alone in the kitchen. For the blackout though, we faded into a completely black background as we did not have time to redo the blackout scene with illumination of her phone. Our audience response also indicated that this was something that we could have worked on, with 15 the people mentioning it as constructive criticism.
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The only uses of a handheld shot were when we could not get the appropriate angle with a tripod –the close up over the shoulder shots were the only times this was a problem though, and there wasn’t any noticeable movement so it didn’t distract from the story.
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We used a point of view shot for Josh’s reaction, and had the camera loosely on the tripod so we were able to move it around effectively. As a last shot, I thought this was effective as it finished in a panicked situation.
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| The titles were a simple font so as not to distract from the film and to be enigmatic, not revealing the genre too clearly. |
The main title at the end was in a different font, and was creepier, connoting the genre of the film more obviously.
