Question 1

Question 1

1.  How does your product use of challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

My two minute Thriller movie opening ‘Seize’ shows a young girl running through the forest away from a man with an axe with a hunting dog.  As it is only an opening, there is obviously no storyline, plot or explanation in these crucial first two minutes.  This therefore means that it conforms to the convention of withholding important information from the viewer for a suspense affect from the very start. In terms of keeping to the mise-en-scene criteria of a thriller film, for my location I used a forest, as it is quite a stereotypical characteristic of thriller movies as they are full of interesting shadows and things to hide behind. Therefore, suspense is creating out of the fact that someone could jump out from anywhere. The woodland setting creates an eerie atmosphere, making the protagonist seem all the more vulnerable. For the costume element of my thriller opening, in some ways you could say that I very much conformed to the character stereotypes, however in other ways they were defied. For example, the antagonist of my movie opening played by Douglas Ingram was dressed quite stereotypically as a dodgy, aggressive and farmer-like character to make him seem intimidating and suspicious. I had carrying an axe as a prop to induce fear and apprehension into the audience. I purposely gave my protagonist, played by Holly Ranger, no props to make her seem helpless and defenceless with no weapon to defend herself or means of phoning for help. I had her dressed in plain, simplistic clothes of muted colours to present a dark mood.  Her acting very much reflected the female stereotype that suggests that all females are weak and vulnerable, along with the male actor suggesting dominance and violence. It could be said that my thriller opening explores the issue of young girls being targeted by men on a daily basis, which shockingly is still an issue. Obviously as it is only the first two minutes of the film, the audience is not yet aware of the reasons behind this targeting, however, watching it we must assume that we are to find out in due course. One of the Thriller mise-en-scene conventions that I actually challenged was the lighting. As we know, Thriller movies or openings would usually be low-lit to create an eerie affect, however, I purposely chose to film of a beautifully sunny day as it make it all the more confusing that this girl is being chased through a forest by an axe murderer in broad daylight. Although it was an incredibly sunny day, the light was actually very intense as the tree canopy made it quite shaded but the light that got through was the perfect amount to show that it was a nice day. Aside from the fake blood used on the protagonist at the end, the makeup element was very basic and kept to a minimum. My male actor required none as his face was never shown as this was part of the conventions, however my female actor did require some basic face makeup to make her skin glow when on the camera. The fact that she is wearing makeup also indicates that she is just a normal teenage girl; therefore my target audience can relate to her and hence sympathise.