In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge conventions of real media products?
Many conventions of our narrative are similar to that of The Godfather (1972) and Goodfellas (1990) as we have taken their themes as inspiration for our own thriller’s gloomy underworld of crime, corruption and the fact that the main protagonist switch from one person to another. (Our intention is for the audience to realise that they can not relate to any main character because of their immorality and corrupt lifestyles).
Chinatown (1974) has also been influential in terms of the narrative because the way in which the film is portrayed is how we want our thriller to be portrayed: we want to be ‘one step in front’ of the audience at all times and for them to be caught up in the many twists and turns. We have used the thriller element in Layer Cake (2004) as well in the sense that the female lead was the male protagonist’s downfall - this was used as part of our narrative. With the style of filming Taxi Driver (1976) gave us the idea of shooting some of the opening sequences of a road - this conveys consistency in out thriller and makes the film more interesting. The foundation of our thriller originated from the story of Romeo and Juliet and is present in the narrative as two of the main character’s fake love affair - this was only used because we wanted to use Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet of Romeo and Juliet as our opening soundtrack.
Because of the themes of our thriller mainly being from film noir we have incorporated this into the style of our filming and the mise-en-scene of the opening. As film noirs are mostly shot in gloomy, dark conditions we have edited our thriller so that it is in black and white; also this effect makes the audience focus on the sinister and sadistic side to human nature. Various low angle shots have been featuring in the opening such as: the building scenes - which give a sense of dominance and threat to the audience. The streetlights shining down onto the rain lashed road demonstrates the use of chiaroscuro lighting, a characteristic of film noir and the rain lashed road giving off the sagacity of urbanisation. We aimed to combine the classically dark, sinister style of film noir with small elements of realistically modern municipal styles.
Our thriller challenges conventions of real media product by not letting the audience relate and feel isolated from the characters in the film, such as in other thrillers that have male protagonists like The Godfather (1972) and Layer Cake (2004), because they are just too corrupt and the sadistic side of their human nature evidently shows.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our thriller it represents the particular social group of gangsters/mafia. This is apparent throughout the opening as the audience realises that the people in film are in fact depositing a body – obviously this is criminal activity and is clearly represented. On the contrary, we did not represent the characters in a glamorous and envious style, like in The Godfather (1972), as in reality they are not glamorous and we should not be envious of their lifestyles.
All the characters in the opening of our thriller are male because it was more realistic for men to do the ‘dirty work’ for the crimelords; and we were filming the thriller in the style of film noir where women are either femme fatales or boring bookish types - thus having female characters in our opening would contradict the film noir element of the thriller.
Some of the characters that are in their 20’s (quite young) are represented fairly maturely as the film revolves around the theme of revenge and crime; therefore in the lifestyle of gangsters even the younger characters are forced with high quantities of responsibility - making decisions that could influence whether someone lives or not.
The race of all the characters is either Irish or associated with Ireland in some way – this is because we had to have a location in the United Kingdom (it would be efficient to film) and, we felt that for criminal families to co-exist it would have to be somewhere that had a history of violence. We found that Ireland was the most suitable place in the UK for realistic aspects of corruption and deceit we wanted in our thriller.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our thriller is similar to Sin City (2005) in the sense that they are both filmed/edited in a stylish manner; this would appeal to the niche audience such as the viewers of arthouse, and also the violent, action elements of the film would appeal to viewers of mainstream distributions. Because of this similarity our thriller would most probably be distributed as a mainstream and arthouse product. It will appeal to mainstream audiences because of the various twists and turns of the thriller and it would appeal to niche audiences because of the film noir style of the thriller. Sin City (2005) was distributed by Dimension Films so our media product could possibly be distributed by this, or a similar American, company.
Who would be the audience for your media product and how did you attract/address them?
The audience for our media product would be mainstream viewers and niche viewers for a similar reason to why we think they would distribute our media product. We addressed the mainstream audiences by choosing the theme of gangster/mafia; this is appealing to mainstreamers because of the violence and action that usually comes with this theme. And we addressed the niche audiences by having a film noir element to the thriller – the unique style of film noir would appeal to viewers of this kind because of the individualistic and distinctive approach to a thriller.
As our thriller has a high level of violence so the certificate for it would most probably be a 15. However, the complexity of the story (the constant changes of protagonist, deceit between lovers, corruption…etc) and unique style of filming could make the certificate increase to a 18 because the audience has to be of significant age, young adult and older, to actually understand the narrative of the thriller. Also, younger audiences may not appreciate the individual filming techniques in the film.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
From the process of constructing this product, technologically, I have learnt how to use a digital camera (and tripod) – how to hold the camera steady to doing the basic filming techniques, upload the recording onto the computer and how to edit (in Adobe Premiere Elements 1.0) the opening to its best effects – cutting the recording to fit with the soundtrack, using light effects to enhance certain areas or just deciding to include/exclude diegetic noises. Non- technologically I have learnt how to work as a team to construct a film and how hard it is to make a thriller opening.