(Evaluation Task 1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

(Evaluation Task 1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

In this essay I will be comparing my AS Thriller to several Thriller films. I will first compare my thriller to the thriller called No Good Deed (2014), I will compare shots from my opening sequence to shots that were used in that movie which are similar to mine. I will also be comparing the titles in my thriller to the titles of No Good Deed and how they are similar. 

No Good Deed (2014)

Comparison of thriller opening sequence to No Good Deed (2014) shot for shot: 

Screen Shot from AS Thriller

Screen shot from No Good Deed (2014)

This is the shot of the male intruder in our thriller walking through the front door of the female protagonists house,  in comparison, next to it is a shot of the male intruder sneaking into the house of the female protagonist in the film No Good Deed (2014). The first similarities that these two shots share is that both shots show the same action happening, that of a male breaking into a females house through the front door. Both shots show the front door slightly open with the intruder wearing inside the house, Both shots show the intruder, which is slightly more darkly lightened then what is in the background, this is done because darkness has connotations of scariness and evilness which is what we want our intruders to be perceived as, and this is probably what the director of No Good Deed wanted from the shot too. Another similarity the two shots have is in terms of Mise En Scene, both actors are wearing relatively dark clothing, as to not be spotted, but it is not obvious either like if they were wearing black hoodies and a mask, they are dressed more smartly. One difference which our shot has in comparison with the shot from No Good Deed is that in ours you cannot see the intruders face, because we wanted to leave a certain mystery behind his character at the beginning, so that people didn't know who he was or what he was doing there, which creates suspense for the audience, the director of No Good Deed did not do this because the character had already been introduced early on in the film.

Screen Shot from AS Thriller

Screen shot from No Good Deed (2014)

The next to shots are similar for several reasons, firstly because both actors are doing the same thing, they are both walking up stairs and seem to be on the search for the female protagonists. As for the similarities in camera work, both shots are high angled shots looking down the stairs, the shots are taken so that a certain level of depth is created in the shot, by having the stairs look like there some sort of a spiral down. Both shots show where the top of the stairs begin so that it does not make the staircase appear larger then it actually is by not showing the top which could lead to the audience imagines that the stairs continue for a while. As for Mise en scene, the set for both shots make it quite clear that it is taking place in a home, in our thriller it is thanks to the carpeted floors and the house type decorations which include an old sowing machines and some family photos on the wall and for the shot in No Good Deed its simply the architecture, for example the banisters which you would find in a home and not in for example an office building, it is clear that it is shot in a home also thanks to the decorations hung up on the wall, for example the decoration type carpet on the wall of the stairs.

Screen Shot from AS Thriller

Screen shot from No Good Deed (2014)

In these two shots, the first similarities is the action, both female protagonists are peering around the corner of a wall, looking at the intruders; Though both females are looking at the intruder they do have different facial expressions, the female in No Good Deed has a frightened facial expression which makes it appear as if she is hiding from the intruder where as the female in our thriller has more of a facial expression which makes it look like she is planning something which means that rather then really hiding from the intruder she is observing him. A similarities both shots have is that they both have something in the right of the screen to make the shot less boring, in our thriller we have book shelves with books, in No Good Deed there is a blurred out bannister in the foreground, with out these in the shot it would look a lot more boring because it would simply be a large blank wall besides them. Another similarity between both shots is that they are both shot from the position of the person that they are looking at which is in both cases the intruder, in No Good Deed it is shot from down the stairs which is where the intruder is standing and in our thriller it is shot from down the flat corridor which is also where the intruder is placed, by doing this it is informing the audience that they are looking at the intruder because they are looking in the direction of the camera.

Screen Shot from AS Thriller

Screen shot from No Good Deed (2014)

In both these shots the female characters are going down a hall way, though in the No Good Deed shot the character is running where as in our thriller she is carefully walking, this says a lot about the characters, it shows that the female in No Good Deed is scared of the intruder where as in our thriller it makes our character look more confident and curious rather than scared. Both Shots are filmed from behind the female character as to show where she is going rather than filming the character from in front because then the audience would not know where she is going, for all they know she could run into a wall, but by filming it from behind it allows the audience to know or predict where she is going. Another similarity between both shots is with the decoration of the set, in both shots the is reminded that the character are still in a home, in our thriller we have done this by hanging several photos on the walls to the sides of the character which makes it seem very family like and homely, the same thing is done in the No Good Deed shot by putting family type photos on the walls which are next to her.

Screen shot from No Good Deed (2014)

Screen Shot from AS Thriller

Once again the main similarity between these two shots is that both female protagonists are doing the same action, in this case it is holding something in there hand and swinging it in the direction of the intruders head to try and knock him out. A similarities between both shots involves props, both female characters are holding a bottle in their hands, it is a wise choice for a prop because it is something which is easily findable in a house and can act as a good weapon. Another similarity between both shots is that they are both shot from a low angle meaning that the camera is placed low and is facing up towards the characters, the reason this is done in both shots is because of the connotations tide behind this type of shot, it makes the man look vulnerable, weak and smaller than the females because they are lower down than them, it makes the females look very powerful because they are higher up than the males making it look like they are superior and are in control, the reason this has been done is because in both of these shots it is the turn of the female to be the one in control and the one inflicting damage on the male, it is when the stereotypes of a female are broken, no longer are they weaker than then male and scared by the male, they are now the strong ones and the ones hurting the males instead. One difference that the shots have, is that in our thriller we filmed the shot in a “Dutch Tilt” angle, where as the shot in No Good Deed is straight; We shot with a Dutch Tilt angle because we believed that it looked different than a normal shot making the scene appear chaotic, crazy and fast were as it seams that the director of No Good Deed wanted more of a simple looking shot so that the audience can concentrate on the female hitting the intruder on the head.

Screen Shot from AS Thriller

Screen shot from No Good Deed (2014)

In these two clips both the male character in No Good Deed and the Male character in our thriller opening sequence are on the floor and looking down in shame after having been hit by the female protagonist. Both these shots are filmed from a slight high angle meaning that they are lower then the camera which make both of them look weak and vulnerable, this is after they have been overpowered by the female so it makes sense that this is how we wanted to portray our character at this moment and so we did so with the help of this high angle. These shots are important because it gives the ending of the story because both these scenes happen ant the end of each film; It shows that the female protagonists were weak at the beginning of the film which is the typical stereotype of a female and usually how a female is portrayed in a thriller, also at the beginning of the film the male characters were the strong ones but as the movie progressed the female characters started to become the more powerful ones and and began to dominate the males and by the end of the film they had broken the stereotypes of females and that of males making the female the one who won the fight and came out the strong and dominant character and the male characters ended up being weak and vulnerable and have there stereotypes broken.

Comparison of Titles in thriller opening sequence to those in No Good Deed (2014):

Production Company Title No Good Deed

Production Company Title AS Thriller

Actor Title AS Thriller

Actor Title No Good Deed

Producer Title No Good Deed

Producer Title AS Thriller

Director Title AS Thriller

Director Title No Good Deed

Film Title No Good Deed

Film Title AS Thriller

There are quite a few similarities that our thriller opening sequence shares with No Good Deed (2014) when it comes to titles. Both use the titles to mention the people who worked on the film, in the case of our AS Thriller we gave recognition to the production company in charge of the film,  the main actors in the film, the Producer and the Director all these titles can be seen in the opening sequence of both thriller, and in both our opening sequence and the the opening sequence of No Good Deed (2014), the title of the film is also written. A similarity between the titles used in our opening sequence and those used in the opening sequence of No Good Deed (2014) is the font, both titles are written either with the font “Times New Roman” or a font which is very similar, this font was used because of the fact that the letters are quite thin, meaning that the titles do not take up a lot of the space on screen but is still legible. Another similarity between both opening sequence is the size of the font, both have used a font size which is between medium and large so that once again it does not take up to much screen space but is still big enough to be reading to draw the viewers eye to the text. The placement of the titles is also quite similar in both opening sequences, the titles are placed either to the left or to the right of the shot because even though we want the titles to be looked at we don't want them to be the main focus of the shot, we also want the audience to pay attention to the film, it the titles were in the middle then the eyes of the audience would be naturally drawn there and they would not focus on the rest; The fact that having text in the middle of the screen draws the audiences attention is also the reason why we put the name of the film in the centre of the screen at the end of the opening sequence with nothing playing behind it, because e that is what we want the audience too see, in No Good Deed, although the title is not in the centre of the screen, instead of it being either on the left or on the right it is in the bottom middle of the screen which still draws the eye to it more than the other titles but the director obviously wanted the audience to focus on the film as well as the title of the film. Another similarity between the titles in both sequences is the colour of the text, both texts are brightly coloured as to attract the audiences attention to them, in the case of our opening sequence we used the colour white because it is a bright colour and it easily contrasts with many other colours which came up on screen, No Good Deed used the colour red for the same reason but additionally because of the connotations behind the colour red which is that it represents badness and evilness. An   additional similarity which the titles in both opening sequences share is the amount of time they are on screen, all the titles are on screen for about two and a half to three seconds even though they are read a lot faster then that, it is put for this amount of time just incase someone reads slowly, the point of the titles is to give recognition to the people who worked on the film and if the persons name is not on screen for long enough to read it, then it would defeat the titles purpose of being on screen. The name of the film is the title which stays on screen for the longest amount of time so that it really sticks in the audiences minds and shows that this is the most important title out of them all.