Rashida Dixon-Question 3

3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Lions gate entertainment is our chosen distributor as they have done films such as American psycho which is also an psychological thriller. We believe that this is the perfect distributor as they do a range of different types of films and they are well known throughout the world. So this will enable our film to be sold throughout the world. It is also well know for distributing independent films as our film is an independent film this is very important.

We also considered to using momentum pictures as an distributor as it is well know independent film distributor in the UK and Ireland however they aren't well known for distributing Psychological thrillers so we decided to go with Lions Gate instead.

Rashida Dixon-Question 2

2.How does your media product represents a particular group?

People’s general idea of a school girl is that they are young and innocent. We tried to portray her in the stereotypical way by making our character dress in school uniform as this helps the audience identify with the character as they are of a similar age. We have made her seem like the victim in the first extract, this is a typical view that young girls are the target for criminal. Young girls who are targeted by criminals are normally portrayed as a normal teenager who was living a good life until they were killed or hurt for example Milly Dowler. We portrayed this by showing the young girl 'having fun' with the male teacher which is a contrast with the situation she is in at the start of our media product. We would have gone on to challenge the view that young girls are innocent victims by showing her manipulative personality.

We have a Male teacher in our product. There are many stereotypical views of male teachers and we concentrated on the extreme stereotype; that male teachers have ulterior motive for being a teacher which is to be around young people so that they are able to manipulate them. There is also extreme view that male teachers are tend to be more maternal than other male because teaching is considered a “female” job. Most male teachers are portrayed negatively in the media; they are normally villainous or portrayed as someone with a secret (most of the time the secret is that they are having relations with a student). They are also portrayed as paranoid in some show as they are aware that the danger of getting too close to a student could cost them their job. Our media product plays on the idea of teacher student relationship by making the teacher seem in control of the whole situation which in part makes the female character (the student) look innocent and naive. This make the audience put all the blame toward our male character as they see him as an authority figure taking advantage of someone without any power.

Rashida Dixon- Question 1

1.In what way does your media product used, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Before we began our project we did some research. We gave out questionnaires and then collected the information to help us decide what we were going to do in our media project. We also watched some psychological thrillers to get an idea of key things about the character, setting and sound that we needed to incorporate into our on psychological thriller.

Setting

We had to consider what we could or couldn't incorporate into our media project, because of restriction on where we were able to shoot we had to either find places around the school that didn't resemble the school or we could shoot in the school. Our result from our market research had shown us that majority of the people liked psychological thriller shot in school so we decided to base our opening sequence in the school; we then built our ideas around this. The opening sequence establishes the setting. The fact that the thriller is set in a school gives the idea of the norms being disrupted which is very conventional of a psychological thriller; this also enables the audience to identify with the characters and themes. Not many Psychological thrillers are set in schools as they tend to be set in a home environment.

Characters

Our characters are to some extent typical of a psychological thriller as they are ambiguous; the opening sequence makes it confusing about what to think about the characters this is conventional of psychological thrill for example Blood Simple. The school girl represents a femme-fatale character. This type of character is an archetype of psychological thrillers; we tried to imply that her relationship with the other character by the use of body language. Body language is very important when portraying a femme-fatale character. She is dressed in school uniform to give the idea that she is young and naive girl in a forbidden relationship this is unconventional of a femme-fatale character as they are normally dressed very seductive; this contradicts the typical way femme-fatale are usally dressed which tend to be seductive. We also have a villainous/corrupted character; we chose to make him a teacher as male teachers are portrayed negatively in the media. The male character is in a way like a detective character you see in some psychological thrillers, we portray this by focusing on him snooping through the classroom; he isn't dressed like a conventional detective character however his actions are quite conventional of a detectives.

Convention Characters

1. Femme-fatel

2.villainous/ corrupted

3.Detective

Mise-en-scene

We used both coloured and black and white to show the difference between the past and the present; this is very common in psychological thrillers for example in Momento. It also helps to confuse the audience about the order the events should come in.

Camera

We used a lot of close ups to help confused the audience of who the characters are, it is also used to draw the audience attention to certain details that we wanted to highlight. This is a convention of psychological thrillers as it helps to create confusion about an object or person. It is also used to draw the persons attention to something specific, we used the close ups to emphasize the body language of the characters and show facial expression. We also used a lot of mid shots to establish the setting.

Editing

We decided to stick with black and white for our title as we thought that using any other type of colour would take away from the action going on. We decided to uses lions gate entertainment as they have distributed psychological films such as American psycho. We used dissolves to help to link scenes together this is conventional of psychological thriller as it leaves the audience disorientated about what is really going on in a sequence.

Preliminary task

Preliminary task

Se7en

The opening of Se7en creates and sense of mystery and tension. The audience isn't aware of who the character is because of the use of extreme close-ups. The editing distorts the images to give the idea of being inside a psychopath's head . The music also aids the images to create discomfort.

Editing:

• quick cuts in the sequence allowing it to show many different items , this makes it difficult for the audience to take in everything at once which adds to the discomfort.
• There are flashed to what looks like images which are related to what the character is doing.

Camera:

• Close-ups are used to exaggerate the characters action and make the audience well aware of the action of the character.

Editing:

• we aren't aware fully if what the character is doing as the camera flashed between different 'activities'.
• there seems to be images laid on top of each other which makes it difficult to tell which image is real.

Mise-en-scene:

• The lighting is used to create shadow which gives the idea of a hidden.
• Flashes of red makes the audience feel more uncomfortable as it signify blood.
• The fingers gives the audience an idea that the main character is cruel and horrid.

Sound:

• Sound is distorted and it gives the impression of someone screaming.
• The music develops as the sequence ends.
• We hear a voice at the end of the sequences however it is difficult to understand what it is saying.

Memento

the opening scene of memento creates tension as we see a picture that gradually disappears. we are then introduced to a character. we see blood all over the place and items. then we are introduced to a second character who gets shot.

Camera Shots:

• close up of picture of blood on wall creates tension as we want to know how that blood got there
• man's hand visible in the close up of the picture creates tension as we want to know who this person is.
• close up of blood dripping down
• close up of glasses in covered
• close up of first character makes him seem as the villain
• close up of the second character's back of head makes him seem that he is the victim
• close up of camera and man's face hiding behind it makes us want to know who this person is
• close ups are also used to show the characters facial expression.
• close up of bullet

Sound:

• the music is gradually building creating tension
• we can hear the flapping of the picture

Edit:

• the use of rewinding starts the story off.