In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms

and conventions of real media products?

After looking at a number of similar films I found that my film’s mise-en-scene, music, plot and overall presentation should Tease the audience with a little bit of mystery through the introduction the potential threat in a series of unclear or seemingly everyday and boring shots. I thought that If my audience are asking themselves questions, then they will continue to watch and wait for them to be answered. The audience likes to feel as though they know what is going on through application of prior knowledge of the genre such as codes and conventions. If the audience's predictions are right (or in some cases wrong) then they get will a thrill out of it as it is both pleasing to find something fresh and new but also satisfying to feel like a film expert. This is the exact effect that I tried to use in my film as it was the best plan for something in the thriller and the short story genre.

Before starting the production of this project I first had to gain an understanding

of what it was that I was expected to include with in my film, in relation to genre

what were the common codes and conventions that flowed through out so many

other similar films and what it is that makes them similar in the first place.

The film that I wanted to make was a Thriller in the form of a Short story And so this meant that I had to narrow

my searching for similar films into texts that would fit into both categories.

STRUCTURE— For the structure of my film I wanted to set it up so that it looks like the opening few minutes of a Hitman movie, wherein it is common for the

audience to be shown a little slice of action or some suspicious behaviour to tease and entice the audience into continuing watching the film. In thrillers such as

James bond for example we will see bond finishing off his last mission before continuing onto the films main plot, similar to how I have seen countless Hitman and

Assassination films play out the first few minutes of a feature film; Hitman is finishing off his latest victim, cleaning up a crime scene, preparing to set up a kill, etc.

I however was not making a feature film and so I had to make it so that a story could still be told but within the space of only a few minutes.

I had been inspired by the popular crime and killer oriented TV show “Dexter”, especially its Introduc-

tion (which can be found on a previous blog post) The basic plot behind the show is about an unlikely

killer that remains undetected as he goes around killing countless numbers of people, but one of the

things that appealed to me was how each episode starts off by trying to show how normal this guy is, it

does this by showing snippets of himself preforming mundane everyday tasks such as shaving, having

breakfast, getting ready for work and so on, however for someone who has seen the show before or has

prior knowledge about any types of media text in this genre you will notice underlying messages and

clues. The innocent actions such as slicing open a packet of bacon somehow feels like it symbolises

something darker such as cutting up human flesh. The way that this mundane set of actions sets you up

to expect a more sinister surprise is the exact feeling that I wanted to create with in my film.

So in terms of the structure of my film it was important for me to stick to the codes and conventions of genre as it would then place the events into a presumed

context. The success of my film all hangs on being recognised as part of the thriller genre as Its important that the audience automatically pick up on The boring

everyday events and then with the added aid of possible suspicious clues thrown in they will hopefully expect my protagonist to have some dark secrets and

therefore will be then trying to pick up on any slip up or hint that could give away his dark secrets that this man is actually a hitman.

For my film to work they way that It was designed to I need to feed the audience a series of red herrings and double entendres to persuade them to judge this

character as some sort of shifty professional criminal so that the twist at the end will be a surprise. However as I have to make him seem suspicious I still have to

make it so that it actually works when the twist is revealed, so if I had my protagonist pulling out machine guns and parachuting out of helicopters that wouldn't

work with the big reveal that he is in fact a Jehovahs witness. So all of of my clues had to be set up to be hiding in plain sight.

The Title — “The Witness” works with the fact that the character is a Jehovahs

witness and when the twist is revealed this becomes blindingly obvious, however in

terms of making it look like a crime thriller “The Witness” could have numerous conno-

tations with it but I would say that the most obvious one would that I would expect as a

viewer would be to believe that it relates to an eye witness, someone who has wit-

nessed a scandalous crime and whose life is now at risk due to this.

Other crime thrillers often have these sorts of titles:

“The equalizer”, “The expatriate”, “The killing”, ”The Hit list” and so on. These types of

titles are quite common for the genre as they give the audience a basic idea to start

making assumptions on but they are still quite vague enough to allow the film not to be

spoilt.

Props, Shots, Sounds and other fundamental features

Moving onto analysing the actual text/content within my film I will discuss some of the key points featured in the most important scenes.

This is the opening shot of my film and is a close up of an alarm clock, The best way

to introduce the type of character that we are going to meet, The fact that he gets

up at 6AM shows that he isn't some sort of lazy slob, he is someone with a job or

someone who needs to be somewhere. Personally I also believe shows a degree of

discipline and alertness.

The other bits of mise en scene in this shot shows a cross in the bottom of the frame

this could be easily missed or dismissed as general clutter however it is the first clue

to revealing the characters identity. Or if the audience did spot it they could assume

it was one of the weird little trinkets that can often appear in certain films that has

some sort of sentimental value to the character, such as the protagonist’s little

Spinner on “Inception”, or Harvey Dent’s lucky coin in “the Dark Knight”.

This ambiguous shot of the protagonist getting out of bed is another close up and has a

sense of concealment of the persons identity at this stage as its deliberately trying not to

show the character’s face.

Only showing a limb or a section of the character’s identity is a common code of the

thriller hitman genre as secrecy is everything in that business and so it needs to be im-

plied through the shots and angles.

Similar to the previous shot the identity is still slightly concealed but more is getting gradually revealed,

This is where the sequence of mundane events kicks off and we see the character getting prepared to go to work. The

action of shaving is a masculine activity and therefore makes him seem more manly and tough.

This is a task that has been featured in a number of action packed adrenaline fuelled films to exemplify the masculinity

although I’m not really sure it qualifies as a genre convention. Also the fact that he is a male could be another code of

the genre as stereotypically speaking men are more intimidating and therefore likely to fit the role of a killer.

This point of view top down angle shows blood falling into the sink whilst the character shaves, all though

it isn't blood spilling out of a corpse blood in general has negative associations as blood is never a good

sign in any situation. This was designed to provoke a sense of danger or pain or maybe it could be

foreshadowing a similar scene that is yet to come.

Usually the blood in a sink typed scene is where the character is washing it off his hands or out of a shirt

and getting rid of some pretty suspicious evidence, but personally I think that would then reduce the likely

hood that this is a Jehovahs witness.

This is the Next red herring that I threw into my film, setting up a fake article that states

the death of a third “witness” should grab the viewers attention as it’s the title of the

film and its providing a possible bit of backstory (did he do this? Is he checking in on his

latest job?) about our mysterious character and seemingly confirming that there is

some sort of killing going on in this film.

Actually this isn't really relevant to the actually story as it is just simply a man browsing

through the news whilst he eats his breakfast, nothing incriminating or weird about,

unless you have already started making judgments that is.

This reflection on past dirty deeds is also a common convention of the thriller genre as

it allows the viewers with the keen eye for detail to gain additional knowledge and

helps them try to work out who the character really is, a dark past and that sort of thing

is quite frequent in thrillers as it gives the character more depth and therefore makes

them seem more interesting and real.

The character’s costume is noticeably professional as the character could be dressed to impress or to go to

work, or anything really, however when I think of men in suits I picture the secretive CIA/men in black typed

governmental agent look. The suit is yet another common normal thing on its own however when its added

to the already growing number of potentially suggestive things about this character I think that secretive

and professional are the 2 things I think of first, rather than being a smart and presentable jehovahs

witness.

The suited up professional killer is often found in many films to be wearing a suit, however the addition of

the cross doesn't really fit the codes and is more specific to this certain character however as mentioned

earlier it could just be a little trinket that relates to the characters background. We know that its just a link

to the jehovas side of things but the audience may think its just to make him look less dangerous, maybe it’s

a disguise, etc.

The title screen is something that is so simple to do however it has to look like it fits the genre, for the thriller

genre the colours are often contrasting colours usually black and white , the font is often sharp and clear cut if it is

a secret agent spy typed conspiracy movie and so this is why I chose to make my title fit that exact profile, as the

film still needs to appear as if its within that genre.

I believe that the font that I used works quite well as it looks like it could fit in with the codes but at the same time

looks ambiguous enough to possibly look a little gothicly religious/Celtic which also fits nicely with the theme of

my film.

This is the first shot in which we get a look at the location of where our character is however I don’t

really think it looks like it’s a place that you could say is any certain place, is it a B&B, a public place, his

house? Who knows? I hadn't actually thought about this factor until now but the fact that he is emerging

from this unknown location will once again support the idea that this man is secretive and that we are

now halfway through the film and we still barely know the guy.

The black BMW is something that I made sure was featured within my film as this is the sort of car that I

usually see in films such as “the transporter” and similar films and it is the perfect fit for being both the

getaway vehicle and/or the presentable jehovahs car.

This point of view top down angle shows the driver looking at a map , clearly showing that this man has an

objective and directions to a specific place, “last stop” is this his next victim? The 4th witness that will be

found dead on his doorstep (relating back to the news article ).

I was unsure about adding in this part as although it fits in with the suspicious hitman idea I don’t really think

that the jehovas witness’s preaching system is as co ordinated as having each house individually mapped out

however I decided to stick with it as keeping up the illusion was more important.

This part which shows the civilian/public’s reaction to the presence of the character is obviously quite

negative as people are hiding and not wanting to be seen by him. This sequence was inspired more by the

sort of old western cowboy films wherein the outlaws would ride into town and then all of the citizens

would hide, shutters would come down, etc.

Although it isn't strictly part of the thriller genre I thought it added a sense of reputation and fear surround-

ing this character which once again was something that was important to the build up of the finale.

This is nothing remotely incriminating however the use of close ups on certain objects

suggests that they need to be noticed and studied for a reason, they may not be his

keys, this may not be his house, well then who’s house is it, what do those keys open,

and so on. Getting the audience to ask themselves questions like this helps them engage

with the text and draws them into the story even more, which is exactly what I want

them to do as I've already said numerous times that they need to be convinced that this

guy is up to no good. If they can convince themselves then that makes it much easier for

me to twist their perceptions of this man even more.

During the driving scene there is a selection of short snappy cuts that I was using in a montage kind of way to

show that the character has spent quite a bit of time and covered quite a distance on his journey, this could

suggest that this trip is important to him. The location of the journey is in rural Cumbria, according to the codes

and conventions the character would usually be somewhere more built up like a town or a city as it would

make his job harder with the collateral and risk of being seen by other people, therefore exemplifying his

secretive skills.

The sequence is mainly made up of a series of close ups of the driver and inserts of parts of the car. If I had the

time to go back and reshoot I would have liked to have thrown in some different types of shots to mix it up a

bit more and make it more dynamic by introducing aerial shots and more shots of the car from the outside but

from hidden behind a bushes to give a more stealthy inconspicuous feel.

This trunk shot is something that I've seen a number of times before but seems quite specific to

the thrillers and action films genre. Personally this is my favourite shot as it looks deadly serious

and the low angle

makes the character

look more powerful

and overbearing.

When the victim opens the door I choose this character to be looking half asleep as it would put

him at a vulnerable disadvantage meaning that as he is still struggling to regain consciousness he is

unaware of who he has just opened the door to and is surely about to face his doom. Or is he?

If the audience had any prior knowledge or had seen this sort of thing before then at this stage

they should be expecting the protagonist pull out a silenced pistol and kill the guy.

This is the first time in the film we see a decent portrait view of the protagonists face, hopefully if every-

thing has gone to plan the audience are expecting him to say some sort of cool one-liner before gunning

the victim down or reveal some extra bit of information that will give the audience an insight into why

he is doing this….

“hello there can you spare a moment to for the lord Jesus Christ” (smiles)

However this is the stage where it would break the codes of a thriller but match the codes of a short

story. We get a big unexpected twist in the end that could support some sort of moral message “don’t

judge a book by its cover” “don’t jump to conclusions” or something cheesy like that.

This series of short takes was designed to build up the tension as the character is now

approaching the soon to be victims house, the transitions between each clip is designed to

tease the audience in a way as it is dragging it out and making them wait as they will be

expecting this sequence will end with a big finale.

An insert of the hand striking the door is a code of the genre as it is a great way to conclude tension however it is

similar to a common scene that can also be found quite commonly in horror films, the types of scenario where the au-

dience at home are screaming at there tv’s “don’t open it” as they know something bad is going to happen next, I’m

wanting the same to happen on my film wherein the audience know that only bad can happen if the door gets opened.

The tension is instantly diffused and the audience should realise that this is not a thriller and that all of

the codes and conventions that it featured were merely coincidence. The story then finishes with the

protagonist being seen as lacking any power and intimidation that was once thought about him as he

gets the door slammed in his face and walks away defeated.

Hopefully the audience are now aware that this was not supposed to be a thriller but just to be clear I

decided to play a little comical jaunty tune to end finish the film off.

A sudden change of music at the end of a short film is something that I’ve noticed in a few short films,

although I’m not sure if its common enough to qualify as a genre convention.

Style — for the overall style of my film I decided that it should look serious but also quite stylish and so I chose to edit the

footage so that it had a high contrast black and white effect, similar to the “Sin city” graphic novel typed theme. Also I thought it

made it stand out as a thriller more as its rare that you will see a rom-com or any other sorts of film in this type of style.

The music played through the film is classical because it has a more sophisticated “the Godfather” typed organised crime feel to

it, other films within the genre will use it in a shootout scene as the soft classical music is a huge contrast to gunfire and this is an

effect I've seen being used in a number of chaotic Thrillers.

Ancillary text — for this part of the project I had to produce a professional looking poster and a magazine article that fitted in

with the promotional gear for similar films.

For this I researched into other similar films and found that common features seem to be:

white or black text

A Film by …..

A wide billing block at the bottom

What awards it has won

I tried to incorporate these factors into my work where it suited best, however I did not add in the bill-

ing block on the poster as I feel it would have taken away from the simplistic style of the piece.