In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The form of our opening, I believe takes quite a unique and unconventional structure. Although montage sequences are widely used in contemporary film openings, they are usually mixed amongst a series of continuity edited clips as flashbacks or photograph snippets. Our opening does however follow a conventional form, with use of fast pace montage flashes and creating enigma through camera movements and iconography.
We were influenced by a variety of films for our opening, for particular aspects of editing, titles, mise en scene and camera techniques. Firstly the titles we used are conventional, a traditional angular yet bold red font on a black background. The colour red conforms to the traditional horror conventions as well as the style of our font, with the swirled style particularly suited to the doll theme. 'Sweeney Todd' uses similar style of deep red text against a dark black background. Although we originally aimed to use animated text of scratches of handwriting flashing over the text, like seen in 'A nightmare on Elmstreet' and 'Se7en', we agreed on just simple bold font to anchor the storyline and make a dramatic statement, with a fade transition connoting her sanity being lost. We also geared away from 'Se7en' as it is set against a sepia backdrop, a warmer colour rather than the dramatic black we chose. (See KS: Film opening research of 'Se7en'(Fincher,1995) ) http://twgsbmedia11asgroup13.blogspot.com/2011/01/film-opening-research-of.html
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We decided on positioning our titles on the corners of the scenes so the audience was not distracted from the fast pace action going on, similarly used in 'Silent Hill'.
The plot of our opening, based around a psychologically unstable female protagonist who ultimately becomes possessed by dolls due to the influence of her new house move and her male 'psychologist', does conform to the conventional horror/thriller form. Conventions of the horror/thriller genre usually form around a victim character, normally a female and through character exposition explore their struggle, a similar form to that of which we chose. Our female character was the central factor in our film opening exploring the madness going on in her mind through series of flashbacks and flashforwards. Her non-verbal language is particularly iconic to setting the insanity of the scene and to create enigma, including the turmoil in her eyes and the scratching of wallpaper; with dramatic mise en scene and soundtrack. And so although the conventionally character exposition was not used poignantly in our film opening we still explored the mindset of our protagonist a popular style, thus scene in 'Se7en'.
Our mise en scene, although individualistic does heavily conform to conventional psychological thrillers. The use of scissors iconography is a popular convention however the styles of some of our scenes are particularly unique, the wallpaper scene for example. The protagonist is seen ripping and taring at wallpaper, underlining her turmoil which is further reinforced by the intense metal scratching soundtrack overlayed. I personally think this scene does not conform to traditional conventions as they usually include scenes such as torture and death in stock locations such as a haunted house or a woods, we however explore her personal torture in her doll style house location.
We set up a series of situations through mise en scene and props including a mirror scene, a psychologists room, and the wallpaper scene. The mirror scene allowed us to explore many editing techniques such as that used in 'The Black Swan' and the props of the dolls. Mirror reflections is a popular film noir style in which we were inflenced by, as well as the black and white colour scheme we decided on, the shadowing and the stark lighting. These images below show the technique we recreated from 'The Black Swan' as we thought it particularly challenged conventional styles of the genre.
In the 'psychologists room' the first and last scenes in our film opening, we used just a single arm chair prop placed in the centre of a dark lit room to create enigma, using strong non verbal language. Lighting was a huge part of this scene, with a pitch black room and a spotlight on the female protagonist, conforming to conventional film noir styles, but visually very interesting. This lighting style and contrast of stark colours was influenced from our research into 'Silent Hill' which explored locations and characters with similar visual techniques.
However 'Silent Hill' used a variety of tracking and zoom camera techniques when searching the locations, we however you steady cam followed by a zoom in, therefore not achieving the horror conventions 'Silent Hill' did through the swirls and camera tilts.
The costume for our female protagonist was a traditional doll style outfit, conforming to conventions of horror genre, as seen in 'The Shining'. We decided not to change the costume but keep it contant throughout the opening so it was clear the possessed girl did not change her state of mind. Although many other horror films used anamalistic costume and rough rags of clothing for their stock characters, such as the creature seen in 'Silent Hill' and 'The Grudge', we thought the simple doll style dress would connote and sum up the narrative perfectly. However at the beginning of the opening, in the psychologists room we had the female character in a school blazer to reflect her more stable state of mind at the start of the narrative.
(See KS: Film research and ideas ) http://twgsbmedia11asgroup13.blogspot.com/2011/03/ks-film-research-and-ideas.html
Our sound track was very successful in creating enigma throughout our piece, increasing in pace and volume throughout the end to increase intensity and drama, ending on a last scream and silence as the title 'The Dolls House' is revealed. A heart beat is used as a steady beat throughout the two minute opening with a variety of different sounds layered on top such as girls laughter, the voice over of the girl singing, a murmuring and metal scratches and twinges. Not only does our soundtrack conform to conventions of the horror genre, but also develops it. The murmuring, scream and scratching noises are traditional sounds to create an eery feel to the opening however the girls laughter and singing creates a more unique and personal sountrack to this particular opening. We originally researched sound looking at the instrumental music in 'The Invasion', however rather than the dreary montonous sounds we decided on more punchy mucic. We felt 'The Invasion' soundtrack had a more sci fi genre style than a psychological thriller style soundtrack we were interested in creating. Although 'Terminator Salvation' had a masculine feel to its soundtrack, the tempo and punchiness was a lot more appropriate for our opening conforming to the conventions of horror/thriller genre. We then looked at the soundtrack for the opening of 'Nightmare on Elmstreet' which had a lighter more feminine feel , with dramatic instrumental music throughout and clock chimes and other sounds layed over, similar to our constant heart beat and laughter layered over; still conforming to the conventions of a thriller genre. And so we combined influences from all the elements of these films opening soundtrack to create our soundtrack in which we hoped would develop forms and conventions of media products. We chose to use no digetic sounds but instead relied on non digetic music and voice overs to characterise our opening. The non digetic laughter and scream closely related to the footage in the opening so we felt it was not necessary to use digetic sounds.
(See KS: Sound Research) http://twgsbmedia11asgroup13.blogspot.com/2011/02/ks-sound-research.html
The colours we chose to use were black, white and red, thus incorporating both 'film noir' and 'horror' styles, influenced by 'Sweeney Todd' with its dramatic use of deep red colours to connote blood and horror, and 'Silent Hill' which uses dark black locations and settings with white stratches, text, images and lighting cast over to create a film noir yet horror style opening. We took various camera techniques and framing from the opening of 'Silent Hill' including the use of zoom, and tracking around locations to create a fast pace action feel. We applied the zoom technique to our psychologists room, ruins and mirror scene, and tracking around the girl in the wallpaper scene and at the ruins. We used a variety of shot sizes, influenced by this research and both high and low angles to show where the power in the frame is cast, for example an establishing long shot to display the ruins scene, yet a close up of both the doll and girls face to relate the narrative back to her mind.
(See KS: Technical Deconstruction: Silent Hill(Gans,2006) ) http://twgsbmedia11asgroup13.blogspot.com/2011/02/ks-technical-deconstruction-silent.html
Medium shots were used in the mirror scene and wallpaper scene to show the protagonists interactions around the set. We used both handy cam and steady cam as used in 'Silent Hill' and 'Saw' to create an enigmatic sense of the conventions of horror genre. The tracking shots and handy cam in both the wood and ruins created a disjointed feel to the opening, thus reinforcing the insanity and turmoil the female protagonist feels. Other techniques we used include the use of blur technique and compression of time to reflect traditional horror conventions and create a face pace dramatic sense, similar to that used in 'Dawn of the Dead' and 'Silent Hill'. The blur particularly creates an enigmatic feel by slowly revealing the scene after a blurred setting, in the wallpaper scene; and the compression of time worked well in the playground scene where the protagonist is seen swinging on the swing. (See KS: Film Opening Analysis: Dawn of the Dead ) http://twgsbmedia11asgroup13.blogspot.com/2011/02/ks-film-opening-analysis-dawn-of-dead.html
And so when considering and analysing the styles and techniques used in our film opening, then comparing to other films of the same horror and thriller genre we have researched, I can conclude that parts of our opening conforms to the conventions, such as the stock character and costume, part develops conventions through our camera and editing techniques, and soundtrack, and other elements of our film opening challenges conventions through our montage edited sequence, combining both footage and camera stills.
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