G324-A2 coursework evaluation
Our initial choices were to develop a film of the horror genre, however due to film analysis we felt this genre was too easy to re-iterate and so our choices led us to the genre of thriller and specifically psychological thriller.
My analysis was of the film American psycho due to the connection between the use of self conscious with the character Patrick Bateman in American Psycho and our character in Insomnia. I also analysed American Psycho because there were certain elements we wanted to replicate. Alike to American psycho we wanted the sort of rushed feel it had, giving the film a sense of panic and confinement. This editing style to make the events seem like a rushed dreamy blur was balanced out by the silence of the majority of the scenes, in contrary to American psycho where most scenes were on edge music accompanied them we tried to split this out in a balance 50/50 share. So, some scenes where the tension is built are silent and some have faint, eary music.
Retaining the topic of soundtracks, our film again repeated this 50/50 balance of replication and straying from conventions. In the middle of our film there are various cuts and scenes of our main character walking on his own, to gather his thoughts, the music sampled is eary and somewhat generic to the genre of thriller, building tension and suggesting implications of a dramatic event to come. However, we then developed the binary oppositions in our film through the use of the track at the beginning and the end, we felt though slow, sad and somewhat in relation to our story this track went against the typical conventions of our film.
Our approach to the filming was, experimental; we used a lot of varied camera angles, shots, timing, effects etc. to see what elements we preferred. We followed the storyboards to the exact, however after editing and piecing together we decided we really didn’t like the way quite a few shots were done, along with this we also altered the scripts as we felt expression of emotion wasn’t grasped well enough with the text present. After a re-write of sections of the script, development of characters and re filming to represent more shots we atoned to the finalised piece present represented a much more surprising outcome than we expected. With elements both portraying a predictable response to psychological thrillers and elements vastly contrasting we felt happy with an innovative but occasionally predictable feel. Another psychological/supernatural thriller I analysed was paranormal activity. Paranormal activity was a very generic and predictable response to the thriller genre, filming style, plot, acting and music choices all fell deeply within the boundaries of psychological and supernatural thrillers. In a way our plot and characters replicate this deep, strongly rooted element of all psychological thrillers however with soundtrack choice and camera work, we feel we contradicted this generic use of psychological thriller elements making our film more dramatic and emotion based such as sadness and mourning rather than suspense and tension.
As evident from the blog, I went through quite a few stages and changed to the poster various times. My first attempts I felt were either too basic even for teaser trailers or didn’t really help make links to our story.
Through the use of such images as the mask or silhouettes I felt I had overcome the issue of story connection with the poster however the professional quality I was looking for was still not there. I then did a complete re-make of the poster using grittier images and a more sinister look, the draft I produced looked both professional and had the desired effect we wanted, however I was presented with one issue, though I had taken the images used and edited them so much they looked nothing like the starting image, they were not mine and so I had to develop my own pictures in this style. Eventually, with the use of a few different cameras, varied attempts with lighting effects etc. I got the pictures I was looking for, I then put them on the computer and edited them in the same way I did to the draft poster images.
I feel the poster is alike to other psychological thrillers, a lot of the posters have a simplistic layout and include basic information such as coming soon or a date, I think the use of a date and putting emphasise on such information is common in thriller posters because the audience are supposedly meant to fear that date due to the films context. Our poster follows this basic layout with a centre image, main title, the director’s names and the inclusion of a coming soon to keep the audience intrigued. On the contrary the poster somewhat challenged conventions, in my opinion the poster has a feel of drama to it, like more emotion is involved than just a ‘scare’. A lot of thriller posters use things like blood, shocked faces etc. to imply their genre however ours subtly hints thriller but could also make audiences think a wide range of genres depending on how they portray the posters message.
The poster fits into the genre of psychological thriller because, firstly the title, insomnia. This implies a strange psychological state different from the norm, the other conventions are met via, the use of the strong presence in the image with the open eyes, tension sustained via inclusion of little information and the colour scheme, though lacking red like most thriller posters, still has the eary ‘afraid of the dark’ theme.
Alike to the texts of moviescope magazine our review followed closely to the conventions used. Mathew wrote the text specifically to meet the expectations of a moviescope review, using flamboyant language, interesting analogies and deep opinion, analysing small details as well the most important. We kept the review true to tradition and predictability as the design task was to write a review in the style of a chosen movie reviewer’s style, having reviewed both Empire and moviescope magazines we chose moviescope and so Mathew wrote the text to insure its style be the same.
In the design of the review, I used a moviescope review as a template. I had the magazine open next to me whilst designing the page around the text; again I kept to conventions as that was the task at hand. I feel the review page looks a lot like a moviescope page with contemporary boxing, basic font use, standard image layout and a professional finish with both film summaries above the main text and the star rating in the style of moviescope as well. The review discusses how the film follows a lot of thriller conventions but also challenges them, with the image on the review page as well; we felt the review allowed the conventions of our film to still be the focus. We didn’t create the review as a promotional piece, the design aspect we had more in mind was to match the style of a professional third party view in which a reader can get a non-biased opinion of the film discussing both positives and negatives, admittedly we did sway from this idea a little in the text and the text is somewhat more praise and than criticism however it is balanced out through the explanation of some negatives.
The film combined with the poster I think have a great effect on audiences perception of the film, they both have this sort of old styled minimalistic presence that edges forward the importance of the psychological thriller. The mitigation of certain sound and dialogue in the film combined with the little information on the poster and the wide range of supposed messages it represents creates this illusion that pulls in the audience along with the review. The text uses strange analogies such as ‘pull the audience in by the throat’ this matches the gritty feel to the thriller however the review also has a lot of emotion and passion in it, expressing deep opinions but in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the reader this matches the style of our film and poster and combined together really sustains a eary, not knowing what’s next, feel leaving the audience drawn to the thriller aspect.
From our audience feedback we learnt that the film could have had more dialogue as to persuade the audience to lean more towards the supposed plot ending, we felt this ambiguity had a positive effect as it left the audience with a lot of options to form their own ending to our film however in a way we agreed that it could be frustrating watching a film and having such a wide option available rather than knowing what’s what. The criticisms our poster received were that colour could have been used more to create a more conventional thriller effect, however a large majority agreed the poster had the desired effect we wanted and that the lack of colour, matching our film had drawn some audience more into the emotions involved rather than typical conventions. There was little feedback with our review, most people said the text was effective and after showing them a moviescope text they agreed it matched the style well. Some said the design could do with a colour change, however after again, showing them moviescope texts they agreed the style was very much so alike to that of moviescope magazine.
Through the research stages the blogs ability to use different medium was incredibly useful, I used a lot of the quick image uploading tool as well as the option to upload videos from own documents and YouTube, as well as the ability to link to other sites easily. The best option I used a lot on the blog was the YouTube uploading tool; I took a vast amount of clips for my genre studies and single film analysis from YouTube which made up a lot of my research. For the editing of the film we used both Fireworks and serif movieplus. These programmes were incredibly useful with the effects used and controlling little bumps in the road present such as errors with sound etc. we used fireworks to try and make the clips clearer and stronger with contrast and saturation, movieplus then helped us edit the music in time with our film as well as editing sound in our film, controlling dialogue and focus. For the poster and the review Macromedia Fireworks was extremely useful, the editing tools I used for the poster really helped me re-create the professional quality I had created once with the images for the draft poster, I was worried that even though the editing process would be the same my original images wouldn’t match that of the ones on the draft however with the tools on fireworks It became apparent there was a lot more I could use to create that professional finish. In a way the creation of the review was somewhat easy, the text had already been written by Mathew so all that was left to do was design the page like moviescope, with such tools as the ink pen and magic wand it was made a lot easier to follow conventions of moviescope and make that iconic, simple but effective look they desire.
