In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Staircase Our final production Staircase attempts to explore the genre

of crime thriller. By doing so, we have conformed to many theories and features of this genre, including elements such as low key lighting. However we have also attempted to challenge some of these ideas by altering certain aspects which will be displayed later in the presentation.

Characters and Equilibrium When we were producing the opening

scene we considered theorists such as Todorov and Propp. Propp proposed the idea that there are several categories people can be classed as in a film, of which we have mentioned two; the villain and the victim. We also begin with a cold start where there is already disequilibrium, which challenges Todorov’s idea of how a story starts in equilibrium but follows into disequilibrium.

Enigma One of the main features of our short is the building of

tension and mystery through hermeneutic code (leaving questions unanswered) proposed by a theorist called Barthes. Elements such as the use of parallel editing, the blacking out of the killers face and the lack of information surrounding characters creates enigma, which gets the audience to ask questions and stimulate interest.

Editing We have also implemented a style of editing known as parallel editing,

which is not always used as a typical convention in mainstream media. We used parallel editing in order to show a dream sequence, where the killer is remembering the past events. This can be seen in films such as Memento and Silence of the

Lambs. This initially creates confusion for the audience as the scene keeps changing location, creating enigma. ,

Sound Two predominant features of our opening scene are the use

of drones and the whistle. The drones incorporate Barthes proairetic code as it builds anticipation, indicating that an event may occur. The whistle featured the song Donald Where’s your Trousers is included to indicate the mental state of the villain. The whistle has EQ applied

where there was a change of shot, to indicate where there was a

change in location.

Lighting Lighting was also essential to filming in order to highlight proposed

ideas, such as the use of low key lighting when the killer was present emphasizing that he is a villain, while higher key lighting was used instead on the victim. The minor use of chiaroscuro lighting was implemented to show the contrast between the villain and his

surroundings. We also used additional lights to project the killers shadow onto the wall which adds to the mystery.

Location We decided that the best places to film would be murky and

obsolete, to build on the enigma. For us the CCVI stairwell was one ideal location with mouldy patches spreading across some areas on the wall. The CCVI Drama Studio was ideal as the ability to black

out the room could provide ambiguity about where the killer is, stimulating the audience to ask questions such as ‘Where is he?’ and ‘Why is he here?

Mise-en-scéne Another element we has to consider carefully was the positioning of

our characters and use of props in our shots in order to convey who our characters were. The use of the bloodied knife and heavy black sack indicates that the suited man is the villain, where as the positioning of the grey-jumpered man implies that he is the victim.

The shot angles emphasize these ideas, with a variety of low angle shots to suggest that the villain is the one with the

power whereas the victim can be seen from a high angle shot to show that he is weaker.

Costume The type of clothing for our characters may also be deemed

counter typical, with both characters wearing formal attire. In mainstream media the villain of a crime thriller is usually not suited when he kills his victim, and therefore makes this an unusual trait within our

opening scene, following films such as American Psycho.