EVALUATION TASK 1In what ways does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The thriller opening sequence I have created is ‘Blank Canvas’, a thriller film which focuses on a artist who uses human blood to create paintings with and so kidnaps and harms people to create his artwork. The first film which came to mind when our group was discussing similar film ideas was ‘Perfume: A Story of a Murderer’.‘Perfume: A Story of a Murderer’ is a thriller/fantasy film set in 18th Century France, which focuses on a man who has a unique ability to heavily smell scents and has become one of France’s greatest perfumers. However, he then sets out to capture the scent of young attractive women in order to create a perfume from the scent and murders innocent females in order to achieve it, forcing the 18th Century France to be in hysteria.

The other film I am comparing our thriller sequence to is ‘Red Dragon’, a slasher/thriller genre film, which was made in 2002 by Brett Ratner. It follows an Ex FBI agent on the search for the infamous Hannibal Lecter. However, he finds himself trying to get into Lecter’s mindset in order to catch him and has to confront his past with Lecter.

For ‘Perfume: A story of a Murderer and our thriller, the titles are very similar. We used Times New Roman, in capitals to complete our titles and within ‘Perfume:A story of a Murderer, they used Janson Text Roman, which created an official, cold opening to both thrillers. Both of the shots also show black backgrounds, which continues to conventions of a thriller, because makes the title sequence seem mysterious and eerie. However, our thriller titles were a very short duration and all had a straight cut into the next shot, whereas ‘Perfume:A story of a Murderer’ had faded titles going into each shot and a longer gradual shot durations, which almost implies to the audience that the killer will drag out the death of the victims, whereas our straight cut mirrors the rest of our shots which heighten the tension, because there are lots of sharp quick shots.

These shots show a close up of the victim’s faces, one from ‘Perfume: A story of a Murderer’ and from our own thriller sequence. Personally, I think that the shot from our scene causes more of an impact from an audience, because the victim is staring at the camera and lying down, due to the fact that the victim cannot move, which heightens the vulnerability of the victim. However, our shot was used as the last shot in our thriller sequence and so it needed to be a very dramatic shot, whereas the other shot was used in the middle of a scene, so did not need to be as dramatic a shot. However, within our scene we wanted to subvert the stereotype of women as victims and so, used a male as a victim and so, in terms of the gender of the victim, it is different.

Both of these shots, one from ‘Red Dragon’ and the other from our sequence, show the villain as looking at the painting they are obsessed with. Both shots are over the shoulder shots and have both the killer and the painting in the shot. However, the shot from ‘Red Dragon’ is a high angle shot, which makes the audience feel as if they themselves are looking down at the painting, which to me seems more successful. Also, the shot from ‘Red Dragon’ is slowing zooming in slightly, reflecting the fact that the character feels his is being drawn in by the painting.

These shots are from ‘Red Dragon’ and our thriller sequence, showing the character staring at the painting. The ‘Red Dragon’ shot is a low angle shot, which makes the audience feel as if the character is looking down on them, rather than the painting. Also, the characters have very different facial expressions in their shots. The shot from ‘Red Dragon’ shows how the character is being almost unwilling dragged into the painting, whereas our shot shows the pleasure that comes out of creating the painting for the character. This also shows the similarity in the look of the characters, both of them have dark hair and a navy blazer/overall on and both of them are very pale, almost as if they are ill. However, our character is noticeably younger than the other film’s character, due to the fact that we were unable to get our original casting of the killer, an middle aged man.

This shots are from ‘Red Dragon’ and our thriller opening sequence. They both show the slightly unhinged character touching the their paintings and becoming obsessed with the pictures. It shows the closeness both of the characters feel towards the paintings and their mad nature. However, the ‘Red Dragon’ shot is a mid shot, showing more of the character’s arms and our shot shows the killer’s hand covered in blood, creating a much more vivid and horrific image. However, this is probably due to the fact that our shot was placed much later in the scene then the shot from ‘Red Dragon’ was in it’s scene.

Both of these shots, one from ‘Perfume: A story of a Murderer’ and our thriller, show an extreme close up of the murderer’s eyes. This shot in both sequences successfully make the audience feel uncomfortable, since the eyes of a psychopathic killer are staring straight at the camera, making it seem for the audience as if the characters are staring at them. However, I think that the shot from ‘Perfume:A story of a Murderer’ is a more effective shot, since the shot focuses more on the characters actual eye, because the eye is more open. This makes the audience feel even more vulnerable and exposed, because the eye is closer and more obvious from an audience’s perspective.

This shot from the film ‘Perfume:A story of a Murderer’, depicting the creation of the perfume in a conical flask. This compares to a shot of the water pot in our thriller, because the close ups focusing on the liquid filled clear glasses, create tension for the audience. This is due to the rather uncomfortable closeness to the disgusting liquid inside the glass which gives small indications of the vulgarity of the scenes. However, in the shot from ‘Perfume: A story of a Murderer’, the glass is the sole focus in the shot and is much more zoomed in, whereas in our shot, their is a blurred shot of the victim in the background.

Both our sequence and the shots from ‘Red Dragon’ and ‘Perfume:A story of a Murderer’ feature similar shots, because all of the films feature a unhinged male protagonist as a killer. However, I found much more shots in common with ‘Perfume:A story of a Murderer, because the film had a character using bodies to create their artist objects to sell to the unknowing public.