Evaluation- Question 3.

3- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

For our media product, we decided that the best media institution for our film would be Icon Films. Icon Films is an independent, British film distributor, running for over 20 years. We chose it because it's in Britain's leading independent companies, generating in 150m at the box office with a library of 200 titles. This shows that Icon Films is a highly successful distributor, showing that after 20 years, it is still clearly flourishing and is capable of producing a large amount of high quality, renowned films such as Braveheart (winning an academy award for best picture)

and Paranormal activity. These films also have much more untraditional and unstructured storylines like our media product, therefore it would fit much better in a media institution like Icon Films as suppose to something like the conglomerate Big Six films  to have a much more, set, structured layout that is meant to appeal to much wider audiences, unlike ours. We wanted our film to have a much freer storyline that may only appeal to a certain group of people.

We also decided that Icon Films was an appropriate film distributor because our genre would fit along side other films they have distributed. Other examples of psychological thrillers distributed by Icon Films include StoneHearst Asylum, 187 and Edge of Darkness. Our storyline revolves around a young woman who is captured by her ex patient at a mental institution, who tortures her mentally and psychically, therefore our media product would be suitable to be distributed by Icon Films because it again is a similar plot line to other films in that media institution  that have been highly successful.   

Evaluation- Question 2.

2- How does your media product represent certain social groups?

One particular social group we focused on within our media product was gender. The character of O'Brien is in certain ways conflicted with her particular gender stereotype. For example, O'Brien is an incredibly logical thinking character and puts her clear intelligence to good work. In the audio, within the first few seconds of our film, O'Brien tells the audience how she is "renowned for her studies" earning a "first degree" and "top marks." This shows that even within O'Brien's darkest moments, she is still very self assured in terms of her own abilities and does this with no assistance from anyone else, whereas a typical female stereotype may not have this confidence, especially in a male dominated occupation area such as psychology, which is O'Brien's field of work.

Again, O'Brien also challenges stereotypes with regards to her appearance. Throughout our entire film, O'Brien is not dressed in anything revealing, short of tight. She is certainly not sexualised, wearing very little makeup and messy, unkept hair. We made sure of this purposely for a variety of reasons. Firstly, we wanted to make sure that O'Brien's focus was not on her appearance, but rather on what she had to offer for the audience- her story. In addition, it was important to have a character like O'Brien to challenge this gender stereotype, her main focus is on her studies and intelligence, not on clothes on makeup like a typical  female featured in most films aimed at young people. We wanted O'Brien's character to appear far more complex than that. Her attitude was inspired by Calrice Starling from Silence of the Lambs- another career-orientated young woman who dominates her field of work despite her gender.

However,  in other ways, O'Brien is shown to go along side a typical gender stereotype. This is shown in particular angles when H (the male character) is torturing her. In this scene, we used lots of high angle shots, looking down on O'Brien is a vulnerable position, tied up on a chair below him. These shots show that H is in the position of power (also shown using iconography, with H holding weapons such a knives and using them on O'Brien against her will, as well being psychically threatening, engaging with the male stereotype that H is violent and aggressive, using psychical strength to get his own way.) This makes O'Brien look weak against him, fitting to the damsel in destress role seen often in mainstream films. H is also always positioned above O'Brien in the fight scene, showing he psychically and mentally above her and uses this against her. Furthermore, when H first enters the scene, The lighting shadows his face (similar to when Hannibal Lectre or The Joker are in a position of power against their victims.) This makes him look menacing and powerful, and it is clear that he is the authoritative figure in this situation over O'Brien, going along with the stereotype that the male villain easily dominates the female figure in his presence, making her look inferior and frightened. Similar stereotypes are also shown in other thrillers such as Psycho and Silence of the Lambs.

O'Brien being tortured by H.

We also challenged the stereotype of age in our media product. O'Brien is young, yet is still shown to be very high up in work place and not dependant on others. Her clothing is not typical of someone who has only just come out of adolescence, she is in 'old' in her ways and very informed and again sure of herself. Her interests also seem to differ from the generic interests of someone of her particular age range, O'Brien is never shown drinking or smoking, she instead seems to engage in high culture activities. We showed this through the music that O'Brien plays on a record player (as suppose to an ipod or docking station) which appears to be classical music. Again, this is unusual for someone of her age to have an interest in this genre of sound, it makes her seems beyond her years, yet she is only quite young.

Evaluation- Question 1.

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

The plot of our media product was established by telling it from the view point of the main character of the story, young psychologist Alice O'Brien. Already, the character's occupation reveals aspects very significant to the genre of our media product, being psychological thriller. Psychologists or figures with similar professions (for example, detectives or FBI agents) often appear in psychological thrillers as being the victims of their clients, for example, Calrice Starling from Silence of the Lambs, Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad and Teddy Daniels from Shutter Island. Our plot revolves around O'Brien as she is is captured and (most significantly mentally) tortured by her captor and ex-patient 'H'. Again, this storyline involving 'mental torture' has very much in common to the plot of many other psychological thrillers (for instance, Nina in the Black Swan, who begins to loose sense of reality after being pressured to perfect her performance by controlling and manipulative dance teacher) showing it is very fitting to a typical film from that genre.

Nina from the Black Swan

The genre of our film is also apparent certain through shots and angles used. For instance, close ups were quite common within our film so that the character's facial expression could be revealed to the audience when needed to emphasise tension, or reveal a character's reaction to something disturbing or shocking to them. We tended to use close ups when the character O'Brien was conveying a particular emotion important to a significant scene; at the very beginning of the film, when O'Brien is looking at past events, a tear rolls down a cheek to show it's still effecting her, and also at the very end of the film, when she seems to show no emotion, staring blankly into the camera with 'H' signature skull makeup on, showing she has now undergone an important change thanks to H's control over her, and will probably never be the same.

We also included a high angle shot which (in pace with the non- diegetic background music to build on the eerie and off- putting atmosphere) pans up to roughly overhead looking down at O'Brien. This shot not only reveals to locations of O'Brien, being tied to a chair in a darkly lit room (a typical location found in the psychological thriller genre, but creates sort of a surreal, hallucinogenic feel. We are unsure of O'Brien's exact wereabouts, creating a type of suspense shown in films under the thriller convention.

 





With regards to editing, our media product includes flashbacks to give an insight into the O'Brien's life and the roots of her present distress. Inspired by the thriller Jacob's Ladder, we also included a scene with fast pasted editing, speeding up  the movement of the character H's head, making him look supernatural and beyond anything that can be mentally competed with, making the audience fear his character greatly and see him as more than a ordinary man.

We also used sound significantly to portray our media product true to the convention we wanted it to be. Non-diegetic sound was used frequently in our film for effect. Inspired by scenes we'd seen in other psychological thrillers such as in fight club, we had the main character O'Brien telling her story and setting the scene as a voice over, sounding tired and emotionally drained. Inspired by the film Reservoir Dogs and also the fight scene in Clockwork Orange, we included a torture scene in our film, except we purposely chose to put classical music unusually over the top. This type of music would usually be ill-fitting over a torture scene, which gave it a bizarrely different take aimed to psychologically disturb the audience, just as the other thrillers had done before. The music's tempo speeds up appropriately along with the action and, like Reservoir Dogs, only begins when a record is placed on a record player, despite having the effect of non-diegetic music- adding more tension and suspense.

Dance scene from Clockwork Orange-

https://youtu.be/HtRGeyznv7k






In psychological thrillers, character's will either have ordinary appearances or rather extraordinary ones, like an alter ego. In our media product, we were able to represent both these characters. The dull and unnoticeable appearance, wearing baggy jumpers, little makeup and glasses, inspired by Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs or Malcolm Crow in 6th Sense. However, the outrageous character of 'H' was very much inspired by Clockwork Orange, as someone who both conceals there true identity but shows off their alter ego in flamboyant clothing (H wears a suit and skull makeup  throughout our film.) Inspiration was also taken from Heath Ledger's Joker and Tyler in Fight Club as someone who revels in their appearance as showing power over others, inflicting it with joy.

H and Alex from Clockwork Orange.

Knifes and Ropes are also used as props, as well as scenes filmed in either very normal standard locations, such as outside bus stops or houses, or contrastingly in eerie, shadowy cellars or alleyways, representing  the light and dark that O'Brien experiences- all typical of the psychological thriller genre.
Finally, as far as mise-en-scene is concerned, we made sure to include typical visual conventions of a psychological thriller to make our genre very apparent. We included a scene where only O'Brien's shadow is visible, showing a knife being held close to her face and her screaming out in pain (inspired by the shower scene in Psycho) to cleverly imply that she is in grave danger, even if it cannot be directly seen. Low lighting was also used around both of the character's faces, making O'Brien look tired and vulnerable and H look menacing and a force to be reckoned with.