Evaluation : Question 7

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

After looking at my questionnaire results, especially question 6, I could now see exactly what my target audience expected to see in a crime drama, as well as stereotypical characters that they wanted to see. This meant that I could now piece the storyline together and plan specific characters on the results that I got, but also try to change them so that I deviated from the stereotypical conventions of a crime drama.

One way that my opening sequence challenged forms and conventions was through the theorist Claude-Levi Strauss by using binary opposition. With the story line of our opening sequence being domestic violence and crime drama, and from the results of my questionnaire, I could see that the two main characters involved would be a male and a female. Creating the binary opposition of gender. Another binary opposition that was created through my opening sequence was Good vs. Evil. Stereotypically in a film with domestic violence it is the male that usually targets the woman. I decided that I wanted to keep it this way as I didn't want to deviate too much from the character conventions of a crime drama, so instead balanced the crimes out, so instead of James committing the crime of domestic violence, making males look negatively represented, as previously done through media and the news in crimes such as the London Riots, I decided that I also wanted the character of Sarah to also commit a crime to balance both characters out, so the crimes are seen mutually and not one sided, as we as stereotypically females in crime dramas don't usually conform to committing such harsh crimes like knife crime.

Another theorist that challenged forms and conventions of a crime drama in my opening sequence was John Berger's, with the theory that men see women as objects and are inferior to them which is exactly what happens in our story line. Stereotypically young girls generally wear a lot of make-up and dress quite promiscuously in today's society, usually picking up male attention, but of the wrong kind, so instead I decided that I wanted the character of Sarah to wear minimal make-up and dress quite sensibly, having a more natural look, which also made her look rather innocent, but more sensible that stereotypical girls. But because Sarah was represented as more innocent, this made her more of a target toward the character James as he could see that she was quite timid and quite, she wouldn't run off and tell anybody about the things that he did. We break this theory by the end of my opening sequence as Sarah stands up for herself even though she does it in the wrong way, by killing James. By her doing this she's actually represented as this strong independent woman who in the end realises that she doesn't have to depend on James and that she's better off without him. Through the character Sarah starting off quite timid and shy, and then suddenly gains confidence by getting rid of James, this helped me to attract my audience as using Blumler and Katz theory I could now target young girls through personal identity more, aiming at young girls that do lack confidence especially in relationships, and if they were going through this situation confidence is what they need.

By doing research before creating my opening sequence I could see that other films had similar ideas to which I wanted to create, and convey to genre with, so I found films that used similar scenarios and characters as mine and compared them, and took inspiration from them as they conveyed stereotypically to a psychological crime drama.

At the beginning of my opening sequence Sarah is shown to be washing blood off of her hands through a montage of shots. One of the shots that I thought would be effective was by zooming in onto the plug hole, and watching the bloody water wash down, as following the synopsis of a BBFC rating of 12, I couldn't show the crime too graphically, so by showing minimal blood being washed away, I was still able to convey to a stereotypical crime drama but with an effective twist.

From my research I know that the film 'Psycho' by Alfred Hitchcock had also used an extreme close-up of a plug hole with water washing blood away in the famous shower scene. I knew that the film was famously known for the genre of Crime drama, and knew that it was represented well. This gave me a base to the crimes that I would have liked to have shown in my opening sequence, so by watching the shower scene I was able to get some good ideas about camera shots and angles, to use in the bathroom scene of my opening sequence.



For the bathroom montage I knew that I wanted a series of different shots to contrast the emotions that Sarah was feeling and showing, as well as the story line being unravelled, creating an enigma code of 'Why is she washing blood off of her hands ?'. To play on the psychological hybrid of the genre. I decided to contrast a few shots of Sarah looking into the mirror crying, and did this through an over the should shot, and a close-up shot, as this would show Sarah crying more visibly, and the audience could see her emotions more as she would be seen to be looking directly into the camera, creating eye contact with the viewer, as well as the viewer knowing something terrible had happened as her make-up would be shown running down her face.

I researched a few films that contrasted different effects in showing the mirror scene and chose paranormal activity, and Sweeney Todd. I chose Paranormal Activity as they had used a good over the shoulder shot into the mirror, showing the girls features clearly, in bathroom lighting. I contrasted this by looking at Sweeney Todd, with the close-up off Mrs.Lovett, as her make-up has shown to be running effectively down her face making her look as if she had been crying hysterically which I wanted to show when Sarah was seen crying.

To also show the crime of domestic violence quite sensitively to convey to the BBFC rating of 12, I decided that I would show the character of James as a dark shadowy figure. I did this so that he was given a lack of identity, as he is stereotyped differently to the public and to the character of Sarah as he acts in two different ways. The fact that he's shown as a dark character connotes that he's quite evil, conforming to the theory of binary opposites compared to Sarah, as well as mirroring the crime of domestic violence, as it is quite a dark, and misunderstood crime.

Another film that I researched was Insidious, as this was also a very dark thriller. The film uses a lot of shadow work on the characters, making them look like silhouettes, blocking out their identity’s to conform to the genre, which also worked well with my opening sequence and the genre as well, as I wanted to create quite a mysterious and dark effect to the characters to help create quite a tense atmosphere toward the audience. The shadows seen in Insidious have been created by lightening the background more, which I found was easier when editing as it created that silhouette effect easier, than darkening the clip or just the characters, It also helped to create an unearthly glow adding to the tense atmosphere and mysterious effect.

 

I also wanted to create a contrast between the characters as I didn't want to just represent James as the bad guy, stereotypically giving males a bad perception as shown throughout the media and the news today with crimes, so I thought it would be more effectively to show Sarah to commit a crime, and look just as angry too. As talked about above, following John Berger's theory of men seeing women as objects I wanted to deviate from that and create a specific moment in my opening sequence where Sarah actually stands up for herself, and the audience see her click, as she finally can't take James' abuse anymore. So during the middle of my opening sequence, just before the dark flashbacks happen, and just as the music changes, becoming more tense, a scene of James and Sarah arguing on the way home is shown, to which Sarah has enough and turns around to shout at James, being the real turning point in their relationship and in the story line, as well as being a main hook to grab the audience.

I knew that I wanted to create a good turning point in the middle of my opening sequence and wanted to do so effectively, and it was hard trying to research a film that had actually used the same storyline, of the girl in a relationship arguing back to her partner and then walking away, so I looked at the film Blue Valentine, a sort of rom-com film, which still conveyed to my opening sequences nicely as there are happy scenes shown of Sarah and James being all romantic and giggly in the cafe. Blue Valentine shows the argument slightly differently though, The male is shown to be in the females face, with blood eyes, from a mid/low angle shot, making him look more dominant, as if he has more power conveying to John Berge’s' theory, he is seen to be more powerful using the female as an object to look down upon, To which the female simply has enough and walks off, showing a real Turing point where the female had had enough, stood up for herself and simply walked off. This helped me to get a rough idea of what I wanted to show in my opening sequence as from looking at the scene in Blue Valentine I could see exactly how it attracted the audience, using Blumler and Katz theory, by targeting them personally, as it could help females watching my opening sequence, gain confidence, and make them feel like they can walk away from a powerful situation and not be dominated by men in a their matriarchal world.

I also needed some ideas of how to represent my characters in the opening sequence through the use of flashbacks. I decided that I would go into the flashbacks from Sarah looking into the mirror crying, followed by a transition that faded to black, which then went into the flashbacks. I knew that I had to create a contrast between the happy and dark flashbacks as well, and already knew that I wanted the dark flashbacks to be shown in black and white, to connote the darkness of the character James and the crime itself, but didn't know whether to add a sepia effect to the happy scenes, or leave them with natural lighting, so I looked at a scene from the Sopranos.

 From looking at this flashback I could see that the sepia effect worked really well, as it made the scene look brighter, adding to the happy, atmosphere created. I knew that the opening sequence would blend in too much if I left them in the normal colour that they would were filmed in, but would also look too dark if I placed them in black and white, which would also confuse the audience, so I settled on having the happy flashbacks in a Sepia effect.

Overall I that from the results that I got on my questionnaire I could see exactly what I want to deviate from and convey to stereotypically in a crime drama. The research that I did helped a lot as I now had a range of ideas on how I wanted to plan my story line, i.e. what I wanted my flahsbacks to look like base on the ones shown in the sopranos as they were effective, Or how I showed Sarah in the bathroom scene through a montage as shown in pshcho, conveying well to my genre. It was also quite easy to deviate from my genre too which helped me to make my opening sequence more origional, and gripping toward an audience, especially by looking at certain theorists and how I could apply them as well, for example Including binary opposites through the characters to show a contrast between them, but also deviating from John Burges theory, making Sarah just as accountable for her crimes as much as James, and not stereotyping males in a negitive way like in the media today by putting a balence between both charaters.