Evaluation of Thriller Opening, Question One

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

Characters /Costume
Our thriller film consisted of one lead character, which was Eve, our film was also named after this character. Eve is the heroine in the film and we got ideas from Kiddo from the Kill Bill series to base her off. Having a female main character is a convention used in a few of Tarantino's works, for example in his production Jackie Brown, where the film is based around Jackie. We called the film Eve because the name is biblical and represents a deeper meaning.
Cha-Cha and Hazel were the two villains in the film, chasing Eve. We used suits for them as done by Tarantino again in Pulp Fiction. However this costume design was also used in the Matrix as well. We have aspects of Noir in our opening also, and a classic convention for Noir thrillers is to have smart dress costumes among every character. The names Cha-Cha and Hazel had no specific meaning behind them other than the fact that they are similar in terms of 'unusualness' to the names Jules and Vincent from Pulp Fiction.

Lighting
All lighting in our thriller film was completely ambient. Portions of our film were filmed inside a house, however we used the sunlight for these clips and made them black and white so lighting effects were barely noticable anyway. Chiaroscuro lighting was used for the flashbacks because we wanted to resemble the scene with Kiddo (KillBill) being tormented in her wedding dress. However outside the natural sunlight was necessary because it relates to the thriller film Jackie Brown, where a psychotic character shoots his wife in broad daylight - our film uses this aspect because we have two hitmen chasing a female character in broad daylight, resembling mania as well. The ambient lighting was also used in Heavenly Creatures, when the two girls murder their mother in a similar setting to the location in our own film.

The final scene however (inside the barn) was extremely dark and unfortunately didn't work well according to our plan. The final shots were close ups, delibaretly showing the female characters expressions of fear and panic. On the other hand to enhance these expressions we had to edit lighting effects into the clip using Premiere Pro. We added a lot of colour saturation as well rack up the contrast to show detailed expression, we got this idea from KillBill Volume One: where the first scene after the opening credits reveals a colourful and lively neighbourhood which has obviously had after effects added to it.
Sound
We didn't use any sounds taken from online sources. In fact very little extra sound effects were used in our thriller opening. The soundtrack was dominated by classical music emitted from a record player - this challenges most thriller conventions, however it is difficult to say as music always applies to the nature of the theme and not the theme itself. For example, Kill Bill uses an upbeat; catchy soundtrack (Bang Bang by Nancy Sinatra) because the film is action packed and fast paced. Another example is the music in Heavenly Creatures, it is mystifying and creepy because the film is unusual and weird.
Enigma
Our opening contained a lot of concealed information. The whole basis of the film is unexplained and is relatively unclear. However we were confident that it would be acceptable for a thriller as other thriller films have aspects of enigma and variables of the unknowing in openings as well. Pulp Fiction begins in a cafe with two vigilantes that the audience know noting about - just like audiences know nothing about our characters Cha-Cha and Hazel. In the opening to KillBill audiences know very little about what is happening and what has happened as they witness Kiddo beaten up and bleeding on the floor for some unexplained reason - just as our female character is chased through some woods into a barn for a secretive reason as well. A prime example of Enigma used in thriller films would be in the introduction to Casino Royale - despite being an action movie the opening has strong aspects and conventions of noir thriller. The opening consists of a conversation between Bond and a nemesis, they talk about someone who is never mentioned again in the film.
Transitions /Editing
No transition effects were used in our opening. We included only jump cuts to enhace the aura of panic and mania. This kind of effect is used by Tarantino in many of his works - almost every KillBill fight scene encourperates jump cuts to add pace to the fights. He also uses this effect in Pulp Fiction: Resovoir Dogs and Jackie Brown. As we had a relatively fast paced opening with a chase scene we decided to try and resemble this convention.
We added chiaroscuro lighting to our flashbacks to give a sense of difference, as well as resembling noir thriller. Many thriller films that have scenes out of chronological order use black and white, this is done to show the time difference. Such as the openings of KillBill Volume 1 and Casino Royale. Our first shots are also shot with chiaroscuro lighting, to show that our character is seeing into the past.
Structure
The structure of our film is not chronological, this is a common thriller convention. Many directors the produce thriller themed movies use flashbacks for opening scenes as it immediately sets the tone for the rest of the film as interesting and mysterious.
This is why we chose to shoot our first clip as a flashback of our female lead stealing an unrevealed item, it adds to the sense of fear as well as making the viewing of the rest of the film more appealing and intriguing.
Specific Conventions
Specific conventions that were used in our product are as follows: a great deal of thrilllers use a female as the lead just as we did. Female characters are used as main characters because they resemble more challenge to stereotypes (making you hooked more).
We also copied Tarantino's hitmen from Pulp Fiction and tried to make ours more comical by underdressing them with trainers and hats. We did this because Jules and Vincent speak a lot of entertaining dialogue throughout their performances however Cha-Cha and Hazel have no lines at all, so we had to make them comically appealing in another way.
The barn we used represents similarities to the warehouse from Resevoir dogs, the idea of isolation and solitude is strongly represented as our setting was very claustrophobic.