Coursework: Evaluation #1

How does your product use or challenge convention and how does it represent social groups and issues.

Using Conventions

Our opening could easily pass as just another thriller scene. We built tension slowly through the vulnerability and beauty of the backdrop. The calm atmosphere and slowly dropping sun. We built the tension up slowly by music and the framing of our shots to slowly give the sense of unease which would slowly rise until the climax where Roger is pulled from the frame and we are given a first person scene which is often used to show a character's point of view to give audiences a sense of immersion and realism.  So it might feel like they're experiencing it themselves.


Here are some conventions that i have identified and utilised

• The antagonist ensnares the protagonist in an increasingly complex web, until the protagonist feels isolated and helpless.
• The narrative centres upon a crime E.g theft, murder
• A series of enigmas are set up - only to be solved at the end 
• The audience is placed in a the ambiguous position of "voyeur"
• 
  

Challenging Conventions

From the get go i wanted to make an opening, piece of media that doesn't follow normal conventions. In this case the battle of white vs black, good vs evil, heroes vs villains. I wanted to create something that has a morally grey area as best i could even with the limited time that we had as this is supposed to only be the opening of a film and not a whole feature film. I did this by creating a simple premise which is just a illusive murderer killing another person, sounds basic enough right? The main important part are the two characters present in the opening. The murderer and Roger. Two conflicting ideals.

Roger could be seen as the victim here but he is a CEO who has no concern for other peoples life but just his own and his family. He would kill, abuse, and destroy a person's life just to get a bit more money or advantage, but at the same time he is a person who deeply cares for his family and his kids. he would do anything so that his kids and wife live in the best condition they can. Unfortunately we weren't able to explore this because of the time constraints imposed. So we could only lay out the base work for this by showing that he kills without being able to show his relationship with his family which is a shame.

The murderer is well, a serial killer who kills other people for sport and a sense of righteousness. The idea is that he is a high class citizen who killed other high class people who he "deems" is bad and should be killed. He bases all of this of his own thoughts which is obviously extremely unethical. This is also one of the questions that we are posing to the audience to let them decide on what is right, what is wrong. Is vigilante justice something that is good? or a delusion? At first he had a secondary motivation, he kills other people and puts them in beautiful scenery for himself to appreciate and pleasure himself. A fetish if you will. But we couldn't include this as there were too many difficulties exploring this.

I obviously had several inspiration from other pieces of media as well as my own personal experience and imagination. Too frequently are there media pieces where there are just two parties and it is clear which one they want us to cheer for and sympathize with. This is fine as it is mostly done to be entertaining and more satisfying for the audience. However the real world is unfortunately not that simple and it isn't just that simple and i wanted to explore it. Making a thriller we also had to have an interesting premise and story, this fitted the bill pretty well in my opinion.

We took inspirations from films such as:

The Dark Knight Trilogy (especially The Dark Knight):
For the ways Batman tries to combat evil but by using unconventional methods and sometimes driving the line of ethics and morals between good and evil.

Nightcrawler
For how the main character CLEARLY steps over the line of morality but for some reason we can't look away from the things he does

The Punisher
An easy example of vigilante justice. The punisher believes that what he is doing is correct and right but he clearly kills people

Breaking Bad
"A high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer turns to manufacturing and selling methamphetamine in order to secure his family's future" - IMDb
Walter White may have become a drug dealer and maker. But he's doing all of this out of necessity not of a bad intent.

Dexter
"Dexter Morgan is a forensics Expert, but that's what he seems to be, as that not what he really is. Dexter is a serial killer that hunts the bad." IMDb

Star Trek: Into Darkness
Khan is planning to kill and has killed a lot of people but he is doing all of this for his family, quote "He used my friends to control me. I tried to smuggle them to safety by concealing them in the very weapons I have designed. But I was discovered. I had no choice but to escape alone. And when I did, I had every reason to suspect that Marcus had killed every single one of the people I hold most dear. So I responded in kind. My crew is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?"

Elysium
This is because of the main villain and his ignorance to the life of the poor and the non existent care that he has for the lower/poor people. It also shows a conflict between classes, the rich vs the poor. Even though our film doesn't have that we do have a conflict between two high class citizens.

Social Issues

Our project shows how in our society; a capitalist society, the one that has power are the ones that are rich, almost exclusively so. This is shown with our two characters being high class wealthy people and that they are the only ones who has an impact in this. No one else was present at all which represents how little power everyone else has.

In the world we live in, our lives are being controlled and dictated by the rich greedy corporates and the powerful. This is shown by how easy it was for Roger to just tell one of his subordinates to kill someone.