My
film follows the conventions of theme as it mysterious and has a sense
of crime and danger. It does this by having the main character seem
shady and troubled. I got the crime aspect by having him take a large
knife with him when he disappears. As you do not know what he has done
or where he is going, you can infer that he has done something possibly
criminal and it leaves you guessing as to that he has done and what he
is going to do. The title of my thriller ‘Derelict’ means to abandon
ones duties or obligation. This also gives the sense of mystery as you
do not know what he is running away from. By using low key lighting in
the start, it makes the opening seem mysterious. However, when the
character goes inside, I used a makeshift ‘spotlight’ this is supposed
to represent the feeling of all his emotions being on show and making
him seem vulnerable during the breakdown. After this the lighting goes
back to being low key or ambient.
It
follows the convention of setting by being set in a familiar setting, a
house. It starts in a quiet neighbourhood. This is similar to another
thriller I researched, Blue Velvet, which starts off on a quiet street.
My
character follows conventions of costume as the innocent victim.
Although you cannot be sure of whether he is the victim or not, he is
assumed to be a victim of some crime to stress him out so much. To seem
stressed, I make him have a sort of breakdown where he collapses and
pulls his hair and covers his face, as well as swearing and slamming his
hand against the door. This made him seem erratic and stressed. I made
him seem like more of a victim by dressing him in casual clothing. This
goes against conventions as I intended for it to be revealed that he was
in fact the villain towards the end of the film. This is similar to the
film ‘The Usual Suspects’ where you assume someone is the victim but
turns out to be the villain.
The
camera shots I used suit the theme of thrillers. I use lots of close
ups as well as mid shots and establishing shots. The close ups are used
to get the audience to sympathise with the character as they can see the
emotions clearly. I also use a high angle during the ‘breakdown’
sequence. This is to reflect his loss of power and stability of his
mentality. The establishing shots are used to show the quiet
neighbourhood that the scene is set in.
My
editing doesn’t really fit with traditional thriller editing as often
thrillers use quick cuts, whereas most of my shots are long and use
simple straight cute. However, I tried to disorientate the audience
slightly by using lots of cross dissolves between shots in the
‘breakdown’ shot. This is used to reflect the characters confused state
of mind and hazy thought process.
In
my thriller, I did not use non-diegetic music and used very little
dialogue as there was only one character. However, all my shots contain
lots of diegetic sounds, mostly ambient sounds or heavy breathing. I
didn’t want added music as I wanted to keep the quiet neighbourhood
feel. I also wanted to keep the emphasis on the heavy breathing and
murmuring. I did also add the sound effect of a police car. This was to
add to the effect that the character was worried about authority as he
hides away from the sound.