In what ways does your media product

use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real

media products?

The Title of the film

The films title is ‘The Gamble’, which is a very bold and strong name for a film. It is a short title, which is similar to other thriller film titles, such as ‘The Shining’. This is very effective as it makes the audience have an idea what is going to be involved in the film and what is going to be their focus and centre of attention on.

The font and colour of the title of the film is extremely important , as it should relate to the events of the up and coming scenes, for example bright pink colour written in bubble font, may suggest that the film is a young girls film with humour and light hearted scenes of love in it. Our film, ‘The Gamble’ was written in strong bold red colours, which connote violence and death.

The title of our film moves in a menacing way on the screen and some letters disappear and reappear rapidly, which relates to the villain in the film, as his identity always appears in certain parts of the film put we are never given a full idea of what he looks like or whom he may be, till the very end.

Setting/Location

Our set and location was very important and it was essential that we picked the correct one, so that our film would have the same suspense impact like other thriller movies.

We knew that our opening scene was involved torturing and a chair, so we were inspired by many films, which had scenes similar to this. Films such as Resiviour Dogs, Saw and Hostel have people in isolated chambers or rooms with a chair and a victim, as the main props. Then there is the villain who uses some form of weapon to slowly torture the victim.

Scenes like these are very important and you need the perfect location to create the hostile and cold atmosphere, so the audience feel emotion and empathy for the lone victim. When watching torture scenes in Hostel or Saw I feel very uncomfortable and have a lot of sympathy for the victim, as there location is in a small, dull and this creates quite a disturbing and terrifying atmosphere.

Therefore we found a location that was empty and created a good scene for unwelcoming and hostile presence.

Costumes and Props

The costumes were essential in the opening of our thriller film, to show the huge contrast of the two main characters.

Our first character is the victim and is represented as an upper class individual. This is shown by is clothing, which is a standard black and white suit. This gives the audience the stereotype of your typical businessman, he could be a lawyer, who is dedicated to his work and spends most of his time concentrating on his job.

The second character is the villain and immediately the audience see a huge contrast of class and behaviour. The villain is in black, which is the colour of evil and wears a mask similar to the character of ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, which shows that he doesn’t have a very respectable and pleasant appearance. The audience can stereotype that he is of lower class, uneducated and deluded.

Camerawork and Editing

At the start of ‘The Gamble’, we used an extreme close up of the victim, to show the audience his confusion through his eyes and the utter terror he is feeling. We then used a tracking shot to show his full body and what is happening to make him feel so terrified. This shot is similar to the one from the beginning of the film, ‘Fight club’, as the camera starts off with an extreme close up of a mans mouth, then it tracks backwards to show us that a gun is in his mouth.

There is a medium shot of the villain, when he is dancing and we edited it by making the shot seem more blurry and shaky. This follows the movement of the villain, as he dances and the blurriness conceals his identify to a great extent. The shakiness of the camera also relates to the state of the villains mind and that it is abnormal and unpredictable.

Genre (thriller/sub-genre) and how the opening suggests it

It is inevitable from the beginning that our film is under the genre of a dark thriller. You are immediately taken into the film, with quick fierce shots, showing you all different types of action occurring in little space of time, which happens in many thriller films to keep the viewer enticed with excitement.

It starts with slow music, which gradually builds up to when a dramatic sequence occurs (the punch to the victims face) and when the title sequence comes up upon the screen, the sound is at its loudest, which occurs in the beginning of many thrillers, such as ‘The City of God’, where there is a huge chase seen and the music abruptly goes quicker when the chase reaches its climax point.

YouTube clip of opening of city of god http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoNATPsOsZk

How characters are introduced/established

The characters are introduced immediately and there is very little enigma from the very beginning of ‘The Gamble’.

The first character, introduced is the victim, ‘John’ who from first impressions the audience can see that he is a businessman, as he is well groomed and wearing a suit. They can immediately stereotype him for being upper-class and rich with an organised and hectic work life.

When the villain is introduced, the audience are shown a character who conceals is identity with a white mask and dresses in black, which makes them feel curious of whom he may be. This is similar to the start of ‘Seven’, as all the audinece can see of the villain is his hands, which creates lots of uncertainty and eagerness to know who this is.

Special effects that you have used

For our opening of ‘The Gamble’ we felt that we didn’t need to have a lot of special effect, as the film would lose its grit and impact if we over did it with effects.

The location, sound and the emotions of the two characters were the most important things to our opening and adding to many effects would of lost its significance and suspense to the audience.

We only used a limited amount of transitions where it was needed, such as expansion of time and fade in/ out, which gave it the desired effected we wanted, as it made it seem more surreal and like a torture screen, the effect faded in and out, which emphasized how lost and helpless the victim was.