Evaluation Question 1 Conventions

1
Evaluation Question 1

• Conventions

2
Generic Conventions of my Film

• My film belongs to the crime/thriller genre
• Examples of conventions of the genres I followed
  are blood and murder was featured within it,
  black and white filtering, costume follows
  convention, the twist at the end of the film
  followed thriller conventions, Props e.g. knives
  and guns from crime. I followed the conventional
  plot a lot as usually a lot of crime films are a
  straight forward who done it with a twist
  ending.
• I went against typical conventions expected to be
  seen inside that genre by the audience by having
  an upbeat fast paced scene at the end of the film
  as the conclusion. Conventionally films arent
  meant to end with the most action packed but mine
  did.
• I varied the generic conventions by having my
  plot follows convention of the genre however my
  style goes against genre convention a lot as
  thrillers that are set in contemporary times
  arent usually in black and white except for
  movies such as Sin City which also challenges the
  genre stereotype. We did this in the silent
  scenes and during the flashbacks to put
  voiceovers and music over them and differ them
  from the scenes where the detectives are working.

3
Comparing and Contrasting My Film

• Comparing and contrasting my film to 3 examples
• The Usual Suspects, Prisoners, Out of the past
• Narrative structure It follows a twist at the
  end like The Usual Suspects where the man they
  were looking for was right under their nose the
  whole time.
• Plot The plot of our films follows a classic who
  done it
• Themes friendship, mystery. Much like the themes
  of Prisoners.
• Characters Classic Good Cop/Bad cop characters
  like those in most crime dramas.
• Setting/mise-en-scene A police station, like Out
  of the Past and The Usual Suspects
• Cinematography/Editing (for example, types of
  shot, pace, transitions, music) Voice over in
  black and white explaining thoughts of a
  detective with music

4
BARTHES CODE

• The Hermeneutic Code (HER)
• The Hermeneutic Code refers to any element of the
  story that is not fully explained and hence
  becomes a mystery to the reader.
• The full truth is often avoided, for example in
• Snares deliberately avoiding the truth.
• Equivocations partial or incomplete answers.
• Jamming's openly acknowledge that there is no
  answer to a problem.
• The purpose of the author in this is typically to
  keep the audience guessing, arresting the enigma,
  until the final scenes when all is revealed and
  all loose ends are tied off and closure is
  achieved.
• The Proairetic Code (ACT)
• The Proairetic Code also builds tension,
  referring to any other action or event that
  indicates something else is going to happen, and
  which hence gets the reader guessing as to what
  will happen next.
• The Hermeneutic and Proairetic Codes work as a
  pair to develop the story's tensions and keep the
  reader interested. Barthes described them as
• "...dependent on ... two sequential codes the
  revelation of truth and the coordination of the
  actions represented there is the same constraint
  in the gradual order of melody and in the equally
  gradual order of the narrative sequence."
• The Semantic Code (SEM)
• This code refers to connotation within the story
  that gives additional meaning over the basic
  denotative meaning of the word.
• It is by the use of extended meaning that can be
  applied to words that authors can paint rich
  pictures with relatively limited text and the way
  they do this is a common indication of their
  writing skills.
• The Symbolic Code (SYM)
• This is very similar to the Semantic Code, but
  acts at a wider level, organizing semantic
  meanings into broader and deeper sets of meaning.
  
• This is typically done in the use of antithesis,
  where new meaning arises out of opposing and
  conflict ideas.
• The Cultural Code (REF)
• This code refers to anything that is founded on
  some kind of canonical works that cannot be
  challenged and is assumed to be a foundation for
  truth.

5
Applying Barthes Codes

• Applying Barthes Codes to my film
• I created expectation by following typical
  convention that most people already recognise in
  crime dramas it wasnt a huge surprise when his
  partner turned out to be the murderer. However,
  we used shots that suggested his partner could be
  the murderer as he was always watching him and he
  was always there.
• I built suspense through having long shots that
  focused on something suspicious, for example, in
  Scene 3 I recorded a shot from behind the
  antagonist that then focused onto the protagonist
  and back onto the antagonist. This created
  suspense as it seemed like the antagonist was
  watching over the detective and trying to cover
  his tracks. This relates to the action enigma.

6
Genre as a Concept

• Genre is a useful concept to apply to a short
  film because it gives a basic outline for your
  film to follow and helps achieve what audiences
  expect from that genre.
• It doesnt follow every convention with that
  genre and can be described as a crime
  drama/thriller as it takes conventions from both
  different genres such as a montage which are
  commonly seen within crime dramas and also using
  action within the final scene which is common
  within Thrillers.
• Most people dont watch short films and when they
  do the film is too short to completely follow
  convention. It wouldnt be uncommon for a film
  set for one audience and inside one genre using
  different conventions of other genres or even
  being a hybrid film altogether.

7
Cinematography Conventions

• In order for any film to attract its target
  audience it has to follow conventions from a
  specific stylised cinematography. This is why I
  used the basic camera conventions of
  crime/thriller such as low angled shots on the
  villain, seen in the top right image. And a high
  angled shot on the hero. This is because when
  filming I followed the convention of low angled
  shots looking up on a character representing a
  negative image, and makes the audience believe
  that the character is evil, or a villain. This is
  good for my film as the twist is that one of the
  detectives is evil, and this angle shot is a
  subliminal message towards that. I also took
  lighting into consideration when recording this
  shot as I recorded it in a dark room to further
  illustrate this characters negative connotation.
  Furthermore, I used a slightly high angled shot
  on the hero detective, this is because part of
  that theory suggests that looking down on a
  character gives them an almost angelic look that
  makes the audience believe that they are one of
  the good guys.

8
Sound Conventions

• I recorded and added voiceovers to my film as
  they are heavily featured within the subgenre
  Noir in the overall crime genre. This
  convention helped progress the story plot and
  give my audience an insight into what the
  characters are thinking.

9
Editing Conventions

• Editing conventions of a thriller usually focus
  on creating a suspenseful atmosphere through
  quick cuts and changing camera angles quickly to
  create disorder and to disorientate the audience
  to create tension. I did this in Scene 4 when I
  created flash cuts throughout the interview to
  make it appear to the audience rapid and fast
  throughout the scene, its similar in a way to
  the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
  as its a rapid scene with lots of different
  angles thats easy for the audience to follow but
  at the same time disorientates them a little and
  make them uncomfortable through creating tension.
  The four shots on the left are all used within 8
  seconds of each other, creating a fast pace for a
  suspense built scene. I also a filter to create
  some scenes in black and white such as scene 3
  and 5. This edit of the scene follows the crime
  convention of Noir films. In order to keep my
  film fast paced I added brief cuts to black, to
  let the audience have a break from tension and
  suspense in the film, like at the end of Scene 4,
  the fastest pace scene within my film and at the
  start of Scene 2.

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Mise En Scene Conventions

• Costume was important in my film as we needed to
  make sure the detectives both looked professional
  but at the same time, one of the detectives
  looked like he was slacking and the other looked
  like he was more of a Try hard detective. This
  was important as it helped to separate and
  distinguish the different personas of the
  characters. Without following this convention I
  feel as though my audience might have had a hard
  time giving the detectives different
  personalities as the film is only 5 minutes long
  and it isnt a very long time to develop and
  present a character with an in-depth personality.