We created a 5 minute short film called Malefaction with the genre crime/drama. It had a target audience of 16-30.
In terms of narrative conventions, we looked at films like 'Gone Girl' and 'Physcho'. We followed conventions in term of narrative in a number of ways. We followed Todorov's narrative theory as follows;
In terms on narrative, our short film breaks Todorov’s narrative theory as we don't start with an equilibrium at the start. We do have one an equilibrium however as the women did live a happy family life before hand which can be know from her phone call to her family. In terms of camerawork Katie was the principle photographer and during our research we looked at the films unremarkable, Gone Girl and Physcho. Our opening shot is medium shot that shows the morgue scene in its full and this will appeal with target audience because it starts with a dead which is what they expect in a crime/drama. The morgue scene setup is similar to ones of Unremarkable. Throughout the rest of the 5 minute short film we continue to create a visual collage with a mystery style fitting to crime dramas such as Gone Girl and unremarkable because we keep conventions of classic crime films by not revealing the killer character but instead we use a range of interesting angles to reveal CLOSE UPS OF his clothing props in and around the morgue and the crime scene , LONG SHOTS OF the train parking to help establish the setting for the film, TRACKING SHOTS of the victim and the killer walk back to her car. Our main aspect is the use of tracking shot , which is a convention of the crime/drama genre but on the whole our film subverts conventions as we focus on mise-en-scene that connotes the genre rather than the star vehicles at this point.
With our characters, they support the Vladimir Propp theory that there is a structure of characters which include; The hero, the villain, the donor, the helper, the princess, the dispatcher, the princess' father and the false hero. In our film, the hero we have is Rory (an actor from Poldark) and he isn't the stereotypical hero. He's in his 40's and doesn't fit the body stereotype of being gym fit which is what most heroes are stereotyped to look like. Our villain is the murder. Mr Howe, we felt, was the correct height with our other actors also being small and his all round strong build. We also felt his background of liking to act would get us a more real outcome. Our princess in the story is the victim, Isabelle Jefferies, who is the stereotypical young mother. Our final character type in the film is the false hero which is played again by Mr Howe. He is the doctor as well as the murderer. So for when the audience don't know he is the murderer, he is the hero. This proving all our character types support Vladimir Propp's theory.
In terms of mise-en-scene, with 'Gone Girl' we imitated some of the blue lighting effects. This is because we have seen this blue lighting in a lot of crime/dramas and it creates a visual effect of the police as flashing blue lights connotes with the police. The colour blue is also considered a cold colour with goes well with the dead body at the crime scene. The scalpel which is used as the murder weapon at the scene is so people can make a link between murderer and the doctor. This is also done with the jack of hearts playing card which is being placed on the dead body.
With character clothing, it all fits under the social grading from B-E. We have made the mum wear a modern representation of casual wear which is ripped jeans and a fluffy jacket. The murder/doctor wore his work gear to the murder as we felt it would give it a more real look and to be honest, everyday clothes are what killers wear. In the morgue, he will wear a doctors gown which you will see him put on and take off.
With the sound, a lot of it will be foley. For example, the foot step noises of the victim in the car park and the sound of the phone ringing. Foley is used lots in crime/dramas as the sound of a stabbing, the feet skidding on the floor as the victim falls and the heavy breathing of the murderer would not be caught underneath the sound of the camera. Where sound has been caught with the audio from the camera and its clear and crisp then we will use that The proper reveal scene at the end was accompanied with non-diegetic music. We chose to do this because it wasn't sound that the character necessarily had to hear. It was only for the audience so it would create an atmosphere for them. Noise is what scares the audience so it was important we got it right.
In terms of mise-en-scene, with 'Gone Girl' we imitated some of the blue lighting effects. This is because we have seen this blue lighting in a lot of crime/dramas and it creates a visual effect of the police as flashing blue lights connotes with the police. The colour blue is also considered a cold colour with goes well with the dead body at the crime scene. The scalpel which is used as the murder weapon at the scene is so people can make a link between murderer and the doctor. This is also done with the jack of hearts playing card which is being placed on the dead body.
With character clothing, it all fits under the social grading from B-E. We have made the mum wear a modern representation of casual wear which is ripped jeans and a fluffy jacket. The murder/doctor wore his work gear to the murder as we felt it would give it a more real look and to be honest, everyday clothes are what killers wear. In the morgue, he will wear a doctors gown which you will see him put on and take off.
With the sound, a lot of it will be foley. For example, the foot step noises of the victim in the car park and the sound of the phone ringing. Foley is used lots in crime/dramas as the sound of a stabbing, the feet skidding on the floor as the victim falls and the heavy breathing of the murderer would not be caught underneath the sound of the camera. Where sound has been caught with the audio from the camera and its clear and crisp then we will use that The proper reveal scene at the end was accompanied with non-diegetic music. We chose to do this because it wasn't sound that the character necessarily had to hear. It was only for the audience so it would create an atmosphere for them. Noise is what scares the audience so it was important we got it right.
