VICES report

VICES Report

My task was to create a script, DVD cover and a poster in the genre of thriller, for a teen audience. In order to achieve this I had to do some research into the teen thriller genre and explore what different conventions I could use when creating my own.  My plot is  set in present 21^st century and is about a suburban family from Kent who all attend a cinema in order to mend the parents broken marriage, only to find the film is about them and goes on to reveal each of their darkest secrets. In my script for this narrative I will set the scene of the initial equilibrium for the family-to follow the idea of a thriller that extraordinary events happen to ordinary people-but this also gives hints to the issues that will later need to be overcome, this will conform with the genre of a thriller as they often have plot twists and moments of high tension. The scene will also be set in daylight to show the contrast between the equilibrium of their everyday lives and disequilibrium after entering the cinema. The cinema will, obviously, be darkly lit but with red house lights instead of white/blue to emphasise the danger and enigma of the setting. The poster and DVD cover will also share the idea of equilibrium but give hints to the antagonist in the film, to fit with the genre of thriller and show continuity with the opening scene of the film.

For my production ‘VICES’ I will leave a lot of the decisions about the relationships of the characters up for interpretation by the audience for example I plan on not using any images of my protagonists in my film poster or DVD front cover but instead represent them with objects, a main example being the cinema tickets I will put on my DVD front over and poster This way I am not putting any of the characters into stereotypes and not setting my characters in the roles of ‘hero’ or ‘damsel in distress’ like in Propp’s theory. This will make the experience more personal to the audience as they can create their own relationships with the characters without being influenced by the advertising and consequently they will feel more emotionally engaged and not stray from the realism that I want the film to convey.

For my initial research I watched ‘Before I Go to Sleep’, 2014 and ‘Gone Girl’ 2014, which both share the use of engaging the audience with a tense building of a certain path for the protagonists and then revealing a plot twist. This is an interesting interpretation on Todorov’s theory of equilibrium as, especially in a film such as ‘Gone Girl’ where it is revealed that the new equilibrium actually never existed at all, it makes the audience more aware and engaged with the action on screen as suddenly, it is all new information. The film ‘Before I Go to Sleep’ also has many of the generic conventions such as low, cool lighting and also has very few main characters, as does ‘Gone Girl’, which allows the audience to immerse themselves in the lives of the few characters and engage more on a personal level with the protagonist(s). ‘Gone Girl’ has more influence of media in the plot i.e. Nicks television interview with Sharon Schieber, which is more closely related to my film as the antagonist is initially seen to be the film itself.

I also created a Pinterest account and ‘pinned’ items that related to my initial idea and examples of thriller posters I thought were effective, that I could use in my own work. The Lovely Bones, 2009, was an example I looked at and it caught my attention because it was different from the other posters due to its use of colour. The poster still follows the usual conventions using mainly dark lighting and having the prominent element of mystery, but the burst of colour catches the audience’s eye. In contrast I also , again, looked at ‘Before I Go To Sleep’, as some of the posters used are mainly black and white, although this does conform with the conventions of a thriller, the monochrome style doesn’t grab the attention of the audience and subsequently, isn’t as effective as the ‘Lovely Bones’ poster. It was for this reason I chose to use more colour in my production work of ‘VICES’.  I also looked into different images that either connote different themes of technology in sinister way or pictures that perhaps relate to George Orwell’s 1984, which was an influence for the plot of my film.

As aforementioned the audience for my thriller film was teens, but more specifically aged 15-19, both male and female, this is because 2 of the main characters, protagonist and antagonist in my film, are teenagers between this age range so the audience will be able to relate more to the relationships and the decisions of the characters. The demographic for my production will mainly be those in education or just finishing education as some the issues addressed in my film are related to education so again the audience will be able to relate to the characters on a more personal level. Another reason I chose to target the older range of the teen audience is that I could make my plot more complex and incorporate more adult themes which would make my production more successful to a wider audience better suited to the thriller genre, whilst still keeping with an age that I am familiar with by keeping it within the teen genre.  

My script will attract a teenage audience as the main dialogue is largely between the teenage characters in their comfortable state of equilibrium this is so that the audience can understand and create a relationship with the characters which will keep them more engaged with the events that happen to them later on in the film.

The DVD cover will address the teen audience more directly than the poster, as the back image is of the 2 female teenage characters, however it will also follow the conventions using dark lighting, whilst also connoting mystery and enigma as we cannot see what ‘Rachael’ is saying to ‘Liz’. As the other images for the DVD front cover and film poster have yellow on, to avoid it looking like a comedy, as yellow is a colour often associated with comedies, I enhanced the shadows in the other areas of the image to show more contrast between the yellow and the other objects this signifies the idea of dark vs light or good vs evil which will show the audience that the film is of the thriller genre. This idea will be enhanced on the DVD cover as on the back there will be a blurb which gives a brief summary of the plot that attracts the audience but does not give away any spoilers.

In comparison to other thriller films, the ‘VICES’ DVD cover is reasonably different, as I found in my research most thriller posters/DVD covers usually have the single protagonist as the centre image directly addressing the audience with eye contact, and often with a contrasting black background -some examples being ‘Black Swan’, 2010, and ‘The Hole’, 2001 Neither the front cover of my DVD or film poster have any of the characters on. This was done firstly, to create a sense of mystery and to intrigue the audience into watching/exploring further into my film, but also as there are multiple main roles in my film I did not want to centre the action around one specific role, I think that, like to the plot of ‘Gone Girl’, that the audience should decide who the protagonist is themselves. Not only will this enhance the use of a plot twist, but also make the experience more personal to each audience member as it will be different for each one. The tickets in the image are also placed to show one ticket alone, this again is open to interpretation for the audience to decide which character is isolated, subsequently creating a sense of enigma around the characters.

The back of DVD cover is more closely related the theme of dishonesty in my film as is also accompanied by reviews, to tempt the audience to watch it and also smaller images that give more information about the characters for example an image of the father’s phone, a close up of ‘Rachael’s eyes and a shot of the mother driving, as that is part of her profession. Also included is BBFC information, special features and copyright information. I also kept with dark colour scheme using mainly black, white and red which are the colours mainly associated with the thriller genre as they suggest danger and mystery. The film, ‘The Fifth Estate’, 2013, shares a similar layout on the back of its DVD cover.

Overall, my final pieces were produced to a similar standard of high quality, independent films because I think the back cover of my DVD includes all of the aspects needed to represent a thriller genre, whilst the layout is organised and clearly shows the different special features, BBFC information and the colours complement each other well. However in my poster I think I could have positioned the title of the film higher to make it more easily visible and so it stands out more to attract the audience. I would’ve liked to make my image darker as some of the brighter colours such as purple may confuse some audience members initially into what genre the film is.