Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I feel I have drastically developed as a filmmaker from completing my preliminary task to my final production; my preliminary task was quite effective as we included everything that was required, but we encountered some problems like poor lighting which led to further problems such as the actors being difficult to see clearly, this damaged the way our video looked which made it look less attractive to our audience. We identified this as a problem so we set out to improve this in our final production.

The shot on the left is from our preliminary task and the shot on the right is from our final production; there’s a significant difference in the quality of lighting; we added a dark effect onto our final production and it was set outside and the light quality is still better than our prelim task, this shows that we took great care in improving the lighting as our feedback from prelim identified it as the main problem, this also highlights the great progression that we made. This adds greatly to the effectiveness of our final production as it shows that we improved on the flaws of our prelim to create an exciting thriller with much enriched lighting; however we still encountered many problems with lighting as we shot every scene outside so we were reliant on good weather conditions to ensure the lighting was proficient. The lighting could have also led to continuity issues as we shot at several locations on different days; continuity was one of the main issues we faced with our prelim so we identified this as something we had to get right with our final production, with which we did meritoriously.

A strongpoint of our prelim is that we included many different shot types which made it more interesting by making each shot different from the next; we saw this was effective so we expanded on this by including more ambitious shots whilst we also kept cutting back to the oncoming train. We did this because our feedback told us that our differentiation of shots in our prelim was one of the best features so we decided to manipulate our strongpoints to ensure we get the best final production possible.

Here’s an example of the unique shots we included; this shot is effective as the high angle shot highlights the dominance of power held by the male protagonist. This shows great progression from our prelim as we only really included basic medium and close-up shots, we never attempted anything as ambitious as this.

Another way in which we greatly improved from our prelim is with continuity, as we filmed our final production in numerous locations at different dates we had to take every precaution to ensure we maintained continuity. We encountered no problems with continuity in our final production as the weather was the same on all days we filmed and we ensured our actors maintained their continuity, however we did have some problems with continuity in our prelim.

  

This is a screen grab from our prelim highlighting a continuity issue we had when performing the match on action shot as we didn’t edit it correctly so the actors hand appeared to move jittery. We identified this as a problem so we sought to rectify it by ensuring we edited profusely throughout our final production.

 

 

As continuity issues led to many problems arising in our prelim, we used a technique of exploiting the many oncoming train shots we had to hide any minor continuity issues editing couldn’t prevent. This proceeded to be a very effective technique as it vastly improved the continuity from our prelim as well as adding to the overall tension of the production; something of which our prelim was significantly lacking in, but our prelim didn’t have to abide by a specific genre so maintaining high levels of tension wasn’t essential.

My editing skills have increased momentously from the prelim production as I have learnt how to effectively follow the 180 degree rule and abide by the golden mean, as well as this I’ve learnt how to edit effectively by ensuring continuity is maintained; I have done this by making sure the film is a smooth, slick final production.

Another way in which we significantly improved was with the way we planned in our final production, we carried out extensive research and planning to ensure our final production fitted our consumers’ needs as well as making sure we followed our plan thoroughly.

    

This is an example of the planning that we did for our final production, we extensively researched our location to establish whether it was suitable or not, on the other hand we carried out no research into the location of our preliminary task. We also carried out planning into all aspects of our final production, such as: costume, props, etc. we learnt from our prelim that little planning can have a detrimental effect on the final production so we used this as motivation to ensure that our planning was of the highest quality; we scrupulously planned every little part of our thriller so we knew who would be doing what and what was happening on each day of filming.   

 

 

We also visited the locations beforehand to give us an idea if they would be suitable for our production, the mood board above indicates how much attention to detail we paid as we scrutinised every detail adroitly. This is something we didn’t do with our prelim; we only ever saw our location when we filmed, and we realised that it wouldn’t be wholly suitable, but our poor planning ensured that we couldn’t change it; this is one of the main motivations for our detailed planning.  

Another way we improved from our preliminary task was with the way that we effectively used sound to extrapolate the effect that we wanted to create and effectively replicate this new found use of sound to build tension and suspense, whilst also keeping the audience captivated. In our prelim we just had one train overlaying everything which was ‘The Eye of The Tiger’ with a small bit of dialogue intertwined; we realised this is very basic and sought to improve this in our final production by using a more complex mix of sounds. We used a slow, chilling piece of music composed by a renown thriller music producer, we also introduced a narration of a poem halfway through called ‘Cousin Kate’, we used this poem as an inspiration for our whole production which is signified by our choice of title: ‘Kate’s Revenge’. This narration shows that we can use new aspects that are rarely used in thriller productions, this also makes ours more unique than the typical thriller, we have also drastically expanded on our minimalistic prelim ideas by introducing ideas that are more controversial than anything our prelim included.

 

 

 

Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Throughout the production of our opening sequence I have learnt a lot about the technologies required constructing an effective opening, these include: how to edit using professional software, how to shoot effectively with a digital camera, how to use other technologies such as prezi, etc. I used iMovie to edit my production; this enabled me to effectively use transitions – which we used throughout our production to create an eerie effect, we also regularly used slow motion shots to slow the pace down; we used this at the end when we revisited the first scene; this adds to the recurring theme of flashbacks which we followed profusely. We also kept cutting to shots of oncoming trains, this adds to the tension and make the audience feel uncomfortable as they know danger is inevitable; we included this to create this feeling which would add to the overall effectiveness of our production.

Extreme long shot;

 

This shot, pretty simply shows the scene, the surrounding environment and a small figure of the main character within the shot. Also known as ELS
Long shot;
This shot shows a whole characters body but closer to the camera than the extreme long shot. Still shows them in terms of their surroundings, this shot may also be known as the establishing shot. Also known as LS
Medium shot;
This shot mainly is between the boundaries of knee/waist to just above the head. It may also be known as 'mid-shot' or 'three-quarter shot'. Also known as MS

Close up;
Boundaries showing only shoulders to head. A lot of facial detail and is used to show emotion and feelings. It is the second shot which can be used in shot reverse shot. Also known as CU

Extreme close up;
This shot focuses on specific portions of a characters face or object used in a scene; can show extreme fear or emotion perceived by the eyes. Also known as ECU

They are all the different shot types I learnt about and I effectively used all of these in my production to give the audience a sense of variety in the film. I also learnt how to frame effectively whilst filming and how to apply this to my editing techniques, the techniques I learnt are: the rule of thirds, the golden mean, 180 degree rule, and match on action.

Whilst I was filming I learnt numerous things about how to film effectively using a digital camera; I learnt how to manipulate the effects on it to maximise the effectiveness of the picture by changing the light and adding effects. I also learnt how to use the tripod which was essential in stabilising the picture of our film; I did this by using the leveller on the tripod to determine whether it was level. I also used the camera to focus on objects to improve the depth of field, although the camera has an automatic focuser I still had to adjust it occasionally to get the best picture.

One of the most effective ways we edited was with our titles as we had to superimpose the titles onto various props that we selected; this meant that we had to use our best editing skills to ensure that they looked effective and didn’t look out of place.

Here are some other applications we used to help make our production:

· Blogger – we used blogger to upload all of our work onto which enabled us to share our work with each other, blogger also allowed us to show our work in other formats, such as: prezi, wordle, etc.

· YouTube – we used YouTube to upload our final production onto the internet, this allows others to watch it and give us feedback which is essential for evaluation

· ITunes – we used iTunes to import our sound into our film, we could only use iTunes as it is the only software compatible with iMovie

· Prezi – we used prezi as an alternative way of presenting our ideas, it enables us to produce them in a powerpoint format with a twist, and it also allows others to view them easily online

· Worldle – similar to prezi, wordle is just another technique we used to put our ideas across with worldle allowing us to present a bunch of related words in an attractive format.

· Windows media player – this allowed us to create our production ident, we used windows media player as it is easy and free to use and it’s also simple to extrapolate the footage and apply it onto our production

I have previously mentioned iMovie with which all of our editing has taken place in, it also allowed us to create a disk menu; the disk menu is the first thing the consumer will see after they put the dvd in so it’s essential we used iMovie to create an eye-catching disk menu which will encourage them to carry on watching.

Throughout the editing process we have gone from importing raw footage that we took using the skills we have acquired in effectively working digital cameras to ending up with our final thriller production. I believe that our production is extremely effective in conveying the message we want to get across as applied all the camera and editing skills we learnt efficiently as well as using other applications to improve the overall liking of our final product.

Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

 

This shot is featured early on in our production as well as having it as the final shot; this is an effective technique as it emphasises the fact that we used flashbacks. By doing this we also create a sense of mystery surrounding our plot, when we use it at the end we slow the scene down; this accentuates the fact of loss and mourning which will be prevalent throughout our production – it gives the audience a taste of what to expect further on in the film. The flowers twinned with the gravestone symbolises death and the feeling of loss; we included this at the very beginning to foreshadow that death will be inevitable in our production, and by including it at the end we hint to the audience that further death may be occurring – this leaves it on a cliff-hanger and encourages the audience to carry on watching.

  

We filmed this shot with the dolly, we did this to use a point of view shot from the killers perspective; this is effective as the audience feels like they’re in the killers shoes and this also allows them to witness the impending danger that the victim is blissfully unaware of. We also slowed the shot down slightly to build tension, this allows more time for suspense to grow as the audience don’t know when the killer will strike, then he’ll suddenly attack, making the audience feel uncomfortable; this is a common technique used in thrillers.

Throughout our production we continuously used cutaways of trains at high speed; this attracts the audience and keeps them gripped by alerting them to the impending danger. We also amplified the sound of the trains to increase the intensity of the tension, this carried on in-line with our music to create the effect that we wanted. We also took different shots of trains from different angles; this ensured that the audience could view them from every perspective whilst the intensity of the danger increased.

 

This is our groups’ favourite shot as it represents the balance of power in our film; it emphasises the male dominance that we wanted to assert to the audience, we did this to follow the conventions of a typical thriller. However, this is an unconventional shot as upward shots are rarely used; we used it to make our production unique. The rope indicates that the victim is trapped and defenceless, whereas the killer is in an open environment which suggests that he is free; we did this to convey a sense of irony as he will be inevitably punished for his crimes.

This shot illustrates the killer revealing himself for the first time, with the victim appearing to recognise him; we did this to add a sense of mystery to our film; the audience will be intrigued to know how she knows him, this will encourage them to carry on watching to find out. We used these cliff-hangers quite often to keep the audience gripped. By using an over-the-shoulder shot we could encapsulate the reactions of both protagonists, this is effective as the audience can see how both characters react to this situation – with the killer being calm and collective, whereas the victim is confused and startled; we did this to emphasise the contrasts between the two characters.

Our questionnaire informed us that our audience wanted a fast-paced thriller with plenty of action, which also effectively builds tension. We delivered this by using music which gradually builds in pace mixed in with intense train noises and a calm narrative; these three combined ensured our music contributed vastly to making our thriller extremely tense. We also used quick shots and editing to make our thriller fast-paced; we went beyond what was expected of us by introducing daring unique shots which are rarely attempted.

Jack Coley, year 13 student, commented on the effectiveness of our narrative and how it challenges the conventions of traditional thrillers. Sam Gandy, year 13 student, said he really enjoyed our production and highlighted the effectiveness of our flashbacks and how they make the story more compelling.

The opening of a film is key to its success and can often be the most memorable part, we realised this and took inspiration from Goldfinger. Goldfinger is remembered for its iconic opening where Shirley Bassey sung the opening titles; this emphasises the importance of music in opening title sequences, we used this as inspiration and used our music as an integral part for our opening.

Another iconic opening sequence from which we took inspiration from is Jaws, where it perfectly builds tension and sets up the rest of the story effectively with sudden music changes and quick editing to emphasise pace changes.

We effectively followed and challenged conventions to attract our audience; we were told by numerous people that the way we challenged conventions by including a narrative overlapping our music was very effective and unique. Our props followed and challenged conventions as we had the murderer wear a balaclava which is very common for criminals and is often associated with them, but we also used a train and train tracks which could attract our audience with its uniqueness. Our editing was also attractive as we kept cutting back to the train, which gained lots of positive feedback as it raised the tension. Our plot was quite conventional with the stereotypical man killing the woman, but we added unconventional twists which made it attractive to our audience.

 

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We carried out extensive research to determine who our audience is and our results showed that our demographic is mainly male teenagers who prefer thriller films and regularly go to the cinema. An issue with these findings is that our audience is quite limited; successful films appeal to a wide audience, whereas our target market is quite small so we need to ensure that they approve of our film or it runs the risk of failing. We could address this issue by adjusting our film slightly to appeal to a wider audience, but making sure we keep our current interested audience could be difficult. We also run the risk of alienating females as our research has shown that they prefer rom-coms to thrillers. To find out this information we used a questionnaire with 10 questions on it to establish the credentials of our target audience, we asked 10 people from the ages of 11 to 17; we used this age group because we knew this is the group we’d be aiming our film at so their opinions would be more valuable. We asked both males and females, although we knew males would be more likely to watch our production we wanted to know how we could make is more appealing to females. We asked the participants face-to-face questions and wrote their answers down, this ensures they won’t succumb to social desirability bias – they won’t say what they think they have to say, this improved the reliability of our questionnaire. We found out that most people want an opening which gradually builds tension through the form of tense music progressively building in depth and ferocity, they also want something which doesn’t give the story away; they’d rather watch something which sets the story up and makes them want to carry on watching, this suggests that people want cliff-hangers, even only a few minutes into a film. We also found that people prefer a mix of psychological and violent thrillers whilst also using quick cuts and sharp editing to keep the pace of the film up. We also asked them about flashbacks and we found that people like them, but not in abundance; one is effective enough to set the story up. So we only used one flashback, but repeated it many times by referring back to the oncoming train and including the shot of the mourner at the beginning and end of our production; we did this to increase the mystery of our production, but we also prevented the feeling of repetition by only using it when necessary, thus increasing the effectiveness of the use of flashbacks.   

 In my opinion our film should carry a 12 or 12A rating as the BBFC state that moderate violence is allowed but it should not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood, but occasional gory moments may be permitted if they can be justified by their context. This fits our production as we do portray that death has occurred but the audience never actually witnesses it; the only violence in our production is when James hits Annabelle with a rock, but it’s not dwelled on and there is no gore so this fits in with BBFCs guidelines. We also have no sex, drugs, discrimination, and very little horror; so according to the BBFC guidelines our thriller opening would be a 12, although the rest of the film may contain more graphic images which may increase our rating to a 15. Either of these ratings would fit in perfectly with our target audience as we are aiming our production at teenagers and they’d be allowed to watch the film due to the rating.

Looking at the typical psychographics I have deduced that our psychograph would be the explorer type as they are keen to explore and enjoy new, exciting experiences; they also tend to be young students who take great pleasure from their consumer products – this fits in brilliantly with our target market.

 

 

• This is an example of our target audience – a male teenager who likes thrillers.

• The headphones indicate that he’s listening to music – music is an integral part of teenagers’ lives nowadays; this also suggests he will take a keen interest in the music in our production.
• He’s smartly dressed which suggests that he’s at school or his place of work. His lanyard indicates that he has some form of importance at his institution – this suggests that he may prefer documentaries as our research shows that that’s what important people prefer to watch.
• He’s wearing a hoodie – this is typical in modern-day teenagers as it reflects their relaxed attitudes and is in the popular fashion trends
• He reflects the average teenager by following current trends in his attire and interests; this suggests that he will enjoy our production as we made it with our target audiences’ preferences in mind.

  

Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Paramount Pictures have produced many thriller films in the past, including: Snake Eyes, Carriers and Hard Rain; this combined with the fact that they are one of the biggest movie production companies makes them an ideal choice. Paramount is a subsidiary company of the conglomerate Viacom, it’s also the fifth oldest film studio and the last one to be based in Hollywood. A production company manages the filming of a movie from screenplay to release; its main concerns involve managing the budget and supervising all legal concerns. They are also held responsible for all the casting and should any damage come to the cast or set, it’s the production company who’s responsible.

Here’s our production ident, we have picked the name ‘JJCM’ as it is all of our initials; this reflects the simplicity of our production – our film features the typical overpowering male killing a damsel-in-distress; this idea is simple but effective, just like our logo. When our logo comes on the screen it also features some heavy, dramatic music; we did this to emphasise the fact that we are a company which would mainly focus on thrillers.

We drew a lot of inspiration for our logo from Hammer Films, the company responsible for films such as Dracula and Woman in Black. Their logo is very similar to ours as it is a simple bold font which also suggests they focus on horrors and thrillers. The name ‘hammer’ also suggests strength and the possibility of crime, this shows that our name has a logical meaning, whereas theirs has a more subtle abstract concept. As a whole our logo is very similar to theirs as both our companies’ share the same ideals as we both concentrate on thrillers. Funding a film like ours would be very difficult as most box office films have budgets of over £10m, so we’d have to find an investor to fund our project, or get a loan, however this would be very difficult considering the current economic climate. So we’re reliant on finding a film investment company such as UK Film Investment to fund our film, or we could try and find a distributor to fund it, but this would be difficult as we are new filmmakers and it would be a massive risk for them to invest.

 

To present our credits we wrote the names of everyone involved in our production on the train track boards; we put the name of our production first, followed by the actors, and then the crew last. We did this to reflect the importance of people’s roles in our production, with the actors being the most important. Once our film has been finalised and produced, we’d send it to the cinemas and they’d sell tickets to the customers to watch it, at the same time we’d also have to deal with advertising our film through the form of billboards, etc. once it’s finished at the cinema there’d be a gap of a few months before it’s released onto dvd and Blu-ray. This is the process that many big films go through, some examples are: Pulp Fiction, Batman, etc. movie distributors such as: Paramount and Disney also follow this same process in releasing their films.   

Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Media products can effectively represent social groups and social change by making characters in a way which would represent their social group; this would then make that production more appealing to that social group. We did market research to find out what social group our production would appeal to and to find out more information about them. We found that our production appealed to people in their teens to 20s who have a keen taste for thrillers. Here’s an example of the questions we asked.

 

We represented the stereotypical views on gender very well as we had Annabelle as a typical damsel-in-distress character and James as a typical overpowering, dominant man figure. We used this purposely to follow the conventions of a typical thriller and show the dominance of men in society, this also reflects the status of women in modern day society. This shows that our production is in touch with modern films, but it also sticks to retro ideals by having a typical innocent figure getting killed. We got inspiration for this idea from films such as: Leon and No Country for Old Men. Our film challenges social conventions by not having a hero to save the day; this technique is found in most films which include peril and danger, for example: Batman. We particularly wanted to represent teenagers as we ourselves are teenagers and our market research showed that they are our target audience and that our film would mostly appeal to them. We represented them by using our film to convey the perils that teenagers can face in modern society; we did this by having Annabelle look like a typical teenager; this shows that this kind of danger can happen to anyone, especially teenagers. We’ve also followed social trends by giving our film an old-fashioned look by using dull effects to create a retro feel, this is important as people are going back to liking old-fashioned things with cars such as the Volkswagen beetle and the soda machine becoming more prevalent. 

 

Iconic retro images such as this are similar to what we want to create, with a runaway train giving it the retro feel; this makes our film extremely popular to teenager Indies. This social group usually compromises of teenage males and females who have a keen interest for alternative music and films; this social group is the one we wanted to represent as we knew from our target market research that they’d be likely to watch it, and they’d appreciate anything aimed at them as their motto is that they’re ‘misunderstood’.                                                        

Question 1

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

A typical thriller contains an exciting plot, involving crime or espionage; this is typified by quick shots and editing and gradual music to build the tension, these are common in films such as Psycho, this can suddenly change pace at any time to show action or a point of interest. The main aim of a thriller is to make the audience feel uncomfortable and shock them by showing them events they wouldn’t expect to witness. Filmmakers use many different subgenres to categorise their films, some of the main ones are: psychological, violent, crime. To a certain extent our production follows the traditional conventions of a thriller as we featured a ‘damsel in distress’ character being killed, and our film is a deliberate cliché as we filmed her being tied onto a train track, with an oncoming train building the tension. We got this idea from early 20^th century films such as “The Perils of Pauline” and “The Gold Rush”, these were silent films in black and white but they effectively created tension, and this is what we wanted to replicate in our film. We did originally think about shooting our film in black and white and having it silent, but we decided that this was too cliché and could run the risk of almost being comical, so instead we decided to put an effect on our film which would create the darkness and tension necessary to make our film effective; this shows evidence of developing our ideas.

      

 

                      

 

Here’s a brief list of the typical conventions of a thriller:

A crime at the core of the narrative (often murder, but not necessarily)
There is usually a crime in the narrative or storyline of a thriller; it keeps the viewer hooked.

A complex narrative structure, with false paths, clues and resolutions
Thrillers are usually made up of these. Mainly to keep the audience questioning, and to make them work out what’s going on, leaving strong enigmas

A narrative pattern of establishing enigmas which the viewer expects to be resolved.
This will keep the viewer hooked and he/she will always want to see the resolutions.

Extraordinary events happening in ordinary situations.
This will enable the audience to relate to the situation, and therefore the effect will be stronger.

Themes of identity.
This is used so the audience can keep tabs on each character, who they are, and why they’re there. It also helps us identify the protagonist and antagonist.

Mise en scene which echoes/mirrors the protagonist’s plight
The mise-en-scene is very important, and needs to be relevant e.g. if the character is happy, put them in a happy place, with bright lights, or if the character is sad, put them in a sad place with dark lighting.

Although we have followed some conventions of thrillers, these conventions were quite out-dated, so our film could be considered to be retro. We challenged conventions by filming our short clip in multiple locations; this is not usually done which emphasises the fact that we wanted to follow the original conventions of thrillers, but add our own twist to them. We also watched many modern thrillers such as: No Country for Old Men, Leon, The Terminator, etc. we did this to give use a modern scope to integrate into our production. We couldn’t rely on solely basing our ideas from films nearly 100 years old as they didn’t have all the cameras and equipment necessary to make an effective modern thriller, so we watched some modern ones to broaden our horizons which would allow us to develop our ideas further; this allowed us to add modern camera and editing techniques such as flashbacks to our thriller – these are ubiquitous in modern films. Our production also follows the conventions of a thriller with the way we worked our cameras and editing; we used quick shots between the action and the oncoming train to build tension and to make the audience feel uncomfortable as they know something bad will inevitably happen, we also did this to constantly remind the audience of the impending danger.

Our music was very conventional as it was quiet, background music which didn’t interfere with the other concepts in our thriller; it’s similar to the music featured in films such as “Psycho” where it would gradually build tension to make the audience feel uncomfortable. Where we challenged the sound conventions was we included a narrative from a poem called ‘Cousin Kate’ we used this as a main base for our production as we called our production ‘Kate’s revenge’. This shows that we based all our ideas around a single piece of text; this is very unconventional as this isn’t usually done; filmmakers usually base their ideas on lots of different things, we purposely went against this to challenge conventions and to make our production more unique.

 

For a thriller to be truly effective it needs to abide by and challenge conventions in a way which attracts the audience and keeps them enthralled, some techniques that filmmakers use to do this include: dual narrative, flashbacks, etc. flashbacks are notably more prevalent in thrillers with films such as Total Recall and Pulp fiction featuring them.

 

Flashbacks are an integral part of these two films so we sought this as inspiration for our thriller as flashbacks also tend to follow the traditional conventions of thrillers. Looking at the titles of the two films along with ours it’s blatantly obvious that all of the titles are extremely different in their design; this highlights the fact that it’s difficult to follow or challenge the conventions of a title cover as they are all different in the way they come across to the consumers. We discovered this so we tried to make our titles as unique as possible.

One way with which we followed the conventions was with our props as we had the killer wearing the typical criminal attire; balaclava, gloves, trainers, etc.

 

 

 

This shot is quite conventional as it clearly shows the killers assertion of power and dominance over the weak victim; this is signified by the over the shoulder shot we used to ensure the audience views it from the killers’ perspective – giving the audience biased perspectives, which we did to emphasise the killer’s power. We also used quick editing to speed up the pace of this scene which would intensify the tension of this scene. The mise-en-scene is also conventional as everything in this shot is what you would expect to see in a typical thriller production; as we used the typical characters, followed a basic plot, had the killer wielding a weapon, and the camera and editing compliments the scene as it increases the tension and makes the audience feel uncomfortable – this is essential for an effective thriller production and is popular in titles such as Sin City.

   

This shot was taken from the film Psycho, one of the most illustrious thriller productions of all time; this shot is similar in following conventions as it effectively shows the balance of power the director wanted to convey, just like we did with our scene. The audience cannot see both of the protagonists’ faces, this has been done to conceal their identities which create a sense of mystery, the lighting and the way the water is positioned is also used to achieve this. The mise-en-scene is conventional as it features a traditional prop with a knife, but the camera angle, the costumes, and the setting is unconventional as they aren’t often featured in thrillers.