Q1: In what ways does my media project use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

All through the planning and composing stages of our thriller opening, I always thought of it as quite exceptional and unique especially for the genre. Though undoubtedly a thriller, I feel that we have, on more than one occasion side-stepped across the genre's into both horror and something verging on fantasy (I say this only because Karamel Kanu's mysterious re-apparitions around the set). However i do not feel as though we ever lost our direction and throughout the entire process we kept rigidly to our basic, initial ideas, many of which were influenced by numerous thriller films...

To the left is the opening shot of our film. Though this was an entirely improvised shot, it has become one of our best. In the far right is a vanishing point which gives the impression that the forest runs on and on for an untold distance. In this respect we found it very similar to a shot in the film 'Essex Boys' where an enemy of the protagonists is dumped in a bleak and seemingly never ending flat. Another very similar and perhaps more influential series of shots are the wide, establishing shots that open the film 'No Country For Old Men' of the open desert landscape. Similar too to 'No Country...' our group valued the effect of landscape and setting of the film. Unlike many other groups, our film was shot on the wide open beaches and enclosed forests. The effect was ultimately one of intimidation and helplessness and, as there was no dialogue in our film, I don't think that this effect could have been achieved without these bleak establishing shots.

     The lighting in our film was entirely natural and turned out very successfully. We have not made an attempt to subvert the traditional connotations of lighting and found it worked in our favour. In the picture to the right is on of the best examples in the contrast of light. The tops of the trees and the beach in the background are lit up with a cold, bright light while the tree trunks, pines and snow on the ground are cast in shadow. Furthermore the presence of the snow in darkened foreground makes the whole scene appear cold and, as this is hardly pleasant looking snow, also manages to add a more bitter feel to the picture. As we naturally associate darkness with danger and fear, this shot in particular emphasizes the danger and fear lurking within the trees. The most alike in use of lighting and its effects in this way is film noir. Though noir was not an immediate influence on our film in terms of location and story, the use of lighting within films such as 'The Third Man' and neo-noir opening of 'Casino Royale' can be linked directly to shots such as this found, albeit rarely, within our thriller.

The font used for the title of our film is not traditional within thrillers and is a good example of the ways in which we have both challenged aspects of the genre and mixed in others. At a glance, this title may well be thought to be more suited to a horror film and though ours undoubtedly at times verges on the genre, it is inescapably a thriller. The reasoning behind the font was that it was the one we found that best fitted in with the aesthetic as oppose to the content of our film. As I have already mentioned, our group valued setting very highly and I feel that this position was prevalent throughout most, if not all, of the editing process from sound editing to these titles. If nothing else then the font and the name itself furthers the enigma developed throughout the two-minute duration as it is not a typically thriller font.

     The shot types used in our film were one of the components that we stuck to entirely and are arguably the most thriller-esque part of our film. In this particular shot (to the right) a mix of the camera and the lighting traps Gerhard against the forest floor and the high angle immediately establishes him as a threatened and a vulnerable character. In essence it is very similar to (and throughout shooting i certainly had in mind) a shot from Hitchcock's 'Shadow of Doubt' that uses the overview and the 'stillness' of the high-angle to create a feeling of doubt, loneliness and, above all, danger. The content of this particular shot, in which Gerhard stops, turns and looks around the empty forest after hearing the snap of a twig, also helps contribute to the fear and the unease this scene was intended to establish.

The scenes in which Gerhard is trapped are the most immediate shots that could be compared to horror films. Twinned with the harsh, invasive static that claws at the listeners' ears at this point, the objective of these scenes were to totally unnerve the audience. Despite this, the immediate influence on composing this shot in the pre-production stages, was a very similar scene from the TV Thriller 'Homeland' in which a security camera watches a a shell-shocked Bordy shelter in the corner of the room. Another major influence for these flashes was the film 'Dead Man's Shoes' (who's presence can be felt in almost every part of the film) where there are abstract flashes forwards and back in the narrative that mark the film's most intense scenes. As well as this, the flash backs in certified thrillers such as the Bourne trilogy are also not dissimilar to the cuts found within our film which, as oppose to creating a story parallel to our primary narrative, feature almost random shots from all over the place.

     Gerhard's costume was a particular point of interest through the planning stages. As there was to be no dialogue, the look of the characters was the only way we had to establish their personality. However I feel that we managed this very successfully. Gerhard's costume is a mix of practicality and self fashioned style and egocentric vanity as the comparisons between his shoes and his hoody marked with a (hopefully vaguely humorous) play on his name establishes his arrogance and his lowliness - nothing he wears is especially nice. The mentality behind his wardrobe clashed with the typical prejudices around his class can be likened to the characters of Jason in 'Essex Boys' and Duke from 'Layer Cake' and it was certainly these two characters we had most in mind during the planning of Gerhard.

If I had to name the four films that have had the greatest influence on the creation of 'Evito' then I would name 'Dead Man's Shoes' in terms of character and theme, 'Essex Boys' in terms of atmosphere, 'No Country for Old Men' in terms of tone and shots and 'The Blair Witch Project' in terms of the overall aesthetic and design of the film. When i talk about crossing over into the horror genre in places, it is the latter film which I am most commonly referring to. Even when we thought up the basic ideas of 'Evito' the comparisons were hard to ignore though as I have said earlier, as much as we might borrow from the horror genre, we manage to avoid succumbing wholly to it, I see the borrowing as merely a development of the genre. One of the most 'borrowed' shots is on the right where Gerhard first spots Karamel Kanu. The camera leading us to this point is deliberately rather shaky and in places unfocused in order to compound and increase the panic and fear the character's sudden, and this time very visible, apparition inspires in our protagonist. Here Karamel is stood on top of the slope that Gerhard presumably intended to leave the forest by and, though the sunlight somewhat erodes the edges of his character, the aim was to make him block out the sunlight and therefore block out escape. Also key in this scene the camera moves interdependently of the characters, panning up from Gerhard as if following his line of sight and this places the audience in the film in the way 'shaky-cam' horror films such as 'The Blair Witch Project', 'Cloverfield' and 'Paranormal Activity' do in order to make the fear seem very, very real.

     The narrative structure of our film is very peculiar as there are two series of shots running parallel to one another for the duration of the the opening two minutes. Though there perhaps isn't enough narrative change to liken the film to Tarantino picture, 'Evito' certainly doesn't conform to the traditional form of most thriller openings and could almost be a short film independent of a following hour and a half. There is a very clear turning point marked by the scene on the right in which the character of Gerhard very literally turns around and starts walking the opposite direction. I do not feel as though the pace in which 'Evito' moves to be especially typical of this sort of thriller and would therefore argue that it is one of the ways in which we challenge the conventions of other thriller films.

On the left is the climatic (though not final) shot of our thriller's opening. It is one of the most enigmatic and satisfying shots we filmed and significant even outside the context of the plot. during the 'fives-courts' shoot the camera was deliberately wonky in order to, like almost every technique we used, create an atmosphere of uneasiness and tension. I for one find the shot very similar to several found in film-noir, notably in 'The Third Man' where Harry Lime is peering up the stairwell and the shot is partially obscured, rendering the viewer somewhat ignorant of the occurrences - something most films strive to avoid. Originally we wanted Karamel Kanu to be partly out of shot, but we decided against this when we realized it could be seen as a mistake to those unable to understand the inner workings of our mind, however this would have been done to ultimately achieve the same effect. Also as this is all but the closing shot in what we hoped would be an unnerving opening, the importance of the high-angle is to make the viewer seem, very subtlety, more welcome to observe the actions of Karamel Kanu who is now for once below them and is one of the most quietly encouraging techniques we used to invite the audience to keep watching.