Report

Report

Mother Dearest is a teen thriller movie set in Ontario, Canada. It is about two sisters, one with a child, living together happily when a mysterious woman and her son move into the neighbourhood. In the script, there are a number of scenes, roughly 4 or 5. The film poster will be made to look dark and mysterious so the enigmatic element of the story remains constant. Finally, the typography used will be sleek and italic; this will fit in with the theme of the story and will suit the image on the front cover.

In the production ‘Mother Dearest’, I will consider many aspects of the thriller genre to make my film as accurate as possible. The setting will be dark and mysterious as it needs to create a sense of darkness throughout to enforce the state of disequilibrium, therefore, making it as realistic as possible.

For research, I created a visual space for all the posters and the trailers I viewed. I created this visual space online on www.tumblr.com. I looked at posters for No Good Deed, The Perfect Guy and Gone Girl.  Firstly, they all used the same colour schemes, which consisted of black, white and red. No Good Deed and Gone Girl consisted of the most generic thriller conventions. Trailers for both these films as well as The Perfect Guy includes low-key lighting, quick cuts, fade to blacks and tension music. I found that these conventions can be used for all Thriller films. I also found that all the films I researched followed Todorov's theory, where the films start in equilibrium and then it’s met by disequilibrium and is eventually met by equilibrium at the end. All films analysed had non-diegetic music playing in the background creating a sound bridge to create a certain atmosphere in the trailers. No Good Dead featured heavy breathing over fast paced music alongside fast shots and fade to black screens. Silence and sonic exaggeration are also used as it is thought provoking and does well to build up tension which seems to be a familiar convention for thriller films.

From research found on the internet, I have found that there is normally a crime in the narrative or the story line, therefore, keeping the viewer engaged with the film. Thrillers normally also contain complex narrative structures with false paths, clues and eventually resolutions. The narrative pattern includes establishing enigmas which the viewer expects to be solved therefore keeping them entertained. At some point, all thrillers will involve a protagonist against an antagonist. Thrillers can often be closely related to horrors but can be categorised into different sub-genres, for example, action thrillers, comedy thrillers, crime thrillers and psychological thrillers.

My production’s target audience will mainly be female dominated as the main protagonist role is played by a female and a female is advertised on the poster. The target age of the audience is expected to be from 15 – 25 because it will mainly be females of a young age watching such a female based film as they can form personal relationships with the characters and idolize the almost heroic nature of my main character/s. The demographic for my production will generally be people that work or those in education as my main target audience is of a young age (15-25). The DVD cover and poster will attract the target audience through the use of thriller shots and the use of mise en scene. There will be a general black/grey and red theme on the DVD cover and poster to embody the “bad” within the film. This illustrates the audience that it isn’t going to be a comedy or a “light-hearted” film but a thriller movie with a twist, therefore, giving the audience the idea that this film is serious. Also, the use of a serious front cover/poster means that the audience is going to look at the film in an altered way and they may automatically assume that it is within the action/horror genre.  I would also like the brief summary on the back cover to draw in the audience because it gives a descriptive synopsis of the movie that does not give too much information away to the viewers. I had done this purposely so the audience can be made to think about what might possibly happen within the film.

“Mother Dearest” DVD cover is different in the layout in comparison to other thriller films as it does not contain any images of any of the characters which is unusual for thriller films but instead, it has an object (a diary) as the main centrepiece. This is done on purpose to create a sense of mystery and illusion for the audience, making them become an ‘active’ audience as they are then thinking.  Furthermore, following the visual codes of the colour theme, the back of the DVD cover features a black backdrop with a film review with a 5-star rating to make the DVD seem as realistic as possible. Below that there is brief summary (blurb) of the plot and the characters and then the special features are listed beneath. There are also the copyright laws, region DVD information and production information. In comparison, No Good Deed DVD cover is different as is features a different layout that presents the blurb then thumbnails and additional images of the characters. The thumbnails are presented in a horizontal layout and they are all in red outlined boxes and just above is an image of the protagonist and the antagonist. The special features are presented before the thumbnails and all copyright information are featured below. A film such as As Above So Below is similar to my film because of the use of one image and one main colour being the focus of the DVD cover being the backdrop of both the front and back of the cover.

The film poster of Mother Dearest is a shot of the protagonist facing the side direction of the camera in a mise –en scene, this is similar to the film posters of the Frailty because it also feature the protagonist as the main shot in a side shot with a similar mise en scene. The colouring and the font of the text is similar to that of Mother Dearest. The use of red, white and black connotes blood, darkness and evil as well as equilibrium. There are common similarities between all thriller films due to the colour themes.

Overall, by producing my concluding piece using generic and traditional thriller conventions, I was able to create a DVD cover and film poster to similar quality of that of other thriller movies.  I believe that the layout of my DVD covers, front and back, is well designed as it clearly shows the blurb, special features and credits. Additionally, the typography used is suitable for the genre of the film as well as the images I have used.  On the other hand, I could have put more focus on the editing used on the film poster to give it a more of an “eerie” look and more “together”. I potentially could have used more images of the characters on the DVD cover to give the audience an idea of what the characters are going to look like therefore appealing to the audience more.

Word Count ; 1,216