Media Evaluation Question 1 - Anissa Daud

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1. The Title of the Film:

Possible titles for our film included 'Stockholm', 'Conjoined' 'Lex Talionis' and many others. We finally decided on 'BOUND' mainly because it was the one that wasn't already taken, but also because it was well-fitting, considering the plot.

The "to-get-her" section came about spontaneously; our fellow group member, Louisa, was editing the titles when she thought that there could be a double meaning within the title of our film.

For example, the word 'together' would insinuate that both the Janitor and Sophie are physically together, yet are also 'together' because they've both been victims of bullying. The word can also be broken up to form "to-get-her" - and this is the main aim of the Janitor, with regards to Sophie, the main protagonist.

A good Thriller usually includes some sense of enigma, as well as the idea of solving a riddle, and by including this, we feel that our title is quite conventional, as it is punning and implies more than just one thing.

Additionally, the colouring of our titles was extremely important and we thought that we should also make use of symbolism through the colouring. For example, the background is black, which implies darkness, mystery, evil, etc. It is also a colour which is used quite frequently within Thriller titles and so, it was a conventional use of colour on our part. The text itself is red; this displays a double meaning alongside the actual title - red stands for danger and blood, but it could also be used as a symbol of passion, which is also an element within our story.

In order to depict the relationship that the two protagonists share, we wanted a font that was disjointed, yet still connected in some manner. We did some titles research on dafont.com and browsed through the 'Distorted' category. We finally settled on the font 'Ruptured Sans' as we felt it helped to represent our plot the most. We downloaded the font, after which we opened the font on Adobe After Effects, in order to animate our Title appropriately. We had initially wanted to have a smokey introduction, so as to reinforce the idea of mystery and secrets, however, lack of time meant that we would have to leave out the smokey idea, however we then added a simpler, yet more effective, animation to it.

2. Setting/Location:

As we were only supposed to film within the school premises, we had limited choices for potential locations. However, the fact that our narrative required the backdrop of a school helped us to overcome that particular obstacle as we then made use of our two primary locations, which were the toilets and the drama room. We used the drama room because we knew it would be equipped with things that would further aid us in this project; for example, we made use of black material to filter the lighting - as low key lighting is usually used abundantly within Thriller films; another generic convention that we have adhered to. We also utilised the available lighting equipment in order to create an eerie atmosphere within the room. In the toilets, we ensured that the lights were off, however there was a lot of natural light coming in through the windows. This did not cause too much of a problem, as we later dimmed the brightness of the clips during the Editing process. 

                     We ensured that the lighting was dark, and that the main focus was on Sophie. 

                                                             

                                                      Preparing for the bathroom shoot. 

3. The Plot & Characters: 

After much deliberation, we decided on the plot as being about a young schoolgirl who is the victim of bullying, who is abducted by the school Janitor so that he can "train" her to stand against those who have wronged her. He does this as he feels he can relate to her as he has also gone through similar experiences in his past and so feels that this is his chance to "rectify" that. Although at first Sophie is seen to resist all his attempts at "helping", she is gradually affected by the Stockholm Syndrome and ends up strongly sympathising with the Janitor.


The very first time that we see Sophie is through a smudged & distorted mirror. This already displays to the audience that there are some evident struggles that this girl is facing. This point is further reinforced by the flashbacks that are shown later on during the opening, when the audience are shown what kind of abuse she has been dealing with. This type of an introduction is quite conventional, as it intrigues the audience as to knowing why the character was introduced like so and what they could be hiding.



The first glimpse of a second character is through a long shot - we see the back of the Janitor & we understand that he will also have some role to play. There is some cross-cutting as the scene cuts from Sophie to the Janitor, then back to Sophie after which we see a face outside the toilet door, albeit covered by natural light shining through the window. The fact that his face is not totally seen carries on creating the sense of an enigma and also implies that some sort of secrets are being hidden. It also presents him as a potential 'dark' character. However, the fact that it is white light shining on him contradicts the previous fact and it could be argued that he is a "messiah" of sorts. These contradictory ideas play well into the plot, due to the fact that the Janitor is not wholly 'good' or 'evil', but is rather a shady character, whom the audience is wary of, which again, is quite a conventional idea.

4. Camerawork, Sound & Editing

We initially used our storyboards to plan what and how many camera shots/angles we would include in our Final Piece. This helped us to form a 'checklist', which we went through whilst shooting, ensuring that we were adding a decent and appropriate amount of camera angles within our Piece.

We wanted to ensure that we included a variety of camera shots within our Final Piece, in order to not only showcase our understanding of them, but to also challenge ourselves and to see how many we could include in correspondence with the pace of the film. Moreover, after doing our initial Product Research of films like Shutter Island, Psycho and Se7en, we realised that a variety of camera shots/angles were necessary. During the Post-Production stage, we realised that a lot of the footage we had consisted of a lot of long shots. We therefore tried to narrow them down, so as to use them only where appropriate and also to ensure that there was fluidity to our Opening through smooth, dissolve transitions.

                                                            One of our panning shots 

 5. Props

In order to avoid any complications/confusion, we decided to keep props and dialogues to a minimum. However, there were still some things we needed to take into consideration. For example, Sophie is a schoolgirl, and so therefore we had to ensure that she was wearing appropriate clothing; as our actress is also a schoolgirl, the uniform was not an issue. However, as Mr Gibbs was playing the role of the Janitor, we had to request the appropriate uniform and trolley beforehand, in order to avoid wasting any time on the day of the shoots.








Janitor's Outfit

















The trolley used by the Janitor