My Soundtrack

Craig Jackson's Thriller Evaluation

Representation of a social group

We decided to represent the mentally ill in our product in this way because we believe it shows that the mentally ill aren't always responsible for their actions and that sometimes they can be suffering from delusions in their mind which have been implanted in their mind to make them to terrible things. I showed this as sound editor by putting in low pitched, quick and dramatic sounds which show the protagonist is terrified of his antagonistic subconscious and that he feels the need to give in and obey him.

In 'Shutter Island' there are some similarities to our product with the protagonist in the film Teddy Daniels turning out to be the same character as the antagonist Andrew Laeddis. Laeddis is represented as someone who is schizophrenic and has invented themselves a new role. Laeddis pretends to be an anagram called 'Teddy Daniels' who is a US Marshall. He does this so he can forget that in reality he is Andrew Leadiss, a man who shot his wife after discovering she had murdered their three children. In our film the antagonist and the protagonist are both the same person and they are mentally ill. They have both also lost touch with reality and so both are extremely delusional.

I believe the way we have represented the mentally ill in no way represents all mentally ill people, but it's something which can possibly happen as a result of an untreated mental illness such as severe schizophrenia. This is backed up by the real life case of Grammy award winning drummer Jim Gordon who could hear voices in his head which came in all different forms but with the most frightening voice to him being the voice of his mother. When, in his head, he could hear his mothers voice it would stop him eating for forcing Gordon to go into hiding to eat a box of fried chicken before the voice returned to stop him from eating once again. He also believed the voice was controlling his hands and stopping him from being able to play the drums. Gordon was so mentally damaged by his undiagnosed condition of schizophrenia that after killing his mother police found him frightened that the same assailant who killed his mother might come for him aswell. This is very similar to our portrayal of the mentally ill in our product where the voice is so convincing and has such a powerful life over the person suffering with the illness that it completely controls what actions they take and can eventually lead to them committing an awful crime such as murder. The voices of the antagonist (or subconscious) in our film which the protagonist hears are so convincing and threatening to him that the protagonist is prepared to do what ever he can to get rid of them much like in the case of Gordon. Therefore I believe that our film does accurately represent some cases of mental illness although our representation of the mentally ill shouldn't be generalised as to represent all those who are mentally ill.

Our film challenges the stereotypical assertions most people have about the mentally ill who assume schizophrenics are evil when in fact they are normal human beings who are severely ill. What we try to show to the audience is that their illness may make them carry out horrific acts however this does not necessarily make them callous people. I believe that our film is different from Shutter Island as I believe that there is no real message of representation about the mentally ill and I believe the narrative of the film has been constructed for purely entertainment purposes with little purpose of representation. I believe our story is more similar to the case of Jim Gordon as in our film we portray the protagonist as a victim of his subconscious and I think we can see that with Jim Gordon he is also a victim of his subconscious as it has tortured him into a situation where he felt the need to kill to make it stop which is exactly the same as what happened with our character. I also believe that those who know the case of Jim Gordon will also find themselves challenging stereotypes about the mentally ill whilst they would also find themselves challenging stereotypical assertions about the mentally ill if they were to watch our media product.

 Film review

 ‘Twice’ is a psychological thriller set in London which follows the story of James McGrath, a schizophrenic who is manipulated and harassed by his subconscious until he commits out horrific acts of violence such as murders and bank robberies. James perceives his subconscious to be a strange and callous individual who will soon let him go once he has carried out all the acts that his subconscious has demanded of him. As far as James is concerned he is just as much of a victim as all the people he has shot, stabbed, choked and tortured. Completely oblivious to the fact that it’s simply his imagination which is forcing him to do these things, James soon finds out for himself that there’s nothing he can do which will finally satisfy the bloodthrist of his sinister subconscious. He becomes terrified of what his subconscious is going to make him do next and so he sets of to go into hiding in an abandoned home. Whilst in hiding the police discover enough evidence to prove that the biggest serial killer in London since Jack the Ripper can only be James McGrath and they set out to conduct the biggest man hunt Britain has ever seen. Mean whilst James has still been unable to escape the mental torture his own subconscious puts him through and he begins to realise he has to attempt to escape his mind whilst unaware that he also has to escape the police who have been told they need to catch him dead or alive. James’ battle with his own mind has now turned into his own battle for survival. However, will James be able to escape his subconscious in time to organise a way of fleeing the police or will his subconscious drive him to life imprisonment, or worse yet death?

What magazine would be likely to feature a review of our film

I think that a review of our product would be most likely to appear in ‘Sight & Sound’ magazine as Sight & Sound features a lot of low budget films with a niche audience, such as Hunger as seen on the front cover,  and I feel that our film would probably appeal to a niche audience and would be more likely to be shown in picture house cinemas as I don’t think it’s the type of movie which would be a mainstream Hollywood production. This is because the narrative to our film has been constructed so that it is more about being symbolic of changing a commonly held stereotype that people with schizophrenia commit crimes because they are evil or twisted. I believe that films which are mot intended for symbolic purposes rather than entertainment are usually niche films whilst mainstream Hollywood movies are generally more about entertainment than a particular symbolic message. I also feel that our movie would appeal more to informed film goers who are more able to appreciate symbolism in films rather than the type of audience who watch films simply to be entertained.  I believe that sight and sound target this type of audience more as their articles are generally more complex and more detailed than other film magazines such as Empire which cover mainstream films and in much less detail.

What I've learnt about technologies form the construction of this product

The video camera we used for our product was good as it allowed us to capture everything without the image looking shaky. This was because the tripod was very stable and the camera was excellent to move on it. This allowed us to have a more professional image which improved the overall quality of our product. However, one problem with using these cameras was that the battery life wasn't particularly great and so it ran out of battery before we'd finished filming. Fortunately though we'd got nearly everything we'd needed and so due to our quick working it didn't have as much of a detrimental affect on our product as it may have done if we hadn't already finished filming. As we have had previous experience with using these cameras we didn't learn anything new about them.

This was my first time using Garageband and as sound editor I had to sue it alot which meant I learnt alot from using it. Whilst using this software I learnt how to create soundtracks from a large mixture of sounds and how to time when they play effectively to produce a film in which the sound helps build the atmosphere. A second thing I learnt was how to quiet down and increase the sound so that it can fade in and out as I like. A third thing I learnt about using Garageband is how to cut down the sound so that it would play effectively The good thing about Garageband is that it was pretty simple to learn to use and so I was able to produce the soundtrack I wanted without encountering many problems. However, the bad thing about Garageband was that it was sometimes hard to find sounds that were exactly what I wanted. I had to spend along time searching through many different sounds which didn't fit in with our thriller at all before I could finally find some which did.

We used Final Cut in order to edit the film so that we could have effects in it such as when the film flicks over from what is happening to show the antagonistic subconscious. We did this so that we could show what is going through the protagonists mind as he imagines this man telling him to kill the guy in the chair. However, to the audience they will not be fully aware of this and so it creates dramatic effect. This was a big part to our opening sequence and so it shows that Final Cut is actually very good editing software. I can't make any criticisms of it as I believe it efficiently did everything we wanted it to do.

Our use of, challenging of or development of opening sequence conventions and thriller conventions

  

Opening sequence conventions














In the still above we use the opening sequence convention of introducing setting by showing an establishing shot of the carpet shop our opening sequence is set in. This introduces the audience to the setting of our carpet shop and the sound track which I produced has hard hitting low pitched noises which creates an eerie atmosphere in the carpet shop and adds more drama to the opening sequence.
















The still above shows that we are challenging the opening sequence convention of introducing characters as in our opening sequence it isn't made clear that our character who wields the knife is mentally ill or that the hooded character is the subconscious of the other character. The reason we have challenged this opening sequence convention is because it was necessary to ensure that we followed the thriller convention of establishing enigmas. By establishing this enigma and mystery around what exactly is going on our opening sequence is more in line with a thriller  opening sequence and also the audience would be more interested in the film as they would be curious to know what is going on. If we had of revealed the enigma then our film would no longer have been a thriller.




















With the opening sequence convention of introducing themes we have challenged this convention as we don't directly introduce themes in our film. Instead, as the still above shows, we had pictures of the brains of schizophrenics which flashed up on the screen and sometimes came in  faded during the action in order to hint that what going on is something in the mind. We did this intentionally as a suttle way of introducing the characters so that we could include a opening sequence convention whilst at the same time maintaning the thriller convention of not revealing any enigmas.

Thriller conventions

As the above still shows, we have challenged the thriller convention of having an antagonist that exploits the protagonists weakness. The way in which we have challenged it is instead of having a antagonist and a protagonist we have unified both those roles as the character wielding the knife could be seen as a protagonist but at the same time they're subconscious is a antagonist who is trying to pressure him into killing the man sat in the chair. By unifying the role of the protagonist with that of the antagonist the audience is left with a dilemma of deciding for themselves whether the main character is good or evil. It also means that the protagonist is technically being exploited it by themselves. You could however argue that we haven't challenged this thriller convention and that we have instead used it as we choose to display the antagonistic subconscious of the main character as being a separate character who is hooded and quite manic. However, our intention was not to create them as two separate roles but instead have them unified and display to the audience how a schizophrenic can have two sides to their personality that seem complete polar opposites to each other.

As sound editor I used the thriller convention of having a brooding and fairly dark atmosphere presented to us through sound by putting in a hard hitting and loud escalating soundtrack which builds up the tension to our narrative. Aswell as this I believe it represents the sharp sense of fear felt by the protagonist whom wields the knife. 

In our product we used the thriller convention of establshing enigams. As the above still shows, we did this by not making it clear that the antagonist and the protagonist are the same person and that the protagonist is being exploited by their own subconcious. By not making it clear we hoped it would make the plot more interesting and also we hoped it would challenge and change the minds of those who don't believe severe mental illnesses such as schizoprhenia is an excuse for comitting crimes. By showing the genuine fear the progtagonist has for their antagonistic subconcious we hoped that it would show schizophrenia can have a severely detrimental affect on the behaviour of those who have it and that it can make them do things they don't even agree with themselves.

Our journey from the preliminary task to our final product

 

 
 

Preliminary to final on Prezi

My IMDB page for our film

Craigs IMBD Page

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