Evaluation 1- In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our short psychological-thriller film, "VIRAGO", both challenges and conforms to the conventions of traditional short films in terms of its genre, narrative and editing techniques. We chose to challenge and conform this criteria because we didn't want our film to be overly generic and formulaic to other short films, while still maintaining its significance in its genre and style. The story of our film is simply an insight into the mind of our biker protagonist, Edward, and how he copes with the recent death of his wife. His increasing volume of visions of her in his dreams and of her in bandages in his reality result in his demise at the end.

The story and cinematic style of our film was inspired by many other feature films. The most prominent of these being 'The Place Beyond the Pines', 'Drive' and 'The Royal Tenenbaums'. 'The Place Beyond the Pines' and 'Drive' influenced our films protagonist- a man who is perceived to be masculine but is struggling to escape the past and a woman who he can't get over. The main influence for Elizabeth was "Eyes Without a Face" in terms of her costuming and angelic mannerisms and persona. 'The Royal Tenenbaums', however, influenced our cinematography in terms of our shots symmetry and movement. There's a scene which was a direct reference to a specific scene in 'The Royal Tenenbaums' that we tried to recreate in our tragic ending (where the protagonist cuts their wrists over a sink). This recreation is similar both not only in subject matter and camerawork but also in the way it was edited (e.g. jump cutting to visions in the protagonist's head).

  High Angle shot in "The Royal Tenenbaums"

   High Angle shot in "Virago" 

 

 Long shot of bike "Quadrophenia"

Long shot of bike in "Virago"

  
Close-up shot from "Eyes Without a Face"

Close-up shot from "Virago"

Some of the shots we got of Edward on the motorbike were also quite similar to likes of 'Easy Rider' and the opening shot from 'Quadrophenia'. One could argue that the costumes used in "VIRAGO" conform to the conventions of biker culture and biker films. In fact, Edward's costume were influenced by Mel Gibson's in 'Mad Max' and especially Marlon Brando's in 'The Wild One'.

In constructing this gothic and intimate story, we utilised the three common continuity editing techniques used in many feature films: 180-degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot. These techniques are used in films so that the audience can understand the layout and stage directions of a particular scene; so that the characters interactions with objects or other characters make sense and the editing will not confuse the audience. In our film, we used all of these techniques successfully in our film's dream sequence, whiskey sequence and staircase sequence.

The whiskey sequence opens with a long shot of Edward entering the kitchen and sitting down at the table. He grabs the whiskey bottle from the bottle stand and there is a cut to an over-shoulder shot of Edward putting the bottle up to his face and drinking from it. The cut syncs up with the movement of the arm bringing the bottle towards his face and hence creating a match on action. If we were to not sync up the action between Edward and the bottle it would have broken continuity and would leave the audience wondering where the bottle has gone from the previous shot. The same technique is used on the bottle when Edward knocks the bottle off and onto the floor.

Later in the scene, in Edward's dream reality, there are multiple cuts back to a medium shot of him, his dead wife and a vicar all centred in the middle of the frame. This shot gives the audience a signal that this line should not be passed- the 180-degree rule. In other shots of the dream reality, we abide to this rule and do not pass it; despite having the freedom to do so because it was a dream sequence and did not necessarily require accurate continuity. This is shown through the medium shot of all three actors, the close-up of Edward's face and the long shot of Edward.

Shot Reverse Shot, on the other hand, was achieved in the staircase sequence, where Eddie has a vision of his wife in bandages, staring at him through the bannister. We used cuts back and forth from Kurt and Hannah's face in editing to denote to the audience that they are having some sort of connection/communication with one another, even though Elizabeth doesn't actually exist. If this sequence didn't have shot reverse-shot, it might not have conveyed that they are forming some sort of connection but would have instead portrayed a jump-scare, as seen in many horror films; changing the genre of our film entirely.

I feel our film was overall successful in portraying the psychological thriller genre, despite us sometimes subverting from it into more of a horror (e.g His wife bandaged up, the bloody gore at the end). These scenes of almost horror-like iconography were used because we wanted to convey Edward's slowly disintegrating mental state. The dark imagery is necessary for us to convey his dark thoughts. Doing this was constructed in way that was supposed to encourage our audience to be disturbed and have empathy/sympathy for Edward. Our audience, who should be between 15-18yrs and above, will have hopefully had a visceral response to the graphic ending and gain an understanding of our protagonist's visions and why they are important to him and the narrative. When showing our film to a few colleagues, they reacted exactly as I have just stated. While the film is quite tragic and mournful, the audience gain pleasure from it through its escapism, subjectivity and perhaps even make them learn about depression and loss.