Our A2 media film "The Forgotten Truth" uses conventions of a psychological thriller as the costumes used portray the story line in our chosen genre. As the Doctor wears a lab coat, signaling their medical profession which makes the film look more realistic. In the TV series American Horror Story which is based around this genre, the doctor and psychiatrist wears a lab coat, making his character seem intimidating and important, which is what we tried to portray through our costume.
Doctors white coat in our film
Although I do believe our film challenged the convention of real media also as our character Damion's costume didn't fit with the typical mental asylum setting, not conforming to expectations. Damion wore a grey t shirt through the film, changing into a coat in some scenes, but we felt because he didn't believe he was in a mental asylum and he didn't understand why he was there in the first place, he was able to wear casual clothes. As mental institutions probably wouldn't let patients wear their own clothes especially if they had done something extremely bad to be there, we based our idea from the film Shutter Island. Due to this film using the idea of the mental institution letting the male protagonist create his own image of what he thinks is going on, allowing him to dress as a police officer and live in a made up world of his own. We had the idea that the mental institution would probably care for Damion's sanity and allow him to dress as he pleases because of the stress and illnesses that he has.
Teddy's outfit in Shutter Island
We used a location of a hospital bed room in our college to create a scene that looked like a mental institute. This is usually what would appear in the psychological thriller setting as our story line includes this, similar to the mental hospital room from Gothika. The location does subvert the stereotype slightly due to it being filmed in college hallways, so college signs were evidently there.
Damion's hospital room
Gothika hospital room- similar coloured clothing reflects where the characters are and the confused facial expressions/actions show their illness and the genre.
Our main convention is the plot twist which most psychological thrillers have included in their narrative, to keep the audience enticed and play with their expectations, which would also play with their mind, the two elements that are involved in this genre as they gain to understand the unstable characters and their background story. The plot twist we decided upon was that Damion discovers he in fact murdered his wife, which was inspired by one of my favourite films, Shutter Island, as a similar story ending happens here when the main character discover his wife had murdered his three children and so therefore he murdered her in a traumatic state.
Plot twist of Teddy killing his wife
Another factor would be an unreliable narrator because of Damion's state of mind, being schizophrenic and having irrational reoccurring thoughts meaning his side of the story that is shown may also be deceiving to the audience. The audience probably won't believe that his wife is lost inside the hospital that he's seemingly in, this will play with their perception on the film and make them wonder whether it's reality or created in Damion's mind. The thought of this is shown in other films such as Psycho as it uses elements of loss of identity when the character dresses as his mother to murder guests at his hotel. We created a clip similar to the murder scene when Damion murders his wife, using a silhouette to show his loss of identity when he becomes ill but also so that the audience can't see who it is who's really killing her. This is done in Psycho during the murder scene as when the hotel owner murders his guest in the dress of his mothers, you can't tell who it is, playing with the audiences mind and also showing his change of identity when committing an act so violent such as murder. Murder and death is also one of the main themes in this genre, characters being faced with death like these two will have to face this through the entirety of the film, typical of this type of film.
The Forgotten truth: Silhouette figure
Continuity editing is used in our film to create a sense of time however our film works slightly differently using the idea from Memento where the film events work backwards. As we decided that we'd show Damion waking up in the mental asylum and searching for his wife, rather than the usual and expected story line of murdering his wife and then waking up in a mental asylum, regretting what he'd done. This was edited together using Final Cut Express in which we used over the shoulder shots to show the audience what Damion was looking at as he wasn't in the right state of mind for him to reveal this, not knowing what he'd done. Richard Dyer's theory of entertainment states the audience watch a film to escape from reality and they'll watch a film if it offers them something they don't have in their own life. Over the shoulder shots put the audience in the characters mind, making them relate to the character and hopefully enjoy the film because of this.
Then we used a title sequence in which we placed an effect/transition over the top to move the letters, as though they were moving in the way Damion's mind was working, it represented this. This is similar to the television series AHS in the format of the title, the letters moving accompanied by intense music. The letters moving could also have some representation of mental institutions in an old era, the forms of torture that took place were things such as high voltage to shock the brain, which would be creepy when represented in a title sequence. The film title it has similarities with is Se7en because of the flickering title and the moving format.
The editing we used was involving a journey montage of Damion searching for Lily through different corridors, the match on actions displayed through each shot shows how the scenes fit together, creating a realistic element of time for the audience as they'll believe Damion is looking for Lily quickly, searching everywhere he can. This is similar to the The Lovely bones as the main character attempts to gain the attention of her father, searching for him.
Our film uses typical conventions such as a male and female relationship in the psychological thriller genre and the male killing the female, as it's usually the males in these sort of films who hold the most power. However this is debatable as a lot of female characters especially in this genre develop mental illnesses and are seen as crazy by male characters like in the film Gothica, the female character is seen as crazy by most men in the film and is put into a mental institution.
In this way, our film subverts the stereotype as you wouldn't usually find a man in a film going mentally ill, except of course in Shutter Island. Therefore I feel because of the unexpected lead character in this film, a more male based audience would watch it as they'd be drawn to the new idea of a mentally ill male. However our overall audience is teen based.
Also our non-diegetic sound is the usual type that appears in this genre as before hand I researched into music found in psychological thrillers and people would expect the music to be intense, creepy music like the kind you hear on the film Sinister. The music is used to affect the audience after they watch the film, creating a suspense during their viewing time but also making it memorable so they remember exactly what happened during the music was played. We a drum beat on top of the scene where Damion discovered his file, creating an intense moment as the drum beat played, the audience's heart would beat faster, making them scared of what's to come. This can be seen in Sinister when the 'Boogie man' appears, the music accompanies him so they audience know what to expect on a particular moment in a scene. We used a voice over through the film to covey an opinion from Damion, so his illness was shown rather than just an aggressive side that the audience may not understand. Voice overs are usually used in these sorts of films as the plots can sometimes be confusing, so the audience need a bit of extra information from the main character. Like this one from Sin city
The film script leans quite towards a romantic tragedy when you read the romance involved as our main character discusses him finding his wife, however in the particular context, it can't be considered a romantic tragedy as it uses too many elements of mental illness and death.
Overall our audience feedback provided with the information that they enjoyed our film, declaring that the scenes fit well and the story line was intriguing, making us happy that we followed the usual psychological thriller expectations of creating a character who the audience want to follow and know about. Damion was an intriguing character as in previous films I've mentioned such as Shutter island, the audience gain satisfaction from discovering new things about characters and finding the plot out before the film ends, involving them in our product. Closeups of Damion's and Lily's relationship proved their love was realistic as the audience saw what they used to be and what they eventually turned into, when arguing. This allows the audience to really gain a wider insight into the plot of the film as they learn a lot about the characters throughout.
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