Coursework- Evaluation Stage 1

Conventions and Representation:

1) . How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

 = Taken from Se7en and The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, the end shows the victim's pov of the killer, pointing a handgun to his/her face. The killer then shoots, we see half a second of the muzzle's flash, hearing the sirens and the gun shot when the scene blacks out. It builds suspense and fear for the audience watching. Since the sub-genre is a crime thriller, the intro shows both the protagonists and the antagonist. Mise-en-scene in this scene includes, the doctor's mask hiding his identity, the bloody lab coat and the white room. The white room is important because it portrays how doctors are suppose to be. The color white represents a feeling of calm, safe and purity. However this is a contrast to the doctor, who although wears white, his actions/emotions are evil and sinister.

= The shots in the film, leads us to believe that the 2 detectives is closing in on the mad doctor who's about to kill the victim. Like shown below, there is a conventional parallel editing between the scenes that leads the audience to believe that the doctor is in the house the detectives are raiding when in fact they are not. We manipulate the continuity of the shots. The location we filmed was a town house that was converted into medical use by the school. The audience would see it as a regular medical bay, but when they see the killer inside they know something is wrong. The location is typical for a thriller, as evidenced by Silence Of The Lambs, Se7en and Speed.

Continued from last shot, this shot shows the killer.

And this one shows the two detectives.

Below, are more examples from the film's intro, showing the conventions used. It could be argued that since the detectives are angels coming to save the victim, since they are wearing white that symbolizes peace, safeness and security. In addition the doctor can be thought up as a fallen angel, since he is wearing white but is doing evil.

Part Two of Stage 1: Representing Social Groups and Issues:

The film opening focuses on the Killer, who is represented as being intellegence and always a step ahead of the game. He is portrayed as the "Sophisticated" killer type such as Hannibal Lecter and not common serial killers such as Leather Face. It is sophisticated because the position the Killer is in. The killer is could be on-top of the social groups for serial killers because of his profession, which is a doctor. Since he is rich,educated,smart and complex the killer could think that he is better than normal human beings. The profession of the killer also portrays this, as a doctor the main goal is to help people, but for the killer, it's to murder people. When people hear the word "Doctor" they think of a trust worthy person, who is smart and positive. In contrast, the killer doctor is actually evil and sinister, breaking the trust of that person.

This character is based on the fictional character called "Hannibal Lecter" and a real life murderer called Harold Shipman. Hannibal Lecter is a fictional murderer who's profession is a psychiatrist. His victims were mostly his patients who he was trusted to treat. This is similar to the killer in my movie, where he kills his victims. A more similar person would be Harold Shipman. Unlike Lecter, Shipman is an actual doctor (A general practitioner) who murdered more than 250 people. These people are like the killer in my film because they have a profession where lives of people are trusted in their hands along with being smart, and always one step ahead.

The killer in my film is described as "Sophisticated" because he comes up with the plan to blow up the detectives, along with having a set procedures such as putting on gloves and having a doctor's coat on. He is described as smart because he is always one step ahead, evidenced by the intro where he tricks the detectives to raid the wrong house where they will be killed. His use of technology also describes him as a smart person, being able to use CCTV cameras and rig explosives. He is clearly shown to be a doctor because the use of mis-en-scene, such as doctor's coat, gloves and a face mask.

Comparison between Lecter and the killer doctor: