1) How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
The sequence starts off with long shot where there is a silhouette of a lady sitting on a chair in the centre of the frame facing the camera. By having the woman sit in the middle will help the audience be aware that she is important and that the film is going to be based on this character. There is very dark lighting and is set in a small room, similar to other thriller films that we have researched about. Since the aim of our opening is to slowly build tension by revealing information of the main character bit by bit, we know that by having the face of the woman hidden in darkness at the start, a sense of mysteriousness will be created. This allows the audience to briefly capture that this is a thriller film straight away from the codes and conventions.
This shot shows a drawing of a lady with abnormally large eyes; It presents society's perception of beauty (especially in Asia) which generally displays beautiful women as having overly huge eyes. A sharp line cuts through the middle of the drawing's pupil as if it is splitting it apart, which indicates violence. Following the theory of shapes that we have previously studied, circles represents goodness therefore by placing a line there it suggests an idea that darkness is approaching.
In order to emphasize that this is a thriller film, we color corrected the film to make it dark to give a creepy effect. We thought that this panning shot would suit best to put our title as it shows the entire collage on the wall, therefore would be more effective and powerful.
The audience is hinted that the character is obsessed with trying to look like women in magazines from numerous of collage that she assembled together on the wall. Most of her work shows peculiar faces she put together by adding features of different people together. The creation also shows a pattern of pictures of only skinny ladies with flawless skin. This implies that the main character is driven to achieve that "perfection" (that is realistically impossible to achieve) and is hung up on the belief constructed by the media.
Low angle allows the figure of the woman to be slightly distorted and also hides her face (like how she is hiding her secrets), reinforcing the idea of the character being secretive. From a quick glance, the distortion almost presents a ghostly figure. This angle is from under the desk where darkness takes up most of the frame, giving a sense of danger approaching. The seemingly calm and slow movement of her arm as she is drawing gives a false sense of security.
The pace of her movement suddenly shifts in this particular frame in contrast to the previous shots in order to symbolize the character emotional instability. The loud diegetic sound of pencil onto paper and fast straight strokes connotes a sense of frustration. In this case, the character is exasperated because of the difficulty of not being able to look young and beautiful again.
This ending shot reveals most about the character's intentions. The aim of this shot is to leave the audience shocked and wanting to know more. This dramatic effect is supported by the use of music, ending with a peak of a note and absolute darkness, symbolizing that more would be revealed throughout the rest of the film.
