My group’s thriller, challenges the conventions of a thriller. Youths are usually represented as yobs whilst older people are represented as the ‘good guys’. However our thriller does also reinforce gender stereotypes of the male and female. Our female Big Issue vendor is innocent, and the male is the predator. Our thriller shows the risky lives of Big Issue vendor’s throughout the UK, indicating the invisible lives they are living on a day to day basis. Our film was inspired by the novel, Stone Cold by Robert Swindells. The narrative switches between a boy called Link, a newly homeless teenager and Shelter, an ex army-officer who is slowly killing homeless teenagers. We wanted to show the extreme vulnerability of females whom are homeless. We wanted to highlight the fact that we are always being watched, and we may not always realise it.
The technology of CCTV really emphasises the fact that we cannot get away from the technological ‘eye’.
It is estimated that there are in excess of 4 million CCTV cameras in the UK, and you are likely to be caught on camera, at least 300 times a day. Voyeurism is a convention used in our thriller, which is a subject used widely in Alfred Hitchcock’s, Rear Window and Psycho. Although the homeless girl could be viewed as independent because she is taking the upper hand of selling the Big Issue to earn money so she can get further in life; she is very much still the femme-fatale character in our thriller but with a modern day twist.
We were inspired very much by the cinematography of Carol Reed’s, The Third Man. The low angle tilt shots of The Stalker standing in the door way, certainly suggests the iconic shot of Harry Lime in the doorway before he vanishes into the shadows. The low ambient lighting is a generic convention of thriller films, it reflects the treachery and nightmare of the villain. Not only did The Third Man influence the cinematography of our thriller it also influenced the costume and location ideas. Our costume for, The Stalker was very much based around the costume in The Third Man, it’s elegant and smart suites show sophistication which would not usually be used on the predator. The idea that you would never suspect a gentleman in a suit adds to how defenceless our homeless girl character is.
The glamorous settings of darkly lit streets embedded with history, reflect the wet streets of Vienna in The Third Man. We filmed our thriller in Norwich, around St. Andrews Hall (the red lines show where we filmed). At night it was very dimly lit which worked well the shots we used which also added another thriller convention to our film and a sense of realism to the mise-en-scene. We thought that it added a mysterious factor to our thriller, like in In Bruges by Martin McDonagh. The lighting style similarly reflects the criminal underbelly of Essex in Winsor’s gritty, British thriller, Essex Boys, as well as in Mochod’s, Animal Kingdom in which the stylised lighting reflects the underbelly of Melbourne. This convention emphasises the sordid lives of J’s grandmother and his criminal uncles. Also the noir lighting is reflecting in Thelma and Louise by Tarantino, where they murder Harlem in a dingy car park- the darkness connotes the abusive and dangerous nature of Harlem as he threatens Thelma and Louise.
Our soundtrack links to the mise-en-scene of the thriller by fitting in with the our jump cuts at the beginning of the film and the fear of being stalked. The soundtrack is very chilling and creepy with its sudden high pitched symbol like noises, which is very spine tingling and haunting. This links closely to the vulnerable homeless girl and how she would be feeling if you were to step into her shoes.
We struggled with what to name our thriller. We considered many ideas and took a while to research what would suit our thriller, as a whole. We started by looking in the thesaurus under words such as, Vulnerable, Stalked and Predator, but none of them felt catchy or stood out. We had to think of something that would draw people to our film if it was to go on a multiplex cinema or an independent cinema, as well as thinking of the audience we wanted to attract. We spent hours of sorting through the thesaurus looking at words that were linked to our thriller, but nothing seemed to catch on, and then finally we thought of, ‘Invisible Lives’. It links to the homeless being invisible to the eye of an outsider and the idea that people do not batter an eye lid to whom they are passing which makes some people, ‘invisible’. As well as linking to the homeless girl it links to The Stalker being ‘invisible’ because the homeless girl never notices him until he approaches her. The Stalker is never named in our thriller like in the thriller, Layer Cake, where Daniel Craig’s character in the credits is shown as, XXXX. The use of this creates a sort of ego for the male character and distances the character and the audience, creating a sense of mystery.
The use of thriller conventions in our film allows a balance of characters and makes the film universal, meaning that the audience can feel emotionally attached to the character of the homeless girl. In our thriller opening we want the audience to question and want to see more, will the girl survive? And why is the man stalking this girl? It is ultimately shown as men against women. The use of enigma helps to create tension.
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