Creative Critical Reflection Question 1

This first few minutes of our film "Crazy For You" follows a lot of the classic conventions used by other films of a similar genre: thriller. Many films do this by making the audience anxious for what will happen next as certain scenes appear on the screen. A few films that include examples of this would be in the movie "The Nun" when Sister Irene walks down a dark hallway completely unaware of the nun that's watching her from behind. At this very very moment, a sense of dramatic irony is created due to the audience being aware of the nun's presence whilst Sister Irene has no idea she's there. This creates that feeling of anxiousness that makes the audience question what as to what the nun will do if anything at all. Then, in the next few seconds, Sister Irene turns around to speak to the person she sees in the dark when the nun then comes behind her and pins her against a wall. This furthers those feelings of worry and fear as the audience is scared for the safety of Sister Irene.

(Insert two screenshots)

Our film very closely resembles these two instances, but at two different times. The sense of dramatic irony is created as it's revealed to the audience that Chelsea has dark and murderous intentions with her boyfriend after a close up shows her mysterious friend slamming a knife on the desk before her date despite the boyfriend having no knowledge of what is going to happen to him. Soon after this, two eyeline matches show the couple in the car talking to each other. This is where the audience's worry and fear reach its peak as the girlfriend goes from a complete standstill, gazing into his, to a swift and emotionless stab to the face with the knife. The audio and video cut to out just before the knife makes contact with the boyfriend, leaving the audience to wonder if he survived, but... it's not likely.

(Insert two screenshots)

In terms of how our film challenges conventions, it really has only one instance. Now normally these kind of films always keep the audience on edge with music and camera angles to keep the suspense up. However, our film doesnt do that. Instead, it keeps changing back and forth straight from a light-hearted tone to dark and scary moment when something bad is shown on the screen, sometimes through parallel editing. We did this mainly because we want those few moments of pure fear to be the most effective, therefore, by instilling a false sense of comfort in the audience right before the scare is a sure-fire way to do this.