Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In connection with the thriller genre our media product uses many generic thriller signifiers, for example, the chiaroscuro lighting in the staircase and the speaking scenes behind Tanwyn, this was influenced by the strobe lighting in 'Essex boys' when driving through the tunnel our has the same effect but as the characters are not moving they lighting stays still but still symbolizes bars of a prison or a trap. The sleazy and dingy mise-en-scene in an urban car park whilst raining which shows the leaks and cracks in the setting, this was inspired by 'Ronin' with its dark and dingy surroundings and the unused grey warehouse. The main protagonist being male like most generic thrillers (Vertigo, The Third Man etc), however we added a twist of our own to challenge the convention of real media products and to throw the audience off guard, we had Tanwyn's character do an internal monologue like in 'Layer Cake' but usually the main protagonist does the monologue however this character gets killed at the beginning and is not our main protagonist. By choosing an Asian actor as our lead character we are challenging the conventions of real media products and are appealing to a wider audience. By doing our peer assessments of each others thrillers our group were told that our thriller contained lots of thriller signifiers so they are obviously evident in our product.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As with most thrillers ours is told from the point of view of the male protagonist. Using this narrative represents that in the world of crime; men are dominant especially since there are no women in the opening sequence.

The opening also glamorizes crime showing the criminals in plush suits and making the shots and narrative stylish gives the criminals and added flare. On top of this Lukman's character is really cool, calm, collected and extremely slick, showing this by the way he pulls the gun out and the manner in which he says nothing and has no qualms about killing the son of a big time gangster like Harvey Vanik. In contrast with this we have also managed to capture the unpredictability of the trade and the uncertain feelings that surround it as the audience do not know what character is the hero or the villain as there are no visible signs of good and evil, in so doing we keep the mystery and intrigue of the audience.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

If our film was to be made in full it would be distributed by a Multi-plex cinema as it is a main stream thriller following most of the conventions whilst also challenging them a little. However if all of the people involved in its making are not well known by the public and there are no famous actors that appear so not so many people would be enticed to come and view it unlike the way they would do if it was like 'Ronin' and had a full star cast. So in this respect our film would probably be exhibited in an art house cinema. Due to this point and the fact that our film is an independent British film with little funding it is more likely to be exhibited in an art house cinema.

Who would be the audience for you media product?

Due to the rude language and occasional violence our thriller film is likely to be certificated as a 15. Most thrillers also have a high age certificate, such as 15 or 18 age ratings, which means that the thriller genre usually appeals and targets an audience of 15 – 30 year olds, as shown in the results of my questionnaires. This film will also predominantly appeal to males due to the main protagonist being male (as is usual in classic thriller films e.g. “Vertigo” – Alfred Hitchcock, “Chinatown” – Roman Polanski, “Layer Cake” – Matthew Vaughn) and they will be able to relate better to the main character and sometimes aspire to be like him as in James Bond movies. On top of this during the film there are very few female characters and many of these are not very strong characters or are portrayed as weaker than men, although some are mysterious, dangerous, treacherous characters (femme fatale). This marginalised female character, also predominant in the thriller genre, will not appeal to the female audience due to them being viewed as weak, sometimes pathetic and dependent on the male protagonist.

There is a very wide choice of social classes, because the thriller genre incorporates many aspects of different genres however, classic thrillers, like ours would appeal to B’s and C1’s due to the fact that thrillers have complex plots that cause the audience to think. They also have ambiguous endings with flaw heroes as the main protagonists which cause the audience to think. Our target audience are therefore probably university educated, like teachers, lawyers, and managers. Also these social classes are the ones who are most likely to go to the cinema often as they can afford it. Our thriller is aimed predominantly at a British audience and a English speaking audience like ‘This is England’, due to the fact that it is performed in the English language and all of the filming takes place in England. Our film also has the advantage of appealing to an Asian target audience as the main male protagonist is Asian.

The audience we are trying to appeal to would like other typical thriller films and the mysteries involved, so they will also like detective programmes on the T.V. like ‘C.S.I.’ or ‘Waking the Dead’, due to the fact that many thrillers revolve around crime and investigations just like ‘Chinatown’ by Roman Polanski. The audience would also enjoy other thrillers like ‘Layer Cake’ by Matthew Vaughn, ‘The Departed’ by Martin Scorsese and ‘Ronin’ by John Frankenheimer, as these were the stem of our inspiration for our thriller and the story lines and very closely linked.

How did you attract/address you audience?

To attract our target audience we used popular thriller conventions that heighten the film's interest and appeal. We also included some swearing and violence that will make this film a 15 certificate, so the target audience will be able to relate to him and perhaps aspire to be like him. In addition to this the main character Lukman Hussin, is British Asian which will appeal to people of the same background as they will further relate to him.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Before this project I had only used a video camera once or twice and never for anything as sophisticated as this so I learnt quite a bit about to technology. The video camera was very simple to use all you had to do was set up the shot to how you wanted it to look and press record to video the action you have practised. However you had to make sure to switch off during shots as the battery only lasted about an hour. The camera was not of a very high quality and the focus often faded when the light changed due to movement, as it was automatic we could not control this. As it was a hand-held camera to obtain fluent steady shots we had to constantly use a tripod which was hard to move for a panning shot and the spindle was stiff so the shot became jerky, and it only extended to a limited height. On the other hand the tripod was an advantage as we managed to obtain some great steady shots with it and the legs could be made different lengths to stand on steps easily or to get a variety of shots.
The sound quality on the camera was not very good and it picked up so much noise that during editing we could not remove it, so on the video there is a continuous buzz/hiss during the speech due to the fact that we could not sort it out.

The other piece of technology we had to use was the editing software called Adobe Premier Elements 1.0, this was completely new to me so it was lucky we got to practise with it when editing our preliminary task, otherwise i would have been lost on how to use it, but once you got used to it and its limitations it was quite simple and easy to upload different content and effects to. Even so it has limited supplies of effects, and fonts this is why we had to download all of the ones we wanted off copyright free websites.

We were told in our peer assessment that the speech was quite hard to hear because at the top of the car park in the middle of a city picked up lots backgroud noise. After hearing this we turned down the music slightly and turned up the voice however there was no way with the technology we had to cut out the sound so by turning up the speech we also had to turn up the background noise. However by asking our peer assessors to re-see our thriller we ascertained that we had fixed the problem to the best of our abilities given the limitations in technology.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at the preliminary task and comparing it with our thriller opening it looks very simple and quite boring with no variety in the shots. So since the preliminary task I have definitely learnt a lot.

I have learnt that planning is a major part of film making and you cannot plough straight into filming with out detailed plans, even if you do later change them, like our Script, without planning that the things said would have been waffle, although some directors like Shane Meadows work without a script they still have an indication of where the dialogue should go. Shooting takes a lot longer than I expected as well, I knew that you have to film several takes and that not all the material you film goes into the end product but we were filming for 3-4 hours just to obtain about 40-50 minutes of material which we then turned into a 2 minute film opening, admittedly we did film some things that were nice but had no place in the film and sometimes we recorded a lot more of a shot than was needed, but then it is better to have too much than to have too little and go out and film it all again. With this theory we only had to film once and we had all the footage we needed. The preliminary task got our group familiar with the editing program which helped a lot as me and Tanwyn had never done editing before, whereas Tom had but had used a different program so we all needed that bit of extra practise.

I have always been quite good as working as part of a team because I work in a shop with a large workforce and so have to be part of the team, however the group that I was placed in for this task was completely new to me; Tom and Tanwyn knew each other from high school but i had to get to know them before we could start working constructively within the group. So we had several initial planning sessions and got to know each other when we started planning. Once we had the main idea of what we wanted from the film we all picked tasks we had to do with regards to planning, and once complete we had decided that once we found and agreed on the location that Tanwyn could be an actor as he has aspirations to be one when he is older and we also wanted to keep the participants to a minimum so that there was no interference and we did not have to rely on many people but ourselves. Basically we shared the workload evenly.

The audience feedback was really useful from this we found problems that we had not foreseen for example the dialogue was not very easy to hear due to all the noise but by dimming the music and turning the volume up on the speech we soon made amends. I was expecting the feedback to be average as I thought because I had watched the film during editing over and over again that it did not have a hook, but once we had received feedback it was better than expected and it turned out I was wrong and our thriller did have a hook. The audience enjoyed it and they understood what we were trying to achieve and were able to read and follow the narrative of our film well.

Our thriller has followed the conventions of a thriller well but has challenged them also which is brilliant as having a straight forward normal thriller was not what we wanted. Overall I think our project is pretty good but if I could go back and change things I would try and correct the sound as the noise on the dialogue is annoying and noticeable also having some better, more dramatic lighting would be good so we would not have to rely on natural light or the lights in the car park.

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All in all I am very happy with what we have achieved and I really enjoyed making it with my group, and for a first attempt at a stylish thriller I think we have produced an extremely good opening.

Chris Cunningham

After researching Warp Films and finding out all about Chris Cunningham's work i have come to the conclusion that he is a bit of a creative genius. his work albeit very disturbing and viewed by many people as disgusting has really appealed to me as I am thoroughly intrigued by the gothic, hideousy that is found in nearly all of Chris Cunningham's work, also i am really intrigued by all the cultural, social and political issues he manages to pack into every single piece of work he does. I love it!





Take this music video he made for Aphex twin called 'Come to Daddy' is one of my favorite pieces of his work, due to the gothic images that are really original and the hidden messages and stereotypes, like the old lady having a pit bull which is not the usual species of dog that an old lady would have; smashing the stereotypes of the elderly and of the 'hard man' dog that have a tendancy to be quite brutal. On top of this the little children are shown as out of control thugs just like the popular phrase 'I blame the kids' suggests. However the images of a middle aged creepy man's face suggest that blaming tennagers or children is not always correct and often that the blame should be put on the older generations. in addition to this the faces that are all the same but with different bodies gives the video and especially freaky feeling which Chris Cunningham was aiming for.

I found this one paragraph about the 'Come to Daddy video that captures its essence and meaning perfectly (http://www.director-file.com/cunningham/aphex1.html):

'Its nature as a Richard D. James piss-take aside, Chris Cunningham's "Come to Daddy" is, as it was ten years ago, the story of technology and how we are becoming it. In the video, the faces of Aphex Twin chuckle at us with the same soullessness that occupies the man in the television. When he is borne of that television, we discover him to be a product of his environment: a vaporless void, a mere reflection. He has no soul, and he wants ours. And he is asking us to gather 'round and worship him.'


Come to Daddy was named the 3rd best video of all time in a January 2005 by a poll by The Guradian. As of 2003, the Warp releases of Come to Daddy and Windowlicker together sold 90,000 copies. This immense popularity may have been an aftermath of the controversy it caused; it was banned from showing on any music channels on television till past the watershed and was marked by many people as being grotesque ans should be banned totally, this and also the fact that this video is just very good!

Warp Films

Information gained from: http://www.warpfilms.com/#page=AboutPage

G322 B Institutions and Audiences Case Study on “This is England” and Warp Films

Warp Films has created some of the most exciting pieces of British film making in the last five years. It has won numerous plaudits and awards (including three BAFTA’s) since being set up in 2002.

'My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117' was Warp’s first short film and was directed by Chris Morris. It won the BAFTA in 2003 and for its television premiere on Channel 4, more than one million viewers tuned in to watch it. Warp sold an astounding 22,000 DVDs of My Wrongs and was the first DVD single in the UK market.

Warp's debut feature 'Dead Man's Shoes', directed by Shane Meadows, received a record eight British Independent Film Award nominations, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Achievement in Production. ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’ was also nominated for a BAFTA and won the Southbank Award for Best Film. The film has received nothing less than rave reviews across the board, and is being hailed by some as a landmark in British cinema.

Chris Cunningham directed Warp's next film, Rubber Johnny, –an experimental short and 42-page book that shocked and amazed audiences.

Following Rubber Johnny Warp made the critical success 'Grow Your Own', a film written by Frank Cottrell Boyce (24-Hour Party People), which tackled the subject of immigration.

In 2006 Warp made their most successful production to date: 'This is England', the story of Shaun, a boy who is befriended by a local skin-head gang after his father is killed in the Falklands war. With its evocative soundtrack, dazzling young star and emotive content it has won numerous international festival awards as well as scooping Best Film at the British Independent Film Awards and Best British Film at the BAFTA’s. At the same award ceremony Warp collected its third BAFTA as Paddy Considine's directorial debut 'Dog Altogether' won best short.

Warp Films has also worked closely with the Arctic Monkeys, producing two music videos for them and collaborating on the short film 'Scummy Man' starring Stephen Graham, which won best music video at this year's NME awards. Richard Ayoade has recently directed a feature length live show film with of them. Shot at their final concert of a world tour.

Warp Films' development slate currently includes projects with directors Shane Meadows, Chris Morris, Chris Cunningham, Richard Ayoade, David Slade and Lynne Ramsay. They are also dedicated to seeking out new voices; this goal is reflected in their recent ventures into promo making and the new digital slate, Warp X.

Warp Films Include:

Production Company

1. Four Lions - (2009)
2. Arctic Monkeys at the Apollo - (2008)
3. Crack Willow - (2008)
4. “Fur TV” - (2008)
5. Exhibit A - (2007)
6. Dog Altogether - (2007)
7. Grow Your Own - (2007)
8. Dog’s Mercury - (2006)
9. This is England - (2006)
10. Scummy Man - (2006)
11. Rubber Johnny - (2005)
12. Dead Man’s Shoes - (2004)
13. My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117 - (2002)

Distributor – Filmography

1. Arctic Monkeys at the Apollo - (2008)
2. Cinema16: American Short Films – (2006)
3. Rubber Johnny – (2005)
4. My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117 – (2002)
Warp films also funded ‘The Englishman’ in 2007, and supported ‘The Work of Director Chris Cunningham.

Warp Films purpose in the British Film Industry





Warp Films is very small company focusing on producing new innovative, controversial features that involve new talent from the film and music industry. ‘Scummy Man’ (both parts shown above) is a perfect example of this as it is a short film inspired by the Arctic Monkeys song ‘When the Sun Goes Down’ and stars the relatively unknown actors Lauren Socha and Stephen Graham. This controversial short film involves prostitutes, differing accounts of rape, violence, drugs and the things that go on in today’s society that none of us like to think of. The short production would be extremely dire without the added notion of faith left in human nature and a Jock the taxi driver that tries to help Nina (Lauren Socha) out with money and food. In short Warp films is here to support British films that are trying to make a political or social statement of some sort, these types of quirky films appeal to wide British audience, whilst integrating and developing existing talent, on top of discovering new, interesting, intriguing talent.
These films appeal to a wide British Audience as they tackle the problems in our society and politics at the time; also it is always nice to see the young acting and filmmaking talent that comes from our country. In addition to this they are all filmed in this country in so doing making the viewers recognise the culture and relate to the characters of the story making the watchers feel stronger emotions towards the characters as they will understand the images and ideology being shown to them.

Chris Cunningham and Warp Films

Biography
Chris Cunningham - one of the most influential filmmakers of the last decade - has been at the forefront of innovation and an inspiration for technological boundary-breaking world wide.
Cunningham first forged his relationship with Warp Records in 1995 with his debut promo Second Bad Vibel for Autechre, and since has directed a score of mind-bending videos for the likes of Squarepusher, Bjork, Madonna, Portishead and most memorably, Aphex Twin.

The creepily hilarious Come to Daddy (1997) and bootilicious Windowlicker (1999) Aphex videos have both been showered with accolades, but deemed too darkside for daytime MTV. However, his delicate hand on Bjork's All is Full of Love (1999) sensual, milky robot promo won him the best breakthrough video MTV award and a Grammy nomination, as well as 4 silvers and the first ever Gold Award for a music video at the Design And Art Direction Awards.

Cunningham's film making successes followed on from an accomplished career in feature films. He learnt his craft as an FX sculptor, designer and engineer on numerous feature films, which included working for David Fincher, Clive Barker and Stanley Kubrick.

In 2000, Cunningham created a video art installation flex for the Royal Academy of Art's Apocalypse exhibition. His next two short films with Warp Films, Rubber Johnny and Spectral Musicians are scheduled for release on DVD in 2005.With much anticipation from his legion of fans, Cunningham is finally turning his attention to feature films and is currently developing a feature length script with Warp Films.

Africa Shox

The music video created by Chris Cunningham for Leftfield feat. Africa Bambaataa is exemplary of his work due to the unusual content and the hidden agendas. The themes of this video are quite similar to that of ‘This is England’ produced by Warp Films, for both have stereotypes; the skin heads in ‘This is England’ and the emaciated figure of the African man and the urban ‘gangsters’ break dancing in ‘Africa Shox’. Also the idea of being lost is recurrent in both videos, however in ‘This is England’ the little boy is put back on his feet again by the Skinheads and is adopted into their family, whereas in ‘Africa Shox’ the African man is put back on his feet again when he fell smashing his only remaining hand, but no one helps him find his way home or helps him; everyone just stares. ‘This is England’ goes against the typical thoughts about Skinheads being stupid, violent, thugs and adapts them into a loving family just looking out for one another and their country. On the other hand ‘Africa Shox’ depicts the entire city as being out for itself and unconcerned about others only themselves.

To find the video 'Africa Shox' go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvxbFWY2Hsc

Storyboards for our Thriller

These were the very first drafts of the storyboards, we never made any very neat ones because we filmed using these and it was no longer important to the task as we had finished filming.

Thriller Script

INT. CAR PARK STAIRS - NIGHT

JOHN: These days you see too many people complaining about their situation. The way I see it everyone has their chance. Too many people just don’t see it. Now I’ve got my chance. Start when you’re young, and when life moves on, you’ll have no reason to complain.

INT. CAR PARK - NIGHT

JOHN: Smith is it? (SMITH nods slightly) Thought so. (Silence) Well? (Silence) Ok. (Laughs) I’ve brought your stuff, well your bosses stuff. (SMITH Looks away) Hey, you listening to me. Do you speak English mate. You fucking idiot. What’s the matter, are you pissed off cause I’m a bit late. You do know who I am don’t you? (Silence)I’m John Vanik, you know, the son of fucking Harvey Vanik. I’m sure he sounds familiar (SMITH looks up) Yeah that’s right, you know who he is don’t you, one of the most powerful men in this business. You didn't think he’d send his own son to do shitty jobs like this did you? No they normally send little pricks like you to do this kind of shit. As you can see though, I’m still pretty young, this is just practice really, I’m just building my way up, you know. It’s not easy being the boss’s son; no one dares to mess with me though; but at the same time have a lot to live up to. But hey, I’m sure I’ll do fine; one day I’ll be taking my fathers place. Are you not interested in what I’m saying? Look, I could have you fucking killed; dickhead! I’m talking to you; you’re not very polite are you. You’d be better off showing someone like me a bit of respect. (Silence) Fine, fuck you. You’ll regret this. (JOHN throws the briefcase at SMITHS feet then turns around)

SMITH: The money has been wired into your account. (JOHN turns to face him)

JOHN: What?! I know the money’s been wired into our account. That’s beside the point. Why bother opening your mouth now? (Laughing) You’re a cheeky bastard you are.

SMITH: Sorry.

JOHN: It’s a bit late for an apology mate. I’ll have to seen about you. You’d better watch it. (Turns and begins to walk away)

SMITH: (Smirking, he puts his right hand into his pocket and slowly pulls out a pistol, it hangs by his side for a few seconds and then he carefully aims it at JOHN who continues to walk, unaware of the danger he is in. SMITH smiles. Blackout. Bang!)

The Original Script (above) was too long, so that we could not fit it all into the space of 2 minutes. Also we decided that our thriller opening should not be long winded and over loaded with information. Here is the revised script that we used after editing it thoroughly:

INT. CAR PARK STAIRS - NIGHT - INTERNAL MONOLOGUE
JOHN: These days you see too many people complaining about their situation. The way I see it everyone has their chance. Too many people just don’t see it. Now I’ve got my chance. Start when you’re young, and when life moves on, you’ll have no reason to complain.

INT. CAR PARK - NIGHT

JOHN: Smith is it? (SMITH nods slightly) Thought so. (Silence) Well? (Silence) Ok. (Laughs) I’ve brought your stuff, well your boss's stuff. (SMITH Looks away) Hey, you listening to me. Do you speak English mate. You fucking idiot. What’s the matter, are you pissed off cause I’m a bit late. You do know who I am don’t you? (Silence)I’m John Vanik, you know, the son of fucking Harvey Vanik. I’m sure he sounds familiar (SMITH looks up) Yeah that’s right, you know who he is don’t you, one of the most powerful men in this business. You didn’t think he’d send his own son to do shity jobs like this did you? No they normally send little pricks like you to do this kind of shit. Are you not interested in what I’m saying? Look, I could have you fucking killed; dickhead! You’d be better off showing someone like me a bit of respect. (Silence) Fine, fuck you. You’ll regret this. (JOHN throws the briefcase at SMITHS feet then turns around)

SMITH: (Puts his right hand into his pocket and slowly pulls out a pistol, it hangs by his side for a few seconds and then he carefully aims it at JOHN who continues to walk, unaware of the danger he is in. SMITH smiles. Blackout. Bang!)

Update: During editing some pieces of the script have been cut out to deal with the issue of time and also to prevent the conversation from becoming to tedious. On top of this we wanted Tanwyn's character to seem cocky, but whilst the script was quite long he just seemed nervous and rambling.

Skins - Cassie Extract

We watched a short extract from the T.V. drama Skins; it was an episode of Cassie coming home from a mad party in which spaghetti got plastered everywhere, to find her parents with their hands down each others trousers. This was the first piece of Skins I have ever seen and from this one extract I can tell that series is definitely appealing to a teenage audience due to the wild parties, sex and drugs. Although the series deals with issues that affect teenagers today, it extremely stereotypes its characters and makes teens out to all be pill popping, alcoholic, sex addicts; it is this construction of teenage life that gives young adults the name it has got today (‘I blame the kids!’), and due to its huge audience popularity it may also influence them to start doing the things that they see on the programme. On the other hand it may open their eyes to the stupid things that they see and the production team may just wish to let the audience escape their boring and monotonous lives, and of course the programme would not be half as interesting if all they showed were teenagers watching T.V, doing homework and occasionally going to a party.

Cassie is angelic, pale, blonde, with a soft cute voice and wearing a gold dress, signifying her innocence although the dress is not pure white like her mother and fathers clothing which reflects their childlike behaviour and in conjunction with the VW12 ‘hippy’ van outside their nice house and the naked pictures of her mother painted by her father all over the house – even in the baby’s room – all these combine to show the rebellion of Cassie’s parents during their mid life crisis. This stereotypical view of rebelling parents is torn between them trying to be good parents but failing miserably by trying to communicate to Cassie with cute pet names like ‘kiddums’ and asking her questions to do with her anorexia seeming concerned even though they change the subject very quickly as their minds are only on sex.

In an attempt to escape the disgust and embarrassment of her parents Cassie has developed anorexia so at least there is one thing in her life she can be in control of, and to block out the incessant noise coming from her parents room into her little brother’s where she is sitting she takes drugs. So beneath all the stereotypical views of teenagers there is a serious matter arising from all the points made, that it is the parents fault, what their children do and teenage behaviour is all a consequence to their family life.

Although I did not particularly enjoy ‘skins’ because of its stereotypical view on teenagers (which many teenagers do not seem to notice or care) and the majority of the cast not being able to act, I did think it utilised music to its full extent using non-diegetic on the bus when the child is offering her a biscuit in an enchanted manner to evoke the audience’s pity and love, and at the same time it uses diegetic sound of the mobile above the baby’s bed to create the sense of realism so needed in a soap.

Overall ‘skins’ is good at tackling the controversial issues facing teenagers, however it lapses into unrealistic phases in which the stereotypes of out of control teens and uninterested parents take over the show.

Analysis of thriller posters

This poster is from a much earlier classic thriller 'Vertigo' directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1958) starring James Stewart and Kim Nova.

Film posters often give an indication of what the film is about or it's themes for example the striking red background connotes danger of some sort and is also related to blood and anger, this is shown in the film when two of the characters (first a cop and second Judy) fall off the top of buildings plummeting to their death.

The font on the poster is solid black to grab the attention of the audience because it stands out wildly amidst the red. Also it is in Hitchcock font which looks quite nervous and unstable due to the slanting on the m, the unsymmetrical letters and the short final stroke on the 'R' in Vertigo suggesting panic or confusion. The writing is all placed on the left side of the page, as if they are trying to get out of the way the people are leaning towards, also it unbalances the poster which will unsettle the audience just as the the film will catch them on the edge of their seats.

The white spiral signifies the twists and turns in the plot that lead the audience round and round in circles (like all Hitchcock's work this can become a little confusing and you have to watch the film from the beginning paying full attention). Due to the white spiral on the red background the spiral becomes an optical illusion implying movement and action. The white of the spiral conflicts with the black of the people and the black of the font showing the opposites and the contrast in character perhaps between 'Midge' and 'Madeleine' or hinting at the difference between 'Madeleine' and 'Judy'.

The two profiles spiralling into the eye of the vortex obviously represent 'Scottie' and 'Madeleine/Judy' as they get dragged along in the current of the plot and so the audience as with the poster are drawn into the spiral/plot to bear witness to the plot actions. The womans profile is outlined as if she is a murdered body been drawn around by the police which reflects how 'Judy' is sort of murdered to cover up for the fake murder of 'Madeleine'. She is also see through suggesting that her persona is fake, however it does also suggest that the character is very easily read, this is contrary to what i thought, i believed that she was quite difficult to understand and i did not see the double cross coming so this may be a perposeful mislead by Saul Bass (the creator of the poster) and Hitchcock, to throw the audience off guard. As a result of this, the effect is that she is shown by her deception in the poster to be the femme fatale of the film (thrille signifier).

The male figure in the middle of the poster is solid black and opaque, being bold shows that he is the main protagonist and the story is told from his point of view. This effect works well with the fact that he is on top of the female figure to show he is trying to protect/shield her whilst following her into the abyss of the spiral.

This poster is great as it hints at the plot/story of ths film but still keeps most things back and decieves the audience as the film itself does.