Enigma Evaluation

Answers
 In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
Our film uses the classic conventions of thrillers such as enigma and suspense with a great deal of obscurity
to create a sense of mystery. Film uses a story of a psychotic mind using his puzzles to enforce a girls
freedom. We took the forms and conventions of films such as a beautiful mind and the classic hybrid thriller of
saw to create the structure of a puzzle to establish someones freedom. The psychopath who is pitting her
against these puzzles has taken inspiration from the Riddler, a fictional character in the Batman comics who
shows this obsession of puzzles and riddles to pit himself against his protagonist intellectually rather than
physically which is exactly the type of antagonist that we wanted to create. This of course is altered so that
the character is darker and more sinister in the way he acts and the way hes talking the opening sequence.
His defining difference is that we chose for him to be more hidden behind the scenes rather than showing
himself as it gave a more realistic approach to the movie. We also took inspiration from the room for the
idea that there is someone secluded in a claustrophobic atmosphere giving this feeling of discomfort between
the protagonist and the audience.
We have developed the use of mystery in this thriller as it plays a huge part in the story. We wanted to use
this technique as a way of enticing the audience to watch more as we slowly unveil the whole story. This
follows on to what many thrillers usually do with some very famous films such as seven which doesnt
introduce its antagonist till more than halfway through the film where his motives and characteristics truly
show.
We have challenged what many believe to be the gender issue in movies. This is the idea that a protagonists
role is more stereotypically given to a man, with female protagonist being quite rare and most of the time
being made to be over sexualised. We challenged this stereotype with making a movie were the protagonist is
female and relies on her mental capabilities to get out of theses puzzles rather than her looks.
How does your media product represent
particular social groups?

In our thriller the social groups represented are of our approach to the girl antagonist Melanie. She
is played as a teenage girl who in the sense we wanted to approach as someone who develops
throughout the movie to transform from a damsel in distress into an intelligent woman who can
stand in the way of the puzzles put in front of her. We tried our best to go against the common
stereotype of a girl in a movie to be written and made in sexualised way which we felt was integral
to avoid as the camera tends to treat female protagonist as props rather than a person. Early
sketches for her from the storyboard to the mood boards shows her wear a mesh between a crop
top and a strait jacket look that we decided was to be too revealing for our protagonist to be
wearing. In the end we decided to take this seriously and decide that she doesnt need any of that
but rather to wear some normal clothing to set her out as a normal person being placed in a
horrifying situation.
Our antagonist, Enigma, represents the modern psychopaths in our world. However much
exaggerated he is, he has qualities that make him real. The idea that you dont know who this man
is and the fact that you dont necessarily see him gives the sense of that it can be anyone. His
misfit qualities also create the sense of danger since he doesnt stand out as being normal. We
paid a lot of attention in making him a shadow figure that prefers to be watching Melanie rather
than talking to her as we felt that for the person that he is, he doesnt need to talk, he doesnt
need to explain himself but rather present his riddles as to give him even more suspense as to who
he is. It also presents himself as being very calculating to every moment and every word.
 What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and why?
I think since it is an indie film I dont think there is any possibility
that a big distributor would take this project like Universal or
Paramount. This is most likely to be distributed by very small
distribution companies, or even be distributed online, we will try
to get this film to be picked up by a film festival such as
Sundance or the BFI London Film Festival. With that we can
stream it through YouTube and charge people for it and
eventually the film if it gains enough attention would catch the
interest of distribution companies to grant us more projects with
a higher budgets
Who would be the audience for your media
product? How did you attract/address your
audience?
The attracting audience for the film is aimed at anyone from their
late teens as we introduced a modernised world that follows a
protagonist who is also a teenager solving these puzzles. To
promote it even further, the film has those rare instances of
having a female protagonist which takes in effect when youre
challenging a stereotype which is a major effect on young women
who would like to see this change from the standard male lead to
a female one.
What have you learnt about technologies
from the process of constructing this
product?
During the progress of making this film I have learnt quite a lot, firstly the filming side of this
movie gave me the opportunity to operate the lighting equipment and of course use the
camera to film. The lighting at first was a difficult since placing them can have a great or
terrible effect on the film. Also knowing when you need them or not was a question as some
scenes in the movie, namely the flashback scene relied on some shots to be used without
any lights or any natural lights at all to create the sense of darkness. Over time my ability
with staging the lights were easier overtime with many of which were used to create nice
looking shots such as the shadowy figure of enigma or the abduction scenes included in the
flashbacks. Filming was not a problem as to where to place the shot, but to how to operate
the cameras in the first place. There were a lot of camera used to film, all with different
qualities that make them better to use than the others. Through practice I learnt how to
operate them via placing them in the apparatuses such as the tripod or a shoulder pod if I
wanted to get a steady shot whilst I was moving. Adjusting the lens to get a clearer shot,
using different camera techniques to create a better shot than we were intending all came
from filming our project.
Editing was something that was almost new to me, although I have had experiences in
editing a short film, I came to realised I only knew the very basic of it all. Using final cut pro I
learnt to not only to edit the film but how to cut a clip, merge it with another and play with
the audio to get the movie to what we intended it to be. However, problems arose with the
timing of all we had to do as everything we wanted to do took longer than expected.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what
do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
What I have learnt from transforming the preliminary task onto the screen is
that nothing is set in stone. Many ideas on the storyboards and mood boards
didnt translate as to how we wanted it to on screen. Things like the abduction
of Melanie was intended to be a scene we wished to create as an opening but
we instead made into a flash back as it made a better look to our film. Also
some scenes were added that were definitely not included in our story board
like the first confrontation with Enigma and Melanie in the white room was
added as it had a better approach of playing onto the next few scenes better
than what we were intending to do. With that in mind the only thing that stayed
the same was the script and some of the many scenes on our storyboard. Even
Melanie was changed when we transformed her from the storyboards to the
onscreen persona presented, firstly as we stated before the clothing that she
wears was changed as it felt too revealing. We wanted a more realistic
approach to this as possible and left it to what a normal girl would wear. Enigma
stayed the same throughout as there isnt much to change as he was intended
to be what he is in the opening, a shadow figure watching Melanie.