We researched conventions from famous thrillers like The Usual Suspects to understand how to craft mystery and tension in our project. We used camera angles like tracking dead bodies and showing a blurred protagonist's face to keep the scene's focus mysterious. Mise-en-scene elements like a blurred body seen through a bottle incorporated character details while setting up a false villain. Minimal dialogue and tense music throughout increased the atmosphere of mystery without enlightening the audience.

1. Evaluation
We used the genre of thriller, to
understand the conventions we researched
famous thrillers including ‘The Usual
Suspects.’ This aided us in understanding
the certain conventions that we needed to
include in our project.

2. Camera Angles
• Our main issue was to ensure that we kept the focus of the
scene a mystery – much like the opening of Usual Suspects.
We started tracking dead bodies spread across the floor
and the ominous shadow moving around. This portrayed
the sense of mystery and tension. We then used an upward
facing shot, with the protagonists face blurred dropping the
‘Ace of Spades’ onto the dead body to highlight the sense
of mystery and gamble. Another shot used was the side
shot of the blurred face speaking to the young girl – This
again helped create the sense of mystery, much like The
Usual Suspects. The side shot of the bloodied face spitting
out blood highlighted the extensive injuries that he has
sustained, however as we do not see him being beaten up,
it doesn’t conform to action conventions.

3. Mise-en-scene.
• I think this was the most important part of our
piece. The moment when we see the blurred
body through the in focus glass and bottle
incorporates elements of the character with
what he has done. It paints an image of a
villain having beaten someone up and now
drinking whisky, however this was set up using
Propp’s theory of film creating a false villain.

4. Sound
• The element of sound through music created
a sense of tension, the music running
throughout the piece helped us to create an
exciting, tense atmosphere.
• We used minimal dialogue which means the
piece carried even more tension as there was
no enlightenment for the audience.