Evaluation Q1: in what ways does your media product use, developor challenge forms and conventionsof real media products?

Question1) in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product.

The task

The task we were given was to create a two minute thriller opening. At first, we were asked to participate in research work where we looked at different types of micro elements such as cinematography, Mes en scene as well as opening credits and  characters representations. This helped me to understand what type of conventions fit well for my  thriller ideas of creating my our own thriller. 

Once this was fully understood, we were put into a small group of three or four with people of different specialities to ensure that the group was equally balanced for a good production to take place  we all had to come up with an small narrative  to discuss what we narrative will be suitable for our group.

To help us develop our ideas, we had to create questionnaires to find out our target audiences response and this then gave us an idea by analysing the results so that we could get a clear idea of what the target audience wanted to see in their screen.

We planned in small groups to ensure the production went well, and the pre-production paper work enabled us to demonstrate that the production would run smoothly so that we are able to shot our thriller. 

                           Does my thriller follow conventions of a thriller?

Before filming our thriller I had to look at the other thrillers in order to create a conventional and successful thriller. This helped me to ensure that I was using and developing forms of real media products, the thriller genre.

My thriller follows typical conventions is similar to ‘Scream’ as we do not know who the antagonist is and within my thriller, we don’t reveal our antagonist. Therefore our thriller does follow this   convention as it is common for thrillers to play with the audiences mind so that they feel uncertain and worried about the antagonist.

The location is conventional as the area that we filmed our thriller was a deserted location. Our thriller was filmed at Forty Halls where hardly anyone goes as it is large and quote scary. This is conventional to thriller as most thriller locations are set in a place where no one tends to go and it’s an isolated place.

From my research I found that the location we used was conventional to thriller genre. Therefore, using this location shows that I have developed the used of an isolated location that creates fear amongst the audience.

The costumes will be conventional to other thrillers as the female victim will be wearing white and cream colours to match with the expectations we wanted the audience to have of her. For example, I found from my research of ‘Scream’ and ‘Prom Night’, both female victims wore a light coloured jumper to connote their innocence and purity.

Another way to show that I have used and developed the forms and conventions of real media products; I created a soundtrack to accompany my action. The sound connects with the content of a thriller because it sounds eerie and chilled to help build up tension in the scenes where the torture and kidnap happens.

I believe that the soundtrack is an important element in films as it creates emotions and responses from the audience and this was something I wanted to develop within my own work.

Some of my best uses of forms and conventions of a thriller:

My thriller Project slaughter follows the generic conventions of a thriller film by the use of the torture narrative as the torture scene creates emotions from the audience making them feel uncomfortable and feel sympathetic for the character being tortured. There is a horror of what they are watching which makes the audience feel uncomfortable and this is something that was developed from existing thriller narratives such as scream and prom night this helped me understand what i wanted my thriller to be like.

 The uses of low key lighting throughout my thriller also helped to indicate to the audience that it is a thriller. The dark and mysterious light creates suspense to the film and makes the audience feel on edge as thriller films should.  Again, this is something that I found was popular in thriller films so I also wanted to use it within my own work.

The cinematography we chose to use within our thriller is also conventional of thriller films such as the over the shoulder shot. These shots were used in order to empathise with the character when the unknown character appeared on the screen.