Evaluation - Question 1

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

Our media product that we have created uses the conventions from real media products. Conventions are elements that are common within different films of the same genre and patterns that can be seen in different films from the same category. Before attempting to create our media product we had to research into the conventions that our audience are expecting to see within the thriller sequence. From this we have found a plethora of things that are expected. Shock, suspense, tension and surprise are the main elements that make thriller films recognisable; these for elements are created by micro-elements. I have found that a knife is the most conventional weapon used within the thriller genre. It is conventional as it shows power to the person who is holding it which would create suspense. Following this, I have also found a male antagonist/killer and female protagonist/victim are common within the genre. Another convention is an isolated setting as no one is around to save the victim, or hear them scream. Which leads onto my next common feature of a thriller sequence and that is screaming. Enigma is another convention and this is commonly created by the use of a masked killer as it engages the audience. Also within a thriller we can expect to see a chase scene, fighting/struggling. Blood is also used frequently in thriller films as it has connotations of death/anger. An editing technique that is commonly used within thrillers is timing of shots as it builds up tension. These editing techniques can be recognised in most thrillers- for example in Halloween. A masked is used to conceal the identity of the killer; the camera is placed as if looking through the eye holes in the mask. Through this we see a female victim is killed, which is one of the conventions mentioned before. She is killed with a knife which is conventional murder weapon used.  Or in the very successful thriller scream, the killers are all masked to conceal their identity which creates suspense and they normally use a knife to kill victims.

After thoroughly analysing the conventions in successful thrillers, we incorporated many of these in our thriller sequence. As soon as our thriller starts at 0:03

we can see the use of an isolated setting. We showed this through the use of a panning shot, which pans across from a house to a forest surrounding it. Which shows there is no one around to help the victim who is introduced later in the film. This creates suspense and tension as the audience is made aware from the start that there is no one else around. At 0:47 another convention is seen, this is female victim. As soon as she is first seen straight away a high angled shot is used to show her vulnerability, which makes the audience fear for her life which creates suspense. At 1:11 we see our third convention which is a masked antagonist. This increases the sense of enigma in the sequence through the hidden identity of the killer. We are reminded continuously after 1:11 that the identity of the killer is hidden as we can see clearly the mask, while the killer is chasing the victim. At 1:55 we see our

final convention which is screaming, this shows the audience the victim is in danger, simultaneously to this we see the killer dragging the victim back which implies the fate of the victim to the audience.

Our thriller sequence defines the thriller genre and would be easily identified as a thriller due to our character representations and special micro elements we have included. We used editing to show our sequence is from the thriller genre, specifically by the use of a jump cut/reaction shot when there is a sudden focus on the killer turning around when he hears the girl escaping and the door slam. This would make the audience jump as tension would have been built up leading up to this. This would be commonly identified in the thriller genre as it keeps the audience engaged and in suspense. Also keeps the trying to guess what happens next. Furthermore, my group and I included sound, in-particular non-diegetic sound of screaming, as it shows the audience that the victim has been captured which creates more understanding for the audience. And it also makes the victim more relatable to the audience as she is showing her emotions of fear and being scared by screaming. It also helps to engage the audience and they would want to know why the victim is screaming, which creates tension as they don’t know if she has been killed or not. Along with the screaming sound we used cinematography, specifically an eye level angle to show the girl lying on the forest floor with the killer behind her. This creates suspense as it shows the killer to be more powerful than her and it also engages the audience with the scene as they will be able to see the whole situation and see all of the emotion displayed the victim. We also use panning to show one of our conventions which is an isolated setting. This is typical of the thriller genre as it shows the audience what is around the house and that there is no people around to help. This makes the sequence recognisable as a thriller because it creates tension because it shows nobody is around to help the victim.  Finally, we used MES to help with our character representations to make the sequence recognisable as a thriller. We wanted our victim to be portrayed as a stereotypical teenage girl, we achieved this by the costume and hair and make-up. She was wearing a white dress, the white represented her innocence and we chose a dress as this is what we would expect a girl of this age to enjoy wearing. Also she had some basic make up on which is common of teenage girls and we would expect them to be wearing makeup. Her hair was long and dark, however it was slightly messed up to show the struggle that would have occurred when she got captured. When the girl is in the killer house tied up and when she is escaping we have quite bright lighting to show that she feel exposed and that there is not many places to hide. Also throughout we use high angles and cowering body language to show her vulnerability and innocence. This will make the audience feel empathy towards her as she is clearly weak and vulnerable. We wanted our killer to be portrayed as dominating and over powering; these are common traits of killers is thrillers. He wore dark clothing and a mask, the dark clothing was to represent his dark/evilness and the mask is used to conceal his identity. Through he used bold body language and we used low angles to show this, which shows the audience his power as a character. These two character representations are common within thrillers as the dominant killer implies an unfair advantage to the vulnerable and weaker victim. 

My thriller compares to Halloween as the both include the similar conventions such as a female victim and male antagonist, who is masked. Also both use a house as a location as it is very relatable to the audience as it is a location everyone will recognise as its a realistic location. However, Halloween does not include a chase scene and the victim gets killed in the house, whereas there is a chase scene in my thriller sequence and the victim gets killed in the forest. I made sure that I imitated the generic conventions used in Halloween such as low key lighting, as it makes it look like a real thriller film. I noticed the success of Halloween I decided to use this to inspire my thriller sequence.