Evaluation Question 1

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions used in real media products?

In our film opening, we incorporated a few different generic conventions of the thriller genre. For example, we decided to add an enigma immediately to grip the audience’s attention. This is shown in other thriller, such as Ratter, as it is a mystery to the audience, which is a convention. We also displayed the antagonist in our opening quite early on to allow the audience to think about the narrative. Another convention used was the use of music within the opening. The piece of non diegetic sound helps to specify the thriller genre as it builds the tension throughout the clips of victims. The music is quite fast paced which also is a convention of the thriller genre.

Also in our opening, we also made sure our titles were correct and suitable for the generic convention of a thriller. This is because we made sure they were plain and white, which is shown in films like Gone girl and Fast and Furious. Meaning we don’t draw any attention away from the opening and therefore the audience don’t miss anything, but their names are still credited. The titles are placed in the rule of thirds, meaning we didn’t place any in the centre third, apart from the main star in the film. This follows the conventions of the thriller genre.

Through cinematography, 2 of our victim clips were shown to be hand-held. We decided to use this method of filming, as it shows clearly the victims do not know they are being filmed. Which is also influenced by Ratter. The hand-held movement could also show the audience that they are not purposely filming themselves, and the angles also suggest this.

However, our film challenges conventions of thriller films as it shows there are many different characters and isn’t clear there is one main person featured. This isn’t normally the case as thriller film openings are normally focused on one or two protagonists and one antagonist, such as the film Split.