Evaluation: Question 1

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

In the thriller film genre, we used many of the typical film opening conventions used in real media. These include low lightening, fast paced action setting a plot already, a protagonist and an antagonist and a mood of tense, suspense and drama.  We watched thriller film openings to see if ours fulfilled them in the same way that real films did.

The clips usually start with bright, normal settings of ordinary people. As the plot develops, lighting darkens, setting a creepy, tense scene as the plot unties.

We found that the idea of a  point of view shot when being in the position of attack was quite common. The dramatic fast paced music takes a general pattern of all thriller openings: slow to fast paced to build up tension. The camera angles are differ from a range of types however are generally consistent (i.e medium shot to over the shoulder, to ground level shot and repeat.) The point of view shot when in the 'danger' position is common: I continued use of this because it is good to  keep the audience in the victim's point of perception as they are in the fearful and empathetic position.


Differently to typical thriller films, the protagonist is usually a male who looks dominant, scary and controllative. In ours both roles of protagonist and antagonist are females. The antagonist is not uncommon to be female but can be rare for the thriller genre. Women are quite often the damsel in distress needing saving by the men. The man is often in a position of attack form another man and this is where the violence usually happens. Our film challenged typical gender roles: a burglar being male would have been much more expected. Although the antagonist is portrayed as innocent and vulnerable, as we found occurs in real media films, the protagonist is not a very feministic character as they will wear black and be patronising- so in a way, the protagonist main character is quite masculine like in real media.

The setting is in an ordinary middle-class house. This was important to us; the setting had to look like a natural house that a burglar would enter, so that the audience know they are a 'normal' burglar and not a bank robber or particluarly ambitious. This is quite common in real media: for dramas, it has to look realistic, and the most realistic places you can get is a normal house where normal people live. This was beneficial as it is already set out as we want. Looking at other thriller films, we found similarly locations are set when unordinary things happen to ordinary people, and hence have ordinary settings to portray and emphasise their ordinariness. 

A typical setting of our film opening

A setting showing a house owned by a normal character from 'Girls against boys', a thriller. 

Typography

Our Font is thin and discrete. It is consistent in this: the font is very minimal and basic. I did not want specially attention-grabbing font or anything that gives anything away too much: the film opening is based around a mysterious character slowly unveiling the plot, so a modest and scarce font fits nicely with the theme. In my research of other thrillers, I have found that some follow the same idea of basic black and white colour schemes, although ensure the entire attention is on that particular credit by having it on a plain black screen and not tied into play with the film. However, the majority of thrillers use bold, outstanding writing focused entirely on the credit. This is because thrillers are often action-packed, high budget films and so big and bold fits the theme. This is not the case with mine as it is subtle and plays in with the film whereas real life ones generally do not, so you could say it challenges real life media.

A real media thriller typography example.

A real thriller/action film typography example.

Example of font from my film opening

Costumes

In my film, the outfits were planned to fit the two characters in advanced. The main character who I played, the burglar, was dressed entirely in black and wore a distinctive mask. The mask is often used in real life media when characters do not want to be identified or are the bad guy.

In 'The Strangers,' the protagonists are wearing masks as seen below. This gives them an element of mystery. I wanted to create this in my film opening and so wore clothing that would not give much away about myself like in this real media example, and likewise: a mask to make myself completely unusual and standing out.

From researching other thriller genres, the female victims are always made to be obviously innocent and defenceless: this example shows the girl in white which connotes purity. We recreated this in Rhiannon's outfit the best we could.

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We introduced her character in bed sleeping to emphasise a defenceless young girl. The juxtaposition of an all black, mysterious character and a white, innocent girl creates a tension of evil vs innocent, which entices the audience what will happen when the two come across each other. 

'The Strangers', a real media thriller.

Character introduction

In my film opening, my character is introduced as walking in a house through the back way which immediately flags up the idea that they are not supposed to be there and planting the idea that they are a burglar in the audience's mind.This is confirmed shortly when the film progresses in action: it advances a fast pace. Thriller film openings often do not reveal the entire plot but introduce key themes very quickly but try to keep the plot still subtle to be revealed later on. My film opening 'hooks' the audience interests as the entire plot is not obvious: the audience does not know the character, only what they do. Hints at the plot are heavily suggested that keep themes include this character being a burglar/murderer but their motif is unclear. This is slightly different to most real media as the plot as a whole is quite often obvious when the characters are introduced in depth and key details are revealed.