in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
TRANSCRIPT
1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE
CONVENTIONS OFREAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
INTRODUCTION
Through making our thriller opening the group and I have learnt
many of the conventions that thriller genre use and from this we
have been able to put these conventions into our final product. For
example, one of the ways in which we identified these conventions
is through analysing 3 different thriller openings. By doing this we
were able to find what the different thrillers had in common and
what they did differently. This gave us an insight into some of the
typical thriller conventions. We also looked into different sub-
genres of thrillers such as Spy thrillers (James Bond) and Political
thrillers (Argo) and by doing this we were also able to see many
variety’s of conventions used in thrillers. One of the final ways in
which we learnt about different thriller conventions is through
researching different thriller directors such as Alfred Hitchcock
and how these different directors went about creating their
thrillers and what they did differently.
SOUNDThrough research and my own knowledge I have realised how
important sound is in thrillers and how especially important it is
in horror/thrillers like our opening is based on and because of this
our group knew we had to decide on a perfect sound track for our
opening. This is because sound is a very effective way of building
tension and atmosphere which is key when it comes to horror
themed films. A perfect example of this is the soundtrack for the
movie Sinister (2012). https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiUmGy3ZzbI
The main soundtrack we used for our thriller was found through a
website called www.Freesound.org and shares similarities with
the soundtrack for Sinister in the hopes it would have the same
atmospheric and tension building effects. Towards the end of the
opening we also added sound effects such as a heart beating and
it slowly getting faster and faster. This is used quite frequently in
thriller films to reflects the emotions of some of the characters
and also to build up atmosphere up until the climax at the end of
the opening just like we used it for in our opening.
LIGHTING
Lighting is another key feature that is very important in thrillers.
Lighting is very useful for creating atmosphere in those tense moments
especially if the scene is dark as it make the film more tense with the
fear that something could jump out at any moment and you would never
see it coming. Low level lighting is very often used in thrillers/horrors to
make the viewer feel more vulnerable and threatened. In our film we
had the lights in the house go out as we felt this would be able to build
on the mysterious tone of the film and add more of a creepy atmosphere.
This also made our characters feel more vulnerable.
A very common shot used in horror films is when lighting is just bright
enough to make out a figure of a character but not any features to
identify them which can make this look very mysterious and can also
trick the viewer as they are unable to tell if the figure is a friend or foe.
An example of this shot being used is in the movie Paranormal activity 4
(see picture on the top right). We used this shot in our thriller when the
intruder in the house is first shown giving this character a mysterious
identity and leaving the viewer wondering who he actually is.
EDITINGWe decided to edit our opening in a
way that made it feel very fast paced
as most thrillers are very fast paced
so that it keeps the suspense at a high
level and is keeping the audience
entertained. Also the font we used for
the opening titles was called
‘ANARCHY’ and the design of the
fonts makes it look as if it has been
written in blood which fits perfectly
with the genre of our opening. We
also used a fade in and out for the
font which reflects the mystery of our
opening.
MISE EN SCENE
The location for our house was perfect for thriller and was available for us straight
away as it was the house of a friends. This house was perfect as it was located in a
very isolated area adding to the creepy atmosphere and making it feel like the
characters were all alone. Also located around this house was an abandoned fishing
hut, a lone bridge and a small woods which added to this atmosphere. The overall feel
from this area was very dark and mysterious which was perfect for our thriller.
Inspiration for choosing this location came from a film called ‘Cabin In the woods’
which had a very similar isolated setting. For the costumes of our 3 main
characters ,which are teenager males, we used very stereotypical clothing for
teenagers. We did this to show that these characters were just your average teenage
students and that nothing was unusual about them. For the murder we used very dark
clothing and a large hoodie to cover the characters face which was used to reflects this
characters dark nature. We purposely had our killer masked with no facial features to
be seen in the hope of creating a very mysterious and supernatural killer. This is used
a lot in horror movies for example the character Jason from the movie ‘Friday the 13th’
whose face is never shown.
In what ways does your media use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Evaluation Question 1 - In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms or convention
in what ways does your movie use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?