Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your Media Product use, Develop or Challenge forms and Conventions of real Media Products?

 

  

Our media product has used and developed conventions from a typical Thriller film. These conventions were dark lighting and dark theme, stereotypes of character and setting, shadows and creating enigma. We decided to develop and change our film from being a typical thriller film. For instance we didn't have a dark character in the beginning we had a normal girly teenager. Our film is very mysterious and you cant tell from the beginning that its necessarily going to be a Thriller. I think our film does indicate that other thrillers influence our work such as films like 'Gone' where he sister goes missing.

The title of our media product is 'Alone'. The title explains what the main character would be feeling for most of the film if we were to continue it and it suggest danger on the black background which suggests mystery and darkness. The white writing over the black is simple as we didn't want to distract the attention from the story. The special effects that were used for the title were making the torch in the background flash whilst making the title flash with it.

The setting and location was very important for our media product because we had to portray a normal teenage girl. We decided to use Ben's house because we felt that it fitted in with the genre of our film (thriller). The main characters bedroom was vital as this was the very first shot that the audience would see so we had to make sure every aspect of the bedroom was perfect.

 

As the camera pans around the room, the viewers are shown typical teenage girl props such as the dream catcher, pink curtains and normal girly ornaments which are important for the mise en scene. The rest of the house such as the lounge, kitchen, hallway and stairs also had to look as normal as possible with typical house possessions such as everyday items. Ben's house was perfect for what we needed for the opening of our film because he had

a boys bedroom. Lighting is a key aspect for thriller movies so we had to think a lot about what time of day we shot at because the film was meant to be set in the morning. Some of the shots that we did had to be re-shot because of it being to dar outside.

The costumes and props were also a big part in our media product. Although there was only one character shown in the opening it was vital to make her look as normal and as like a typical teenager as possible. In normal thrillers the characters would come across as quite dark and possibly wear dull clothing but we challenged these conventions and went the opposite way and the character wore a white hoodie and jeans.

 

The props that were used were the phone, clock, TV and remote. these props were all vital for a film because they all played a important part in the filming process. We used the actual sound of the alarm in our film and didn't edit it.

In most Thriller movies, camera movement such as tracking and panning are used most commonly in the openings of the films and the camera angles that are used are mostly high angles and low angles. The high angles shots are usually to show a powerful position but in our case we used the high angles to show that the character is going to be in control throughout most of the film if it were to continue. This is were we used form and conventions.

We also used a low angle shot from under the bed, this was just to challenge the forms and conventions of real media products and to add more variety to our shots.

Most of the editing and special effects were done on premier. The editing we did was on the phone when we had to make it look as if she had no contacts. Another editing transition was when we showed the family and car fading away. This was challenging the conventions of typical Thriller film as other films similar to ours haven't used this transition. The music that was edited on to our film had to be similar to other Thriller films. This was because we had to create enigma codes without confusing people into thinking it was a Thriller by using music that didn't fit into the genre. The music we used had to be mysterious and dark to keep the audience interested.

We challenged the conventions by not stating the opening sequence how normal Thrillers start. We introduced the character by her waking up like its a normal day but most other Thrillers start in a completely differently for instance some start half way through then return to the start with the caption 'a few days earlier' or them having a dream about something that's happened to them previously.

Overall, i think that our opening sequence is very successful. we do include challenges in our film such as not giving the genre away straight away and not portraying the main character as a typical mysterious person that would be in a thriller. We support the idea of keeping some of the typical conventions like keeping the music tense, dark lighting and the setting and location to stay Thriller like.