IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR

MEDIA PRODUCT USE,

DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE

FORMS AND CONVENTIONS

OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

BY ELEANER LESTER

Within a thriller there is usually a battle between the protagonist and antagonist once there has been a disruption to the equilibrium, this follows Tzvetan Todorov’s Theory. Our media product (‘POSSESSION’) also follows Todorov’s Theory as the equilibrium is disrupted when the main character becomes possessed and intent on killing her lover. The fight between her and her lover emulates the convention of a battle between an antagonist and a protagonist. This builds up tension and makes the audience want to see the rest of the film. Our thriller film opening follows the route of a psychological thriller as the main character has a form of mental illness (possession) that effects her in a very serious way, it’s set in a dark and eerie setting, there is also a sense of danger and enigma which is established by the ‘cliff-hanger’ ending. Furthermore, the main character is often on her own throughout our thriller opening which gives of a sense of isolation, this is typical of a psychological thriller. An example of a psychological thriller that I looked at for inspiration was se7en (1995) starring Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey and Morgan Freeman.

In Se7en there is a battle between the protagonist (Brad Pitt) and the antagonist (Kevin Spacey) after Kevin’s character disrupts the equilibrium by going on a killing spree. The antagonist is enigmatic until the end of the film and is isolated. The entire film is dark and eerie, which follows the same conventions as our thriller opening. Furthermore, the antagonists has a mental illness which isn’t necessarily known and he plays mind games with the protagonist as well as the audience. Despite not being told what the antagonists illness is, it’s clear to the audience that he displays some signs of psychosis and megalomania. In our thriller film we wanted to follow this convention by making the main character lose her mind but we didn’t want it to be directly obvious how or why and to what extent she would deteriorate.

We have been unconventional in our Thriller in the respect that our protagonist is female which goes against the stereotypical male protagonist role. Most Thriller films tend to avoid having women as protagonists due to the fact that they’re stereotypically seen as the weaker sex. In our film we wanted to go against this idea and show that women can play strong characters and we also thought that it would be interesting to put a twist in the story by challenging the gender stereotype. In the three case studies I’ve looked at (Se7en, No Country for Old Men and The Silence of the Lambs.) two of the protagonists are male. However in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ the protagonist is female (Clarice Starling). Following the example set in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ our main character (played by Gina Wilby) is shown as strong, independent and loving from the outset. However, for our twist, as the Thriller progresses she becomes more and more agitated, eventually ending with her mental state completely deteriorating as if she’s becoming possessed.

We chose ‘psychological’ as a sub genre of thriller as we thought it would be interesting to manipulate classic psychological human behaviour. We knew we could interpret this genre well and in any way wanted, as I studied psychological thrillers for my case studies (Se7en etc.). By choosing psychological we could incorporate all our previous ideas into our final project. We really wanted a strong psychologically unstable female presence in our film such as ‘Nina’ from Black Swan portrayed Natalie Portman.

Todorov’s narrative theory states that most plots follow the same pattern. There are 5 steps in this pattern:1) Equilibrium: Everything is as it should be in a state of equal

balance between powers.2) A Disruption: The story will feature a problem or some thing

will disrupt the happiness. 3) Realisation: This part of the plot is when everyone realises

the problem and it is chaos. 4) Restored Order: This part of the plot is when the characters

attempt to repair the damage and restore the equilibrium. 5) Equilibrium finally restored: This is the final part of the plot

where the problem is resolved and normality can resume again.

We have developed this convention for our own thriller as we have equilibrium at the start when the couple are happy and in love. Then we also have the disruption when the female character becomes possessed. The reason we haven’t included the other 3 steps is because we were only creating a film opening, not an entire film.