Aidan Murphy

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

CONVENTIONS OF A THRILLER

A thriller is a genre and style of film that is often tense gripping and scary at some points examples of famous thrillers are jaws and the dark knight rises. These movies always have a lot going on. They like to keep the audience in suspense and keep them intrigued throughout and I think that good thrillers do most certainly do this. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

CHARACTERS IN A THRILLER • Characters in thrillers- characters in thrillers can be very predictable as they are often very

stereotypical and adherent to the stereotype of that character. E.g. woman who are lawyers in films are usually divorced or people trying to escape have usually been kidnapped and taken away somewhere and they are trying to break free. Often in thrillers there is a main protagonist and antagonist and each conflicting however the antagonist and protagonist are often very stereotypically the same in a lot of movies however some try to challenge this and that is what our movie ‘no more’ tries to achieve.

ABOUT OUR THRILLER ‘NO MORE’ AND HOW IT CHALLENGES REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS. • Our thriller ‘No More’ is about a woman who has been abused in a bad way by her husband

and beaten by him, and she can’t stand it for any longer so she eventually kills him, which is similar to our thriller. As an audience we have to debate who we think was the bad person in our thriller and who was the good person and doing the right thing and it is a thriller why most certainly provokes a lot of thought and definitely makes the audience think. And challenges the stereotypical view of the female being weak and not powerful and the male being strong as we see in the opening sequence we have reversed the stereotypical view on these two genders. So we challenge the conventions of other products in that sense.

SIMILAR PRODUCTS TO OUR THRILLER• Girl on a train- Film

• Fatal Attraction- Film

• Shining- Film

• Lion spot- TV Series

• Love the way you lie Eminem Ft. Rhianna- Music Video

• Star Craft- Video Game

‘GIRL ON THE TRAIN’ AND HOW IT IS SIMILAR TO OUR PRODUCT

• It is about a woman who drives past her old house every day on the train and her old husband and children lives there she has to deal with the pain every day she goes past. Much like the character in our thriller has to deal with the abuse from her husband as she has been beaten and fought with him. And it shows in this film the woman has a lot of mental problems and she creates her own visions of how life could have been in her head, so in that way it is similar. They also seem very innocent normal woman however we soon figure out that there is something wrong with them.

‘FATAL ATTRACTION’ AND HOW IT IS SIMILAR TO OUR PRODUCT • Fatal attraction is a Fatal attraction has a similar concept and idea to the film that we

are filming. Mainly due to the fact that a man is killing a women in it. The women is extremely violent in this film but from parts of costume and looks you would not expect her to be which is similar to ours. We want her to look as innocent as possible just like in the opening sequence that we are doing, the women in this is an innocent looking women who is a lawyer and her husband who appears to be at first... a happily married man however we see how violent the woman turns after and we realize that there relationship is perhaps not a pleasant one at all. In this movie the main actors are Michael Douglas and Glenn Close. It is set in New York which is different than the location of surrey which we are using. It also is similar to our film in the way that he is killed in a kitchen, just like our one. So in many ways it is similar. The women and man in the film our both similar to the characters age that we want in our film and the woman looks similar as well, and we also want to show the love hate which i think is most certainly shown in this film as well. Movie about

‘THE SHINING’ AND HOW IT IS SIMILAR TO OUR PRODUCT. • The shining is another film which I believe is similar to our product. It is about a

man who goes to a house and gets psychologically possessed. He then tries to kill his loved ones. ‘The Shining’ is similar In the fact that it has a very gruesome nature, there is lots of blood and it is overall very violent In what happens during the film which is similar to what we want to achieve in ours as well. Also the main character in ours has a mental problem and it is the same in the shining as well. So I think the whole psychological aspect is similar and the way in which mise-en scene was used was similar in terms of props such as knives and the bloody make up that they used as well was also similar to ours. The character is also shown to defend herself against a strong male character which is also similar to ours. And we also see the traumas that both the characters are going through and how they cannot do anything about there situation as well

‘LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE BY EMINEM FT. RHIANNA’ AND HOW IT IS SIMILAR TO OUR PRODUCT.

. This product is a music video created by Vevo and produced by Rhianna and Eminem. The music video is adherent to the stereotype of relationships however it is also subverting as well as it is shown in an extreme form. We know that couples fight and argue. But in this music video it is shown in a very extreme and exaggerated way. Which is similar to our thriller as it is about a couple who have had an argument and it has spiralled out of control. And I believe that is shown clearly in our media product and in the music video as well. We want to show the horrible side of relationships and not only the romantic ones and in the music video it changes. Usually in arguments In films we see one dominant character however in this we see two. The husband and the wife. And it is often the man due to him stereotypically being strong and powerful , however our product and the other one wanted to show it differently we wanted the woman to have power as well.

‘STAR CRAFT’ AND HOW IT IS SIMILAR TO OUR PRODUCT.• ‘Star Craft’ Is a popular video game created by Chris Metzen and James

Phinney. It comes under the genre of military science fiction. And it was produced by blizzard entertainment , a well established company who have created great games such as ‘diablo’ and ‘over watch’ which have both been very successful. Star craft is an action packed game set in a different setting to ours as it is in space. However there are quite a few strong female characters within the game, similar to our thriller as there is most definitely a strong female character in that and usually and stereotypically we do not see woman fight and show dominance over stereotypically strong female characters however in star craft we do. It represents a lot of similar aspects to our product , in the way that it is very different from social expectations and stereotypes that we as humans think of when it comes to gender and social class and how they are represented in that area.

OVERALL EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION • Overall I believe that our film has taken inspiration and is very similar to a lot of other products

out there including videogames and music videos and films. They all have strong female characters who are shown to be the opposite of the usual stereotype of weak and kind and caring but are shown to fend for themselves and fight of the strong man and we wanted to challenge the ‘normal’ social conventions, and make the woman appear stronger as I think with the stereotypes the film can become predictable and reversing these makes the audience ask questions, and challenge what they think of the genders and social class as well.