Beth Emily Cooper

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

Our final media product followed many forms and conventions of real media thrillers. For example after

watching many opening sequences such as Shutter Island and Black Swan we decided to go down the root of a psychological thriller this is why within our opening

sequence we showed a hand coming out from under the murderers bed, however when he checks under the bed

there is nothing there. 

I believe that our media product also challenges the forms and conventions of a thriller as we have many aspects of

horror within our opening sequence, also it is very strange for the opening of a thriller to straight away give away who the criminal is. We challenge this by showing our murderer but not showing his face, only aspects of him, such as his hair

cut, the slight rim of his glasses and also his house and environment.

 There is a antagonist (the murderer) and a protagonist (the supposed man at the door way at the end of the sequence). Also we have also followed the forms and conventions to a

certain extent when it comes to the soundtrack, in our case, a ticking clock with is looped through out the sequence. Next we are presented with our enigma (who is the murderer and who has he killed and also who is the mysterious man knocking on

the door).

We also used mise en scene to follow conventions e.g. the fact that our antagonist is dressed 'normally' therefore not giving

anything away and our protagonist at the end of the sequence is dresses in a long black coat.

We have also challenge the forms and conventions of a thriller by giving away a lot of evidence of the crime at the start of the film, however this makes it interesting for the audience as they are not expecting it, also it makes it frustrating for the audience because they no where all the evidence is, but the protagonist

doesn’t.

However we have challenge the forms and conventions of a thriller by not having our setting in a vastly populated area. Many thrillers are set in built up areas with lots of buildings

making our antagonist seem normal and that he 'fits in', this normal happens because the audience can relate to the areas. However we decided to set our thriller in sparely

populated area. This was to give the effect of isolation and the feel of "there's nowhere to run or hide", this over all

made our antagonist a lot more scary and deranged (lonely man with no one to talk to).