In what ways does your media project use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our task was to produce the opening for a new thriller film. It was to be categorised from U to 15 but, due to the conventions of a thriller film e.g. suspense, tension, mystery and the physiological impact of such, it was more likely that it would be 15. Our addition of ‘blood’ would also put the age rating up as it would not be seen as appropriate by the BBFC for a younger rating.

For the first two minutes of a thriller film it is important for some sort of story to have been established whether it is perfectly clear to the audience or shrouded in mystery. Either of these two prospects can be achieved through use of different shots and camera angles that can create effects to work well with the narrative. For a mysterious story there might be point of view shots and other shots that don’t show the whole picture where as in a clear narrative when you want the audience to know exactly what’s going on then you would use shots that show the whole picture and didn’t jump around. It can also be changed by the mise-un-scene; the objects, setting and props giving you a sense of the story, for example if there was a woman in a wedding dress you would assume that she has been or is going to be wed. It would also have to have titles that include the name, the main characters and things such as special effects, editing and music.

The conventions of a thriller, suspense, tension, mystery and the physiological impact, could easily be manipulated or broken by a director for their own purposes. This can create an effect that is unexpected and intriguing. For example, in ‘Memento’ the story doesn’t go in chronological order but in a very mish mashed order that creates a sense of mystery thereby increasing the aspects of a thriller. It also makes you want to see what happens at the end to find out exactly why he lost his memory and who it was who killed his wife. This film influenced my own production as we decided not to do it in chronological order, like that. It also has aspects of ‘The Road’ in it from our original idea of it being set in a post apocalyptic setting.

We used different camera angles in an attempt to make it look effective and real. I believe that this worked well as it created effects that we perhaps hadn’t realised we could do before and that we were able to get some good shots despite the snow. We had some handheld shots and some point of view ones in order to get across the feeling of tension and being followed. We then mixed them up so that they were in a different order to what you would expect, a lot like ‘Memento’. This shows that watching the film helped us decide what storyline to use and how to put the shots together along with things like camera shots and music. This is shown as the music we use and the style we use is very much same as this film. The essence of the music especially gives an eerie feeling and extends it through the storyline.

In the end we moved away from making it truly a post apocalyptic film because it was too hard to get across to the audience with only the opening to a film. It is still supposed to be a kind of ‘disaster’ story but is more like ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ with the aspect of snow on the ground. We chose to do it that way to make it both more believable and more achievable.