Evaluation Question 1

1)

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

Our Opening scene has mostly kept to the conventions of the thriller genre. One way that we have kept to the genre is in the use of the dark locations as a locations such as the darkly lit interior at the first scene – this is similar to several thrillers, one example of which would be the motel rooms of No Country for old men.

We have also within this scene we have used angles that do not reveal the characters face while they’re pouring the chemicals. This creates mystery around the character that helps re-enforce the thriller genre within this scene. This is similar to the way that Quentin Tarantino filmed Bill in the intro to Kill Bill Vol. 1 where you never see his face, but you do see other parts of his body as well as the handkerchief with is name embroided on it. We have also used a sound track that creates a tension within the scene, which is also a convention of many thrillers. We also used camera angles when we were filming the character of the girl with the poison/toxin that were never at eye level to make the audience feel as if there is some unfamiliarity between them. This is also in keeping with several thriller films, often used to indicate how powerful the character is within the scene – using a low-angle to show power and a High angle to show insignificance in the current scene.

Also, within our thriller, the main, female, perpetrator has some characteristics of a femme fatale, such as the mysteriousness created around her -created by the camera angles in the start of the scene - although we have made her more like a male character with the costume. This is unlike the stereotypical femme fatale found in many thrillers such as Once upon a time in America and Thelma and Louise.

We also chose a soundtrack that would create tension in this scene. We also cut it to get the sound the fade out during key moments in the scene, this was to draw in the audience and to keep them concentrated on what was happening within the frame, rather than the soundtrack.

We have also used props within this film, one of the few is the container of the poison. This is very important in our scene as it helps create the mystery around the character of the killer. And as the audience doesn't entirely know what is in the container, we could (if we were filming the entire film) keep this liquid a mystery though-out the film as a enigma, which is a classic thriller characteristic. A good example of this could be the silver case in the film Ronin, where the audience never finds out what is exactly contained within the box.