1. In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real
media products?
By George Back
2. Overall our film was mainly designed to fit into the
categories of the typical thriller conventions in order
to appeal to our audience as being attractively
familiar to suit what we know the audience looks for
in thrillers. It is therefore best that we didn’t use
many countertypes or challenge the typical
conventions. I will begin to discuss in more detail as
the sections of our piece that used the conventions to
have a greater impact on the audience.
Quick Summary
3. The pace of our product has been designed to be slow as it
leads into the conference scene. This uses the typical thriller
convention of a slow pace in order to build up the suspense of
what is to come.
The music also suits the pace at the beginning of the film, this
again fits the expected conventions of a thriller as you would
expect the music to be slow and low in tone. The low beats on
loop prevent the confusion of variety which occurs when too
many instruments play simultaneously. This is why using a
single beat on loop enables our audience to stay engaged
without being distracted by the non-diegetic sound.
Pace
4. It is key to all thrillers that the narrative is both easy to follow but still
incorporates the clever plot twists and the essential addition of the feeling of
enigma as the audience questions themselves and the characters. Or piece
does this well due to its simple complexity of the narrative. It’s continuity
makes it easy to follow but once we reach the conference and find out about
the ‘file’ it stimulates the audience to begin questioning what it is and why its
having such an affect on the commissioner as he is willing to go to great
lengths to find out where the journalist got it from.
Stereotypically it is expected that toward the end of thriller films we see the
protagonist in a scene of peril, not always from the antagonist but it is to be
expected and desired by the audience. From learning this from our research
we ensured that we left our film on the exact enigma, which fits the thriller
genre perfectly as we see our desperate antagonist interrogate our
protagonist to then cut to black whilst pointing the gun directly at him.
Narrative
5. Protagonist – Occasionally Intelligent, calm, heroic, gets into the action.
Antagonist – Criminal mastermind, sometimes abducts the
protagonist/protagonist’s assistant, often plays games with the antagonist.
These are the common archetypes for the main characters in the thriller
genre and I feel that our main characters are very close to these depictions
of their attributes. The protagonist is captured by the antagonist and he acts
in a calm and heroic manner by saying about the file he found during the
conference scene. This is also symbolic toward his attitude to getting
straight into the action (as he is depicted to by the conventions). The
antagonist also fits most of the conventions that are expected of him, being
a criminal mastermind his corruption among the police force knows no
bounds as he uses his power for his own benefit. There is however a slight
countertype within our film – It is assumed, as found from our research, that
the antagonist plays games with the protagonist, however, our piece
portrays the opposite. Giving the protagonist the power to play games with
the antagonist which he does throughout, refusing to give any information
about the file or where he got it.
Character Archetypes
6. It is a common assumption for the protagonist and the antagonist to
be male, although this is a fading trend as we begin to see more
female protagonists such as in The Hunger Games and the Divergent
series. Nonetheless we stuck to the expected conventions and used a
males cast for the main characters. This justifies the conventions due
to its appeal to a male audience. From our research it suggested that
males are more likely to watch action-crime-thrillers than females and
so we wanted to ensure that we follow the conventions to appeal to
the majority of our audience (the males). By using males as the main
characters it allows a male audience to create a deeper connection
with the characters and therefore the narrative enhancing their
experience of the film and increasing the effect of the suspense and
plot enigmas.
Cast
7. We used camerawork that is common among the thriller genre such
as focus pulls and point of view shots. These types of camera shots
to immerse the audience and make them feel a deeper connection.
The use of other shots like the high and low angle shots are also very
popular among thriller films as they further increase the effect of
status and allow the film to portray the symbols of power and how
they change as the film progresses.
Slow moving pans and stationary shots were our most common uses
of the tripod in our camerawork, we felt that as thrillers have a slow
pace we should reflect that in our filming and therefore didn’t
include any shots that used a fast motion or any jump cuts. This was
to keep the pace slows, just as the thriller genre is expected to be.
Camerawork
