This document compares the media product created to the thriller films "Red Dragon" and "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" in terms of genre conventions, plot, characters, action, title design, editing techniques, and camera angles. The created media product uses many thriller conventions like low lighting, nonlinear storytelling, close-ups of the killer and their obsession. However, it challenges conventions by featuring a younger killer and focusing on their painting obsession rather than the killings themselves. Overall, the created media product draws from but also distinguishes itself from these thriller films.

1. EVALUATION QUESTION 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2. INTRODUCTION
• To best answer the question I will compare what we have created with other
products from the same genre, that being ‘Thriller’, but just as with the real
products our own creation incorporates elements of ‘Horror’ and a ‘Psychological’
film.
• The two products I will be comparing our own with are, ‘Red Dragon’, released in
2002, directed by Brett Ratner and starring Anthony Hopkins, Ralph Fiennes and
Edward Norton. It was distributed by Universal Pictures just as its more famous
relative, ‘The silence of the Lambs,’
• My other port of call will be ‘Perfume: The story of a murderer’ Released in 2006,
and directed by Tom Tykwer, starring Ben Wishaw, Alan Rickman and Dustin
Hoffman. It is the adaptation of Patrick Suskinds’ 1986 novel by the same title.
Produced by Castelao Productions.

3. GENRE CONVENTIONS
• The broad aim of the Thriller is to create suspense and excitement for the audience, the narrative
circles the investigation of an unknown quantity.
• Violence is most often central
• The technical conventions of a Thriller are low lighting, sharp cuts, ‘obtrusive’ editing, the use of
flashbacks, photographs, black and white and the warping of Time and Space through both non-
linear chronology and editing,
• (Specific to Psychological Thrillers – Characters preying upon one another’s minds with the
intention being to erode the other’s mental capabilities, or instead the investigation of a
particularly intriguing or disturbed mind.)
• Canted angles are used in Horror to disorientate, and long tracking shots to create tension just as
in Thriller. Depth of focus can be utilised to stress the importance of the protagonist.
• Extreme close ups of the face, to intimate to the audience their emotions.
• Colours can be significant, such as Red and Black to symbolise danger, violence, evil and blood

4. PLOT
• The plot of what we have actually created is simple yet macabre. Our savage killer
is painting a picture using the blood of their victim. This is similar to ‘Perfume’
wherein the murder itself is but a means to an end, to both protagonists killing is a
necessary part of the ritual they must perform to satisfy the feverish extremes of
their mind.
• Both products show close
u ups of the parts of the
body body that are important
to to the killer, or of use.
• The rest of the film, that would trace the devolvement of the character, interspersed
with explanations for his mental state, would be akin to ‘Perfume’, a similarly
personal tale that follows the gruesome doings of its protagonist. The killings are of
little importance, and the film only ever alludes to the reasoning behind
‘Grenoiulle’s actions.

5. • Our film is also aligned to ‘Red Dragon’, wherein there is a killer who is one because
he believes by doing so he is transforming into something greater.
• More poignantly for us, the transformation concerned regards a painting. The killer
believes he is becoming the Red Dragon, (by William Blake).
• The characters are obsessed by a higher power, believing it to govern their every
move. Essentially this is the unhinged aspect of their mind that they cannot control,
it is so powerful that it has been projected outside. They obey this side of their mind
even though sometimes they question it and do not want to.
• The plot uses the conventions of a Psychological Thriller, it is disjointed and
intriguing, but always personal and often uncomfortably intimate. So as to mimic
the fractured mind of the protagonist. Suspense and tension are built naturally by
the unpredictable nature of the character.

6. CHARACTER
• Both our film and ‘Red Dragon’ show extreme close ups of the protagonists caressing
their painting. Their behaviour becomes slowed and measured from their usual
frantic mania by the source of their obsession.
• The excessive pouring over the painting shows the desperation to leave ones own
body and become something else.
• Our character challenges the conventions slightly in his nuances. His costume
suggests a worker of some description, or that he has worn that this for the explicit
purpose of his painting.
Their infatuated behaviour
connotes that the mental
occupations have such
strength that they must be
translated into physical
action.

7. • He is younger than is to be expected from a killer, and this is reflected in his lack of
assurance in what he is doing.
• Although this departs from ‘Red Dragon’, there is a strong similarity found between
the youth and look of our killer, and the youth and look of the protagonist in
‘Perfume’.
• Our character uses the conventions of a psychologically deranged killer, that says
they will be unfeeling and only able of connecting with material things or something
seemingly insubstantial, but challenges the conventions of a serial killer, that says
they will be at their most comfortable during the Killing time.

8. ACTION
• The action that takes place is limited in scope, it is personal and dedicated to its
culmination. The essence of task is using the conventions and generic to our genre.
But the difference comes in the particular activity of painting, wherein the killer can
actually impart something of his victim onto the result of his fantasy. This is similar
to ‘Perfume’, in which the protagonist takes the hair and clothes of his victims and
uses them to create a perfume.
• The action of painting with blood is perhaps more dramatic and more effective, it is
immediate and easy to see and easy to understand.

9. TITLE FONT
• We have opted for a clean and simple title font, just the white writing against the
black background, similar to ‘Perfume’ and in fact ‘Red Dragon’. It uses the
conventions of the Thriller and that of horror to suggest darkness having a greater
presence, and the simple writing connotes only ambiguity.

10. EDITING TECHNIQUES
• We have distorted the footage, such as speeding up and slowing down, by this we are
using the conventions of the Thriller that say warping time and space is an
important tool in creating suspense and confusion.
• We differ from the texts I am comparing to because we have used disparate shots,
that vary in their shot duration and transitions. The other films use long, protracted
shots to build tension. But our intention is instead to create confusion and a strong
sense of the character. This does use the conventions of Thriller that says obtrusive
editing and quick transitions are imperative in creating suspense and compelling
drama.

11. CAMERA ANGLES
• We have utilised close camera angles and tried to fill the frame with our protagonist
to let our audience understand that the film will follow him.
• The close camera angles are a convention of the Psychological Thriller, they can be
uncomfortable and awkward to watch. ‘Perfume’ also uses such camera angles. They
further support the genre because by the closeness they ensure that the emphasis
and focus of the audience is on the character only. By a continued string of close-ups
the audience is not relieved of the tension, they are forced to remain with the
fractured mind of the protagonist.