Question One of the Evaluation.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
Prior to the filming of our media production (film opening) we all,
both as a group and individually, analysed conventions in
psychological thrillers in order to get a better understanding of the
themes that are generally considered to be conventional in the said
genre.
We looked at characters – the way they looked, acted, dressed as
well as their gender and basic mannerisms – as well as location –
whether or not it was baron, urbanised, quiet, loud e.t.c. – and the
plot in general to develop a better understanding of the plot,
characters and locations that will be included in our media
opening/production.

2. Our media product has, through this, taken advantage of
many of the conventions that can be found in
psychological thrillers; we focussed on characters and the
features of characters, looking at films such as ‘Threads’
and ‘The Silence of the Lambs’.
Whilst the film ‘Threads’ does not feature a character that
could be considered a sole main character; it is the
atmosphere and the population as a whole that
emphasises the devastation and destruction that ensued
after the nuclear attack, the character that featured the
most throughout the film and the one who’s life it does,
essentially, chronicle is a woman. This is a subversion of
the main stereotype and convention as it is conventional –
both then and now – that male protagonists are given the
leading role in such a film, with any female characters,
either, being antagonists or supporting
characters/assistants.

3. In ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, the de
facto main character was a male
with the de facto supporting
character being a female, which fits
more with the stereotype. In light of
this, we decided that we wished to
subvert the stereotype and have a
female as the main protagonist, in
order to go against convention. We
also looked at title cards and took
the idea of simple titles without any
flamboyant fonts or typeface, in
order to emphasise the seriousness
of the plot and to try and keep the
audience focussed, by taking
inspiration from the information
cards that appear throughout the
film ‘Threads’.

4. Although the primary reason for
subverting the stereotype was, as
said, to subvert the stereotype,
there were other reasons as well:
we wanted our movie opening to
be more unique with regards to
the wider genre, and to represent
a different class of thriller which is
more inclusive of different types
of characters, instead of
duplicating the same types of
characters. As well as this, we
wanted it
to represent the idea that such a
disaster, as presented in our media
opening, effects everybody and
everything – regardless of gender.
Our inclusion of a female character
is, therefore, a representation of
the different elements of a society
and our wish to introduce an
element of inclusion into our movie
opening to push forward the down-
t0-Earth and ‘this could happen to
me’ effect that we aimed to
incorporate into our production.

5. Despite this, however, we did try and keep to a stereotypical line in order to give our production
some stability and avoid potential problems in explaining/analysing/producing our media
production. We maintained a simple narrative – the aftermath of a terrorist attack on a society,
which is a narrative often found in other (psychological) thrillers – and we made the decision to
include other stereotypical additions, such as music and extended shots. We chose to do this
because we wanted to give our movie piece a ‘home’ and a genre which the audience can attribute
the movie opening to. We also did this because there needs to be a link to the genre that we chose,
as to ensure that our research was not instantly disregarded and totally ignored once we
commenced the filming of our movie opening. To do this, we used a soundtrack with creates
tension and suspense, and which is not too over-the-top in terms of style, in order to present a
sinister and eerie world of mayhem and destruction.

6. In addition to this, we also made the inclusion of death (in a form of a dead body) and of a basic goal
for the main protagonist (although this is not defined in the actual opening), which we used to make
reference to the psychological thrillers that we had analysed. In editing, we made the decision to
include some effects and additions to our filming; we chose to include the use of a
red/orange/yellow-tint effect as an overlay; the inclusion of such a colour reflects the basic theme,
which is one of danger, death and menace. This was taken from the film ‘Threads’, where, following
the nuclear attack, the area was dark and this allowed for the representation of darkness and
destruction, and which also presents the idea of a dim world and an even dimmer future. For this
reason, we decided to make the inclusion of a colour effect in our media piece.

7. Our title cards are simple; they feature simple white text on a black background, with a small
vertical line from which the text appears. We chose this in order to, as previously said, convey a
sense of seriousness and formality, which we want our media production to present as a whole; the
plot and general idea of what has occurred is a serious topic and so we did not decide to use fancy
typefaces or vibrant colours, sticking with a basic colour scheme which is without joy or happiness.
This, we believe, adds to the fact that we have stuck with convention as we have tried to emphasise
the theme, genre and plot in almost everything we did, and so rarely deviated from the main
conventions.

8. In conclusion, we developed the conventions of the theme to fit with our production, making the
inclusion of several accepted stereotypes of how a psychological thriller would be produced but also
making the decision to change and make additions to some elements of the convention in order to
make our movie opening more unique and fit in with our ideas and what we, initially, had in mind. We
made the inclusion of simple title cards, which were simple and reflected the seriousness of the
thriller genre, which we have tried to embrace as well as develop.