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

2. My media product is a short film
which comes under the thriller
genre.

3. The first convention I used was a
limited amount of characters. This
is because short films usually have
small budgets and keep things
simple. I only had 2 characters to
keep it simple.
This is similar to the short film
‘Cargo’ where the two characters
throughout the film are a dad and
his baby and there is a only one
character who can speak which is
the dad. This is similar to my film
where the main character is the
brother searching for his kidnapped
brother and the other character is
another kidnapped victim who
does not speak.

4. The next convention I used was that the film
was the fact the film is very short.
This a convention used in most short films as short
films are again, low in budget and about simple plots
stories that can be told in about 5 minutes.
Some films extend to about 10 minutes but I kept mine
very short to about 5 minutes.

5. Another convention is the protagonist is the only
person who can solve an enigma in the narrative.
I used this convention because in my film this
example is true as the protagonist is the only
character the audience knows and throughout the film
he is the one trying to solve the problem of his
kidnapped brother by paying a ransom. There are
usually lots of cuts and a variety of different types of
shots in thriller films and in my film this is also true
as there is a lot of different types of shots and the
shots cut to one another quite quickly to build up a bit
of a quicker pace to the film.
This is similar to the short film ‘Cargo’ because the
dad is the only person who can save his child before
it is killed. This is what makes the protagonist the
main character of the film and helps add to the
narrative enigma and leaves the audience asking why
is he the only one who can solve the problem.

6. One convention I challenged was that the enigma
is solved at the end of the film. In my film this does
not happen and my film is left on a cliff hanger.
The reason I did this is it what leave the audience
thinking about the film more after they have
watched it wanting those questions answered and
another is because it made the storyline more
interesting and gave it a bit of a plot twist. One
might argue that I used the convention of a twist,
which is another common convention in short films
like in ‘Cargo’ the twist is that Dad dies where the
audience might expect him to live, so that’s the
twist.

7. Another convention I challenged is the
audience’s unrestricted knowledge of the
antagonist. I did this by not even letting the
audience see him or hear him. I did it so that it
would add to the narrative enigma of someone
completely unknown to the audience could have
such a strong hold over the protagonist.
This is similar to the short film the dark knight
because they do not know that much about the
antagonist the Joker. This makes the character
more interesting and gives the character there own
enigma.

8. Lastly, I developed the convention of having music in my thriller
short film by choosing not to have any and just using the natural
sound of the location instead. I think that this gave the film a more
realistic edge to it and might be an unexpected element upon
audiences as mostly mainstream films incorporate non diegetic
score music.