2. My media product makes use of the common codes
and conventions of the thriller genre, I made this
clear from the outset of early development and made
certain that the product stayed true to what is
considered a ‘thriller’. However, as I did last year I
have hybridized my film with the horror genre in
many instances, specifically with my similar use of
hidden identities for the antagonists (even though
the antagonist of ‘Exile’ is not as clear cut than in my
AS coursework). One of the most common aspects of
a thriller is the chase, not as an individual scene but
as a concept. Throughout a large majority of thriller
films the antagonist is primarily in some form of
metaphorical chase, in constant pursuit or retreat
from the antagonist. While I have explored the
concept of ‘the chase’ (not the TV programme) within
my film, I have also subverted the common
protagonist vs. antagonist battle in that there is no
clear antagonist in the film. The film begins with an
ambiguous atmosphere but lacks an antagonist, it
then establishes the protagonist’s double as the
antagonist but then goes on to shift once more into
portraying the interviewer and who she is working for
as the primary antagonist – like I said a lot less
precise than my AS coursework. Returning to my
initial point that I have hybridized the film into being
an occupant of both the thriller and horror genres, I
feel as though this becoming increasingly common
among the thriller genre and genre films as a whole
as explored in an earlier blog post on the
significance of genre and whether or not it still
IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
USE/DEVELOP/CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
Protagonist’s Double
3. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
USE/DEVELOP/CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
Drama through Dialogue
‘Zodiac’
Along the course of production I reached a point
where I wanted to rework the plot, a main reason
for this was the interest I gained in David Fincher’s
work - specifically ‘Zodiac’ (2007). A video essay I
watched characterized Fincher’s work as “drama
through dialogue” meaning the narrative of his
films are driven by the protagonist and
simultaneously the viewer “learning a little more of
the truth.” I was captivated by this form of
storytelling and decided to implement it into my
film placing more of an emphasis on dialogue,
which can be seen in the difference between my two
scripts – one of which is longer but is made up
primarily of visual descriptions of scenes and has
minimal character interaction, whereas the second
version is largely dialogue and takes place in two
locations but is broken into four scenes. Narrative
is entirely dependent on information, without
information there is no story to be told –
conversation/dialogue is a highly effective medium
for transporting this information, which is why I
made it my primary focus.
Another source of inspiration – not accredited to an
individual film but a collective – is the playful
nature that psychological thriller films take up with
the timeline. Todorov’s narrative theory presents a
linear view on storytelling, whereas my film takes
up a disjointed and cyclical approach, which is
common of the psychological thriller sub -genre.
Todorov’s theory
4. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
USE/DEVELOP/CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
The typography of my film is one of the few factors
that hasn ’t changed over the course of production,
this is most likely because of my personal
preferences to the ‘modern’ look title that makes
use of the sans serif font. Although the plot came
first for the film I still had an idea of what font I
was going to use and had ‘DIN Condensed’ in mind
from an early stage. My AS coursework had the title
‘Incognito’ which was longer and looked better with
a large amount of spacing between characters,
‘Exile’ is a lot shorter and uses a different font
meaning I had to rethink my usual spacing to suit
the new title. In the end I went for moderately
spaced characters that help to distinguish the title
from basic text but don ’t make it look out of place.
This type of title is characteristic of the majority of
thriller films, last year I used ‘Oblivion’ as an
example of this but ‘Exile’s’ title (spacing and font)
can be used across genres – I was intrigued by and
noticed similarities with Wes Anderson’s use of the
‘Futura’ font.
Despite feeling as though I had chosen a better font
for my film I felt as though it was lacking in
creativity and therefore adjusted the face of the X
to be red – derived from the ‘Insidious’ films
(taking inspiration from horror as well as thriller
due to the hybridized state of the film). This change
did initially support a plot point that was then
changed but I decided to keep the red X because it
Typography
5. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
USE/DEVELOP/CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
Typography – Ancillary Texts
My ancillary texts make use of their own individual
typography, the magazine review uses ‘Arista 2.0’
and the film poster uses ‘Steeltongs’ in its
credits/slugline. My ancillary texts stay true to
common conventions of their respective media texts
that I researched throughout the year.
The magazine article is directly influenced by
another review I researched, as well as taking
inspiration from the review’s layout I have also
incorporated the general style of its typography into
my own review. I knew that I wasn ’t going to have
my main typography (‘Exile’ title) in the review as
the purpose of the text isn’t to promote the film but
instead to review it – hence the name film review
not film promotion. The typography I used was
another sans serif font but was rounded making it
appear more colloquial – as a magazine should.
The use of ‘Steeltongs’ in my film poster wasn ’t
necessarily taking inspiration but instead following
guidelines/conventions for film posters. Standard
credits in film posters use the ‘Steeltongs’ font or
variations of it and therefore I used it in mine to
make the poster seem more professional. The font
that I used was a generator that would type text
such as “Executive Producer” when typing in lower
case; because of this I was able to get the
conventional film poster look. I also used the upper
case variation for the slugline of my film as it
visually appealed to me and is a multi -purpose font
