AS Media Studies - Evaluation Question 1

1. 1. INWHATWAYS DOESYOUR
MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP
OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA
PRODUCTS?

2. From my research part of the coursework I found that although the psychological thriller genre is relatively new there are common
themes that are conventional to the genre, all of which I featured in my research on the psychological thriller genre blog post. As
part of my research I chose to analyse the opening sequence to Memento (directed by Christopher Nolan, 2000) in depth by looking
at how the aspects of the sequence conform to the conventions of the psychological thriller genre. I chose this film to analyse
because I personally felt that it had a very effective openings sequence with lots of conventions featured and it is a very popular film
within the genre and was directed by Christopher Nolan who is one of the most popular directors for the thriller genre. I also briefly
analysed films such as Black Swan, Shutter Island, Se7en, Inception and Gone Girl and overall I found that the conventions of a
psychological thriller were:
• Themes of reality, inception and memory
• Narratives of mental breakdowns or Identity Crisis
• Death and violence
• Manipulation
• Creepy intense characters
• Intellectual and complex narratives
• Contrast
• Close ups and modern shots
• Disorientating shots
• One significant prop that creates enigma
• Simple fonts in the titles
We managed to conform to some of the conventions whilst we also aimed to stray from the typical psychological thriller also so
also ended up contradicting a number of conventions also.The main conventions that we followed were the simple fonts in the
titles, contrasts, close ups and modern shots, disorientating and tense emotions, narratives that hint at mental breakdown,
intellectual an complex narratives and themes of reality. Below I have referenced how we have followed these conventions.

3. FilmTitle
We decided to call our film ‘Carmen’ because we thought using a girl’s name creates a contrast that
helps create the creepy and unnerving for the audience as a young girl’s name has innocent
connotations which completely differ from the creepy narrative of the film itself. Yet the name still
needs to link to the narrative in some way so we used Carmen as the female character’s name in our
sequence which shows how she is a dominant and important part of the film.We have conformed to
typical titles in the psychological thriller genre because they are often very short and only between 1-2
words long because it creates a confused feeling which creates questions for the audience which already
conforms to the typical emotions that we found were most popular in our audience survey within the
psychological thriller genre.The title in most psychological thrillers are following the opening sequence
and have their own frame and their own shot so the audience can focus on the scene therefore we
placed ours at the end of the scene on a simple black background in white writing.

4. Camera Shots
Typical films from the psychological thriller genre use a significant amount of close ups because it is
important in creating tension and a range of emotions therefore we intended to use a lot of close ups
within the first thirty seconds in order to create a theme immediately and to make the audience feel
tense and confused from the start. My section was the first thirty seconds of the sequence therefore I
chose the majority of my shots to be close ups because I had the responsibility of creating that feeling
straight away.They were also useful in the reveal of the narrative as we wanted the creepiness of the
narrative to gradually be revealed and so used close ups because you can only see Carmen’s face and
gradually used shots that showed more and more of her body in order to gradually reveal her situation
when the prop of the rope is finally revealed. Therefore, conforming to the connotations of a typical
media product from this genre. A feeling that is common in our genre is also the feeling of
disorientation which can be caused by constructing many parts of a scene, in our sequence we put
Carmen’s waking up shots upside down because it disorientates the audience and creates a specific
confusion for them as it shows that something isn’t right because the shot is not technically the right
way round.
Before I Go To Sleep (2014) Shutter Island (2010)

5. Sound
Our opening sequence contains diegetic and non-diegetic sound in numerous forms. However, there
are few conventional sounds within the psychological thriller genre so we combined them and our own
experience and knowledge in order to fit the sound in effectively. Our diegetic sound includes the only
bit of dialogue at the end of the sequence where Carmen says “Good Morning Daddy” and the sound
effects that include the door creaking and footsteps which are cliché thriller and horror sounds and so
are conventional to the genre and can relate to real media products because real products do have
sound in that builds their narrative like ours intends to. However, our non-diegetic sound conforms and
contradicts to real media products. It conforms because we use a soundtrack that creates contrapuntal
sound which helps once again create that disorientating feel and conforms to our genres conventions as
we use an upbeat 60’s song which has connotations of happiness to contrast with the dark themes of
the narrative.Yet it contradicts the normal media products because we use a sound technique called
layering where we layer tense sound effects over each other and let them build up then slow down to
build up again to create tension towards the end of the opening sequence which isn’t typically used in
products in mainstream cinema because they use one soundtrack altogether instead of layering smaller
clips of sound to get the desired effect.

6. Editing
Our sequence consists of two narratives intercut together that ultimately link together which is found
out later in the opening sequence.The narratives appear to be fragmented and follow different
storylines as you see the young girl waking up peacefully despite the fact she is tied up and has bruising
on her arms whereas the males section seems normal and a simple morning routine, creating a
contrast between the feelings of both narratives.This differs to most real media products as there is
very few films that use two narratives intercut together that feature such polarisation because it is
quite confusing and creates a disorientated audience which is not always a desired effect for most
films. Films within the psychological thriller genre also don’t use intercutting often as there is little
example of intercutting in the genre, despite the feelings of confusion being often desired by directors
of films within this genre.Therefore, our film stands out and shows evidence of contradicting real
media products editing and therefore appeals to our psychographics target audience of people who
like the creepy and more intellectually challenging films that are often deviating from the norm.