The document discusses how the media product challenges conventions of real psychological thriller films. Specifically: - The main character Luna wears a black and white contrasting costume to represent her dual personalities yet challenges expectations through her school uniform-like attire. - The setting of a well-lit apartment block challenges expectations as dark settings typically signify danger in psychological thrillers. - The film has a black female main character with a mental illness, challenging conventions around representation in UK films. - Some conventions are confirmed such as using red lighting and the character only showing negative facial expressions, but these could be developed further, such as pairing a smile with low key lighting.

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

2. Our main character, Luna, played by Kameron wears a black dress and a white collared shirt with lace
sleeves. Hannah and I specifically chose the contrast of black and white to create a juxtaposition between
what the colours represent; evil and innocence. This represents the personality of our character as she is
mentally ill and has multiple personalities. Our character is also of school attending age and the nature of
her costume represents that with the collared shirt and long dress. This creates a sense of enigma around
the character’s personality because whether or not it is a uniform is not confirmed immediately. Her lace
sleeves (made by hand by Me and Hannah) are white and delicate signifying innocence. There is more black in
the costume than white to show the character is overwhelmingly more evil in the
opening sequence. In this way our final product uses the stereotypical colour of evil, black, to conform to
the genre. However, we used white to add contrast and create more mystery about the character’s personality
which develops the common colour usage in costumes of real media products.
Developing on colour and costume is something we saw more of in an auteur
directors work, for example, Tim Burtons’ Sweeney Todd had a completely
black outfit and hair except for one white streak which I interpreted as one
last bit of innocence in my analysis.

3. Our settings were a block of flats, a dark park and a train bridge. The block of flats challenges the
conventions of real media products. This is because it was well lit and very common looking, it showed no sign
of impending doom because of this. In Sweeney Todd the first setting is a dark lit, rotten boat and in Black
Swan out first setting is a dark stage. Our block of flats was well-lit and clean which, when compared to
other psychological thrillers, challenges the convention that dark setting equals danger because Luna was in
danger even in the well-lit environment.

4. Our final product challenges usual psychological thrillers by having a
black female main character with a mental illness. In terms of ethnic
representation in UK film ‘Just 5.3% of the film production workforce,
Kameron’s (Our main actor) facial expressions were
mostly pained, scared or malicious. In this way we
conformed to the conventions of a psychological
thriller as she never smiled and always showed
negative emotions. To develop and challenge these
conventions we could have Kameron smiling and pair
that with low key lighting to create the right
atmosphere.
3.4% of the film distribution workforce and
4.5% of the film exhibition workforce were
from Black, Asian and minority ethnic
backgrounds in 2012.’
In terms of lighting, we used one spot
light in a dimly lit room to highlight the
most important parts of the scene. The spot
light was white but in post-production I
edited the curves and colours in Photoshop
CS6 to make the scene redder hued. This
also conforms to the conventions of a
psychological thriller as red represents
blood and rage.