This document compares the opening scene of a student-created thriller film to several established action/thriller films and a video game to highlight how it develops and challenges genre conventions. It analyzes similarities in strong female leads, editing techniques, costumes, violence and action scenes between the student film and films like Salt, Kick Ass, and Hanna. While it shares some conventions like athletic fight scenes and twists, the student film subverts expectations by revealing its female lead is the antagonist and having less comedy than Kick Ass. The analysis is used to understand how the student film fits into and pushes the boundaries of the thriller genre.

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

2. Introduction
• We have created a thriller. Our thriller doesn’t have a
sub genre yet it does have a hybrid genre that being an
action thriller.
• I am going to compare our thriller to Salt released in
2010, with Angelina Jolie. Directed by Philip Noyce and
distributed by Columbia Pictures. As well as salt, I will
also be looking at Hanna starring Saoirse Ronan,
released in 2011, directed by Joe Wright and
distributed by Focus Features. Lastly, I will be looking at
Kick Ass, starring Chloe Moretz, directed by Mathew
Vaughn, released in 2010 and distributed by Lionsgate

3. What are genre conventions and why
are they used
• Genre conventions are what the audience expect
to see from the film of a particular genre
• For example, in a horror film the audience would
expect to see evil, death, scared characters, dark
settings e.g. night time
• Genre conventions are used in order for the
audience to distinguish between genres. The
audience knows what to expect from the film just
by looking at the genre title as they have either
seen films like this or heard about what these
genres include.

4. Convention similarities
• Our thriller is similar to that of Kick Ass and
Salt due to the strong female lead present in
the thrillers. However, Kick Ass has a comical
aspect to the film whereas our thriller has no
comedy. Salt is also a lot more action based
than our thriller but it has close plot ties with
our thriller that will make it easy to compare
with.

5. KICK ASS
Kick Ass shows some similar plot lines with Kick Ass, as both characters are strong
female leads and the heroes of their settings. Although, in the rest of our thriller it is
actually discovered that she is the antagonist rather than the protagonist which she
seems to be in the first opening scene of the thriller. This challenges the typical genre conventions the
audience expect to see as it turns out she isn’t the innocent victim that is typically seen in a thriller,
thus our thriller is a refreshing take on the genre. The two characters share no costume similarities as
Kick Ass is more of a superhero action based thriller where as ours is just an action thriller. However,
the aggressive and violent behavior both characters share is often sadistic and gives hints that maybe
the characters aren't who they seem to be. This comparison is of Hit Girl in Kick Ass and our actress in
our thriller smiling after they have killed somebody. This reflects the sadistic behavior and subverts
from the stereotypes that girls are innocent and sweet as well as not being able to fight as both young
characters end up taking control of their situations and beating the odds by killing people who are
stronger and older than them.

6. KICK ASS
Kick Ass also shares the editing technique of the sped up
action scenes this is to amplify what is happening on
screen as its more interesting to an audience if the action
is fast passed rather than if its slow. This is also what
appealed to our target audience when we conducted the
interviews. Kick Ass also uses short shot durations to
build up tension as the audience doesn’t know what is
going to happen next thus playing on the genre
convention that thrillers need action and tension in order
to keep the audience enticed. Our action scene is similar
in that they are both very acrobatic and gymnastic based.
We were actually inspired to create this kind of action/
fight scene due to this aspect of Kick Ass.

7. SALT
Salt can be compared to our thriller as it shares the strong female lead beating the odds that are
stacked against her and killing lots of people who are trying to kill her this is somewhat like our
thriller as the main character of our thriller also has the odds against her yet she ends up beating
them and killing the two henchmen. However, Salt is a much higher budget film with more
politics involved than our thriller so there are different twists involved, yet both our thriller and
Salt have twists in to keep the audience interested throughout.
Both the characters in our thriller and Salt look alike however costume wise they are not. We
didn't’t want to use the same sort of costumes as Jolie wears in Salt as it would take away from
the twist when she ends up beating up and killing the henchmen in the sequence so if she was
wearing black it would connotate that she might be able to protect herself

8. SALT
This comparison below shows the similar shot and positioning of the character. The similar
mise en scene used in both images, reflects the strong female lead that the audience have a
tough decision to make on whether they will side with this character or not, this idea plays
with the genre convention as the ideal thriller makes the audience think. However, the man
killed below in Salt is just mere collateral damage whereas the henchmen in our thriller are
more than that, we wanted the audience to understand the professional standard these men
Had and hence enhance the fact of how talented the young girl is, therefore surprising the
audience and differing from the usual convention of a thriller genre.

9. HANNA
We have used the strong female lead again in Hanna. This is an action based thriller like ours
Except Hanna has more of a political sub genre running through it which we didn’t want to
Have in out thriller as otherwise the idea would become too complex with the other twists
that occur in the thriller. The plot line of Hanna is that a sixteen year old girl has been
Raised by her father and trained to be the perfect assassin. This is similar to our thriller as
Both the characters are young therfore subvert from the stereotypes of their age groups that
They are lazy and rude as these two female characters have been trained to take out people.
This photo comparison is of a close up of two guns one in our thriller and one in Hanna. This
Obviously connotates the violence that is to later come.

10. THE LAST OF US
The last of us is a video game. Its plot is nothing like our thriller, as its about surviving with
a virus that is killing people. This is an action horror video game. Yet, the violence in the
video game is rather like ours. In this shot both of the male characters are being beaten up
and having their faces smashed into a hard surface. This goes along with the genre convention
of a thriller as thrillers are often violent, yet this isnt always the case. In the case of our thriller it
could also classify as a sub genre of an action thriller. Both characters in our thriller and in the
video game both have violent backgrounds this is the typical in thrillers, as the antaganists are
often violent but have had professional training which is what makes them so dangerous and
adds to the tension within the thriller as the audience fear for the victim.

11. KICK ASS
This screenshot shows both the female leads in action. The action in these two sequences is
Typical of a thriller convention as an audience expect to see lots of action and violence in
A thriller in order to keep them entertained. However, our thriller contains more twists than
Kick ass which we wanted to do as our thriller is only an opening scene so we just have two
Minutes for the audience to come away thinking that that was the most action packed and
Exciting two mintutes they have ever spent, so that’s why we had no diegetic sound unlike in
Kick ass, although, in the rest of our thriller if we were to make it we would add diegetic sound
In otherwise the audience would get bored