This document summarizes how the media product, a film called "Nemesis", uses and develops conventions of real gangster/thriller films. Some key ways include: having an ominous one-word title; establishing the production company as successful; featuring urban/dark alley locations; starting with a gang meet-up to set the genre; including props like weapons and violence but making it "very British"; subverting expectations by having a female gang leader; and including an expected torture scene to develop the antagonist and storyline. Both the poster and magazine advertising develop tensions between characters and provide different perspectives on the protagonist to engage audiences.

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

2. Firstly, the title of the film, ‘Nemesis’ hints at the overall
storyline of the film, revenge. The word ‘Nemesis’ comes
from the Greek God of revenge which connects with the
whole concept of the film we’ve created. As we’ve created a
gangster thriller, we tried to keep it heavily based around
the city or very urban areas. The one word title also
conforms to other gangster/thriller films like Snatch and
Bound. It also helps the audience remember it easier,
especially as in our trailer the music drops as the title
appears on the screen.
The production logo ‘Diversity Productions’ was made to
establish ourselves as very positive and successful
filmmakers which helps attract our target audience.

3. Locations
Like I said previously, we heavily
based our shots in urban areas, which
are typical gangster-related shots. For example we chose to
have a scene down a dark alley in the middle of the city as in
our research we found that many shots were taken in dark,
more Victorian locations. In Snatch, we see Avi and his cousin
going down a dark alley to find the illegal boxing ring. This is
done because it seems very masculine and dangerous, we
tried to do this but obviously our storyline is slightly different so we went for a
similar approach. These location suggest there is such danger in the city and
because of the danger involved in this particular
film, things become much
scarier and certain
characters become isolated.
The suspense leaves
cliff-hangers at the end and
makes the audience want
to see the film.

4. Opening Scene
To instantly show the gangster conventions, in our opening scene we showed a gang
meet up including the protagonist with prevalence, this instantly shows the audience
what the film is based around and who the main character is. We have subverted the
stereotype by making the gang leader a female, this relates to Bound in the stylishness
of the film. In our media product, it starts with the gang working well together, which
positive for the protagonist, although as the trailer continues, the atmosphere
gradually changes and things are much more worrying. This relates to Snatch again
when Turkish and Tommy need the money but they’re stuck in a bad situation as
Mickey’s mother has just died and they need him to fight.

5. Mise-En-Scene
The props in which we decided to use also conform to gangster film trailers.
We included shadows of weapons in our trailer, but we also wanted to make
it very British and violent so we included fist fighting and putting unconscious
people in car boots. This clearly conveys the genre to the audience as it isn’t
scary, as there is a lot of professionalism about the violence used in our film
this makes it clear it isn’t a horror.
The characters in which we chose to play in our trailer subvert to the usual
characters you expect to see in a gangster thriller. Our main character is the
gang leader, as well as the two that stand by her, although that’s where our
plot twist comes in as that main character is a woman which opposes the
stereotype, and her left-hand man becomes the antagonist. For example, in
Snatch we see Turkish in the protagonist and he always seems to be in danger,
this heavily relates to how we have planned our film. We felt challenging the
convention would give us a wider audience, not only would subverting the
stereotype do this but the crossover between a gangster and a thriller makes
our film aimed at even more audiences. Even though our main character
wasn’t a male gang leader, their age was not unusual which still conforms to
the genre and the age range of 18-40.

6. Shed Scene
The scene in the shed in the scene you expect to
see in all gangster films – the torture. This scene
is used in many gangster films to try and get the
truth out of the victim. We used this for the
antagonist to get the protagonist’s attention and
it leaves for a grand stand ending at the end of
the film.

7. Poster
We conformed to the usual
looking gangster film poster
with a confrontation between
the protagonist and
antagonist. We chose to use
very bland text and faces but
the text and background are
in colour which makes things
much more effective. We
related to Legend in the way
we made our poster by
having the tension of two
people facing each other.

8. Magazine
Unlike our film poster, we made
things seem tense as it seems as
though she is down but we can’t
really see any gangster relation.
We made it like this so we see
another side of the protagonist
and we expect the target
audience to have already seen the
poster and they can get some
more details of the film in this
magazine. We added other films
on the side bar so the target
audience can read about similar
films, we’ve also included an
interview with one of the main
characters.