Our film uses typical thriller conventions like setting in a secluded forest to create mystery and tension. However, we challenge conventions by making the antagonist a teenage girl rather than the usual middle-aged male. We also film in broad daylight rather than darkness. We aim to distribute to studios like Lionsgate, New Line, and Universal that frequently distribute popular thrillers. Our target audience is 15-30 year olds, as films with similar unconventional aspects like Hard Candy and Orphan appealed to this group. We have learned new technologies like using a Canon DSLR camera and programs like Garageband and Photoshop to film, edit, and promote our project.

1. 1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?
Our film uses the typical conventions of the thriller genre when considering the location and
setting of the idea. We researched possible locations for a thriller film to be set and found that the
setting for a film will depend on the plot itself. We thought carefully and came to a conclusion
that a conventional setting would be the most ideal to establish the right mood and feeling within
the audience and chose a secluded forest to film in. the silence and isolation of the forest will add
mystery and have a labyrinthine effect like there is no escape. Although we stuck to conventions
with the location we wanted to surprise the viewers by making the antagonist a adolescent girl,
of the thriller films we looked at to get an idea of a stereotypical unstable killer was middle aged
men i.e. the silence of the lambs, se7en, psycho etc.
Another way in which we went in a different direction to avoid orthodox thriller was to film in
broad daylight, this is unusual for a thriller as one of the conventions for the genre is darkness,
however there are examples of thrillers going against this characteristic, with the highly
successful No Country for Old Men being the one of the most prominent. This shows how thrillers
can be effective without having the clichéd elements.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our film does not intend to represent any social groups. However the characters in our film are
young 17-20 so this may be evident in the clothes they wear, this may also be a way of showing
the social class of the characters. i.e. one is wearing a hoodie and ripped shirt, whereas the other
is wearing a smart coat. Youths are typically around urban areas so this is very strange for them
to be in a rural area with fields and woods, leaving the viewers to ponder what they were doing
there in the first place…
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product
and why?
We believe a number of institutions will be interested in the distribution of our work. Thriller is a
very popular genre so it will catch the eye of many studios. After checking the statistics on
boxofficemojo.com there seems to be no overall dominant studios that invest particularly in the
thriller genre, however this is a good sign, the investors are varied so we have a wide range of
distributors but looking at the top 10 grossing thrillers, lionsgate, new line and universal are the
most frequent names which appear on the listso these are distributors who we may interest.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
We have decided that the rating for our film will be a 15. After spending much time researching
the different criteria needed to fulfil each certificate we could see it was very suitable for
audience members of the minimum age of 15. I produced a powerpoint presentation of all the
certificates and then and an explanation of why we aimed our film at that particular audience. We
see our film attracting young viewers of the ages 15-30. We have taken inspiration from the other
thriller movies, but added some unconventional aspects i.e. the killer being a teenage girl, this is
the case with films such as hard candy and orphan, so we are confident that those who enjoyed
films such as those will no doubt want to watch our movie too. We aimed to target this age group
as they are the ones who visit the cinema most often, so this will mean more people will pay to
watch our work.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We believe that in the past the majority of those interested in the thriller genre have been male,
therefor we have tried to attract more potential female audience members by making our

2. antagonist a young girl. We also believe our opening scene teaser as with the convention of the
genre creates suspense and excitement which will attract many viewers.
Overall we attempted to draw people in by trying to sell them a thriller with traditional
conventions but with certain twists. So we would appeal to fans of the genre but add something
new for people who were tired of the archetypal thriller titles.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of
constructing the product?
We have used a lot of new technology and programmes in order to make and edit our video
including garageband and using a DSLR canon 600D video camera. We needed to learn all of the
features and settings on the camera such as manual focusing and external flash. All of these
different aspects helped us achieve our ideal look for each scene, so becoming familiar with the
features quickly was required. We used garage band to create and add sound to our film,
choosing the suitable sounds to enhance the effects the scenes would have on the audience.
Another programme, which we used, was photoshop. We used this to create a logo for our
recording studios and also our promotional poster for our film too.
7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have
learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When we carried out our preliminary task we didn’t have the best equipment and the final
product of the prelim was basic at best. However that task was just a way for us to get familiar
with the different shots and techniques i.e. match on action etc. this task also gave us a chance to
become used to using basic cameras. This prepare us for using the more complex DSLR cameras