The document discusses how a student media project used and challenged conventions of thriller/horror genre films. It followed some conventions like using eerie sound and an isolated location in the opening scene. However, it did not use changes in background music tempo to build suspense like Psycho, as rapid camera angles were used instead. While it aimed to use darker lighting indoors, filming times prevented truly dark outdoor settings. Costumes were casual like in thrillers to avoid suspicion, though the villain wore darker clothing instead of a disguise. Camera angles like pans, handheld shots, and points of view were used to build tension by partially obscuring the view and making the audience feel involved, as in typical thrillers.

1. Question 1 – In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
Thriller/Horror films often start by using dramatic music/sound and desolate locations in the
opening scene to get the audience asking questions and keep them in suspense. We followed these
conventions for our project by adding eerie, non-diegetic sound over the top and also used an
isolated village location to create this atmosphere.
Sound
Thriller/Horror films often start with slow music which begins to build
up pace as the scene continues giving a dramatic effect. In the film
Psycho (right)it uses slow orchestral music to build suspension and
then changes into fast paced music to show the more dramatic
scenes. We didn’t use a change in tempo or background music at all in
our piece because we felt that the rapid changes in camera angles
were sufficient to build the suspense needed. This, therefore, goes
against the norms of this particular genre.
Mise-en-Scene
In order to increase the atmosphere and intensity, Thriller/Horror films often use a darker setting as
the lighting of the scene is very important. For our final film we were unable to use dark settings
because the time of day that we filmed and the times of availability of our cast. Having said this,
during the indoor scene at the end of our opening sequence, we were able to close the curtains in
the room to create a darker environment to build the tension.
The costumes used in these films are often quite casual to prevent suspicion of anything unusual
happening. Also the event often involves a normal, unsuspecting victim and therefore would be
wearing normal clothes, unlike the murderer/villain who is usually either wearing a disguise or
darker clothing. The main actor in our opening sequence wore his everyday clothing to fit the role of
an unsuspecting victim. The person that was following him was wearing dark clothing to suit the
convention seen in most films. However, unlike most films of this genre, the dark clothing that he
was wearing was still quite casual because we wanted to convey that the villain was actually a
figment of his imagination and therefore would not look dissimilar to him.
Camera Angles
In Thriller/Horror films the conventional camera angles used are birds eye/high angle shots to make
the person seem vulnerable and powerless; close up’s to capture the emotion on a victim’s face and
to show important details; pan shots to make it seem as though a character is being followed and to
create suspense as the audience doesn’t know what will be shown next; low angles to make a villain
look empowered and intimidating; hand held camera shots to add a sense of reality, making the
audience feel more involved; point of view shots where the audience sees the scene from the
victim’s point of view; over the shoulder shots are used to build tension, it allows the audience to
see things happening at the same time as the character does.
In our opening sequence we used pan shots to follow the victim and keep what he was looking at
just out of sight of the audience. This created tension because it meant that the audience didn’t

2. know what the victim could see and would cause them to ask questions. We also used hand held
camera shots to create the effect that the character was being followed, and build tension as the
speed that the camera moved increased when the character started to walk faster. In order to
increase the intensity of the piece, we used point of view shots so that the audience could see the
villain reflected in the car window as the victim would be seeing it. This makes the audience feel
more involved and like they are really there. During the final sequence we used over the shoulder
shots so that the audience could see what was happening as the victim saw it, this created tension
as the audience could not see the expressions on the victims face.