First question for AS media evaluation.

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

2. What is a thriller and why are they soWhat is a thriller and why are they so
popular?popular?Definition of a thriller:
- a novel, play, or film with an exciting plot, typically involving crime or espionage.
There have been many ideas about why thrillers are such popular genres of films, maybe
for recreational purposes? Interest? However one of the main theories I found interesting
in explaining why cetain genres are so popular is the Zeitgeist theory created by John Fiske
in 1987.
John Fiske asserts that generic conventions embody the crucial ideological concerns of the
time in which they are popular. This suggests that genres tell us something about the way
of the world in the time in which they are popular.
So, in application to 2015 there is a lot in the media which makes audiences question,
these genres automatically involve audiences everywhere as a lot of films of late raise
modern issues. For example dystopian novels such as the hunger games have been a
massive deal for the nations, as it is appealing to audiences due to it being a popular book,
big actors and actresses but also the fact it does raise questions about what the world is
going to be like when resources run out and which governments and countries will
becoming powerful and which ones will fall. Thrillers are now even more popular due to
the fact the internet allows audiences to look into conspiracy theories online. Thrillers
usually raise issues that are current in the news, for example, environmental destruction,
over population, increasing the roll of science and technology. It also brings up many
controversial points which further involves audiences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAzGXqJSDJ8

3. The conventions of the thriller genreThe conventions of the thriller genre
It was really important for us to incorporate our research of the thriller
genre into our film. To begin our research we studied the different sub
genres of a thriller, this helped us decide which direction we wanted to go in
terms of the content of our thriller.
The contents of a thriller usually include fast paced, frequent action, and
resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better
equipped villains. Literary devices such as suspense, red herrings and cliff
hangers are used extensively.
We tried to use some of these techniques in our thriller opening. We used a
cliff hanger at the end of our opening to try and encourage people to want
to keep watching. However we opposed the traditional contents of a thriller
by not creating a heroic character but instead a sense of mystery as to what
was really going on with our characters. We were making the audience think
rather than just feeding them the information.
Here is some of my research I did about thrillers and how it shaped our main
task!!

4. What are the genres and sub genres ofWhat are the genres and sub genres of
a thriller?a thriller?
There are many types of sub genres within the thriller genre. Before deciding
the content of our film we had to decide which direction of thriller we
wanted to go in order to recognise what kind of locations we might need to
film in, what kind of characters would be realistic and also what kind of props
we would need to help tell our story.
Here are a few of the types of thrillers we could have done:
Spy thrillers- typically a government agent who must take violent action
against agents of rival governments.
Political thrillers- have features of conspiracy thrillers.
Military thrillers- normally uniformed military officer.
Conspiracy thrillers- hero confronts large powerful group of enemies.
Forensic thrillers- forensic experts.
Psychological thrillers- conflict between the main characters is mental and
emotional rather than physical.
Horror thrillers – in which conflict between the main characters is mental,
emotional and physical.

5. What sub genre did we go for?What sub genre did we go for?
We decided that we wanted to do a psychological thriller. We chose to
create this sub genre of thriller because we thought it would be
interesting to change typical human behaviour. We knew we could
interpret this genre anyway we wanted to and wouldn’t have to know
any facts to make it realistic and believable. By doing something
psychological we could bring in all our previous ideas into our film and
incorporate lots of different elements.
We really wanted a strong psychotically unhinged female presence in our film and
these women were some of the leads that inspired our female character:

6. A bit of brainstormingA bit of brainstorming
As part of our research we did some brainstorming, we wrote down any creative ideas we had and
tried to incorporate these ideas into our film.
“We have come up with a large range of ideas that we think will work excellently. We want to twist
the typical stereotype of a thriller and create something new. Also we want to change the
empowered man (typically seen in a thriller) but instead, create a strong empowered woman in our
thriller who creates all the danger and drama. I adore Lana Del Rey videos that are full of short clips
of different scenes with vintage effects put over them, so I would love to incorporate this in to our
main task.” This was my original blog post when planning our thriller.

7. How did popular thrillers shape ourHow did popular thrillers shape our
ideas?ideas?
Whilst doing our research and planning I decided to do three textual
analyses of some thrillers that I thought would help shape our ideas.
When brainstorming for our film we decided we wanted to do a type of
psychological thriller, so I decided to analyse ‘the bone collector’,
‘Sherlock’ and ‘seven’. These real media products helped develop our
film and ideas about thrillers.

8. SevenSeven
I found the opening sequence for this film really interesting and useful
in terms of giving me alternative ideas to the basic title sequences I had
previously seen. I never noticed before how much key information is
hidden in a lot of title sequences and I knew when I had analysed it
that that was what I wanted to do with our film. In order to keep the
audience involved the whole way throughout the film. Here is part of
my analysis for seven:
We learn a lot from the mise en scene of this section of the film. During
the opening title we learn different things about the killer to prepare us
for what is to come. Everything the killer is doing is very precise and
articulate, he sees pages together and pins things. Showing his great
psychotic attention to detail.
In one particular section of the title sequence we see that the
killer highlights/ crosses out certain words of phrases. The
words pregnant, intercourse and transexual are crossed out.
Later on in the title we see the killer cut out the word god.
Presumably we could assume from this that the killer is a
religious character and has a hatred for anything that goes
against god.
After analysing this opening I knew I wanted to create hidden
meanings behind the majority of the footage we used. On the
next slide there are a few examples of where we did this!

9. How we used media products in ourHow we used media products in our
thrillerthriller We used this shot to show the beginning of their relationship and the lighting of a
flame between the couple. However we slowed the clip down and made it linger to
present that psychotic mind set of being somewhat mesmerised by the flame. The
slight twisting of the wrist to move the flame shows the strange obsession.
Although this is not a very clear shot when screen grabbed, we see the flame go out
which could represent that something is about to change. It could also represent a
change in our character. We know this character is a woman as she has petit hands
and nail varnish. This could suggest to the audience there has been a psychotic
change in the female character, representing the fact she will be the character to
cause havoc in this thriller.
This shot shows the slow burning of a candle and the melting
of the wax. We decided to use wax melting as opposed to the
typical clock shot you see to represent time, to show that time
is running out for one of our characters. The candle light also
creates a mysterious and melancholy feel to the scene.
In this shot I edited two pieces of footage together and altered the opacity on one of them
so we could see the female characters reflection staring back at her from a different angle.
I was really proud of this shot as it really represents the psychological change in the
character. It makes it look like her alternative personality is watching her, making her

10. Does our thriller adhere to theDoes our thriller adhere to the
conventions of a typical thriller?conventions of a typical thriller?
In some ways our thriller adheres to the typical conventions of a thriller.
When creating the soundtrack for our film we wanted to incorporate
something different but still making sure it had the same creepy tones that
a thriller generally has. So we decided to use one of our favourite groups
songs ‘every breath you take’ by the police. We changed the song up so it
sounded really psychotic and disturbing. Me and my sister recorded a cover
of the song on my iPhone 5C using the voice recorder. Later during the
editing process I put an effect on the audio track so it had a echo and slight
ringing in the background, giving it that uncomfortable sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOGaugKpzs –the police version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJBSLP83f0U – our version on our
thriller

11. Part 2- Our storyboardPart 2- Our storyboard
In terms of the storyline in some ways its quite typical as we know a
murder has either already occurred or is going to occur. We also uses a
cliff hanger which is quite regularly seen in all different styles of
thrillers. Here is our original storyboard:

12. Is our thriller at all unconventional?Is our thriller at all unconventional?
In many ways we intended to make our thriller
unconventional. In lots of different ways we altered
the typical perception of characters and the plot of
the film.
In our film I wanted to use this theory as a way of
contrasting and subverting the typical roles of
women in the media. This is why we reversed some
of the typical roles around. For example we made
the male in our film passive and the female active.
We don't present our female character as a sexual
fantasy or objectify her, instead we give her the
power and make the male the victim.
In this shot the chaos is beginning and the
femalecharacter is still looking calm and powerful.