Evaluation...Question 1.

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

For the main task as a group we decided that the thriller opening we would create should involve most of the conventions of a Thriller film as a whole. We also decided that the age of the thriller should be set as a 15 because of the requirements.

• The piece of work must not involve and discriminative behaviour or language.
• Drugs are allowed to be viewed but it must not be endorsing or promoting the usage of drugs.
• Strong threats and menace are allowed as long as it isn’t sadistic and sexualised.
• Dangerous behaviour should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weaponry should not be glamorised.
• Frequent use of strong language is allowed. The stronger terms are acceptable if used in the correct and justified context.
• Violence is allowed as long as it does not dwell on the infliction of pain and injury. The stronger gory images are not likely to be acceptable.

These are the requirements for a film to be rated under the 15 age range. We found that our thriller film does not breach any of these requirements to the best of our observational abilities.

A thriller film must involve the conventions required in order to be cast under the category of a thriller. A thriller is a film, book or a play in which it depicts the images of crime, mystery and/or espionage along with suspense, action and excitement. There are certain conventions that the thriller should include in order to be seen as a thriller. Examples include the characters and what they are wearing. The music that is used must be of an eerie or a lingering style to increase tension, The sound must also sound Eerie and confusing to install doubt and make the audience think twice about the films current events. The linear order of films can also affect the thrillers effectiveness.  The narrative should be able to set up questions, also being known as an ‘enigma code’. With Non-linear films this can be created by the use of flashbacks such as seen in ‘Memento’.

Linear film- these are films which work in order, from a beginning to an end. As an example ‘The Happening’. Linear films can enable the producer to create a complex storyline through acting and can also allow tension to be created through items such as Mise-en-scene instead.

Non linear film- these are films which do not work in any particular order so they do not have any beginning and an end but still remain intact with the storyline.

Non linear films are often used when the main character is retelling the story or fragments of his memory. This has been used in films such as ‘Memento’ where the main character actually retells his own life because of an ‘incident’ which ruined his life. Non-linear films can use simple stories but can make it complex through the editing and non-linear style of the film.

In most thriller films there are conventions, these can range from characters to lighting. A convention of a thriller is the Villain. Often the villain is seen as a male who is a lot more powerful than most of the other people around him. The victim is also conveyed as being a weak female role, the Damsel in Distress.

The camera shots can also be a convention of a thriller film. Shots can say more than words and can also imply what I happening. A shot which is showing the view of a person down onto another can imply that the person whose view we are looking through is in a more powerful position than the person below and vice versa. In this shot from the James Bond movies we see that the person in the scene is lower than another person showing he is in less of a powerful position that the other person. The weapon is being risen up between the two showing this is the turning point of this all.

In my media we used heights of our characters to talk about the characters but we did not focus on having it the opposite way around. The person who is at the lower level is actually the person in power and control. This would make the audience confused in ways in which they do not understand why. In this scene we used levels to show that the person walking away is definitely the more powerful person out of the two as one of them is laying down on the floor and using levels he is shown as being weaker than the other.