Evaluation Activity One

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

How we used conventions of a thriller

The opening of a film usually establishes the theme of the film the mood and sets the tone for the rest of the film

our inspiration for our opening of our thriller came from the opening of Inside Man which uses a variety of shot of a man who is in a prison cell.

The aim of our opening was to create tension and show that things such as domestic violence are happening even though we do not see them so we positioned the camera to be the observer inside a home of misery.

A thriller convention which we used was to create mystery. We did this by showing shots of the wife abuser with the voice over of his court sentence over the shots so not all action was shown on screen. We also did this with the domestic violence we don't actually see him hit his wife just her on the floor this we feel created mystery around what had actually happened leaving the audience wanting to know more about the couples life's and how the situation of his abuse escalated which we planned would have been shown in the main section of the film and his home coming after his prison sentence.

The use of are camera shots helped in creating tension a typical thriller convention We used a range of shots such a high angles and low angles to create the feeling of superiority against weakness . We also used various close ups to add variety, create tension and to show the different emotions of the two characters to get the audience to start asking questions.

Pain -Black eye

Smiling -looking evil

Camera Shots

Another important convention that makes up a thriller opening is editing, thrillers usually use quick cuts, to make the film fast paced and more intense. However we didn't use this editing technique in our thriller opening and instead used slow long takes of our main characters which we feel creates tension and suspense of what was going to happen next which is a generic thriller convention.

Another editing technique used is fade to black which creates suspense as you don't know what is going to come up next we used this editing technique after the opening of are film before the title comes up “Good Things Come to an End” and after the title before the main part of the film starts.

EDITING

Sound is also a very important element which makes up a thriller. Different themes produce different moods. Thrillers tend to use jumpy scary music that is often high pitched e.g. screeches. Other sounds which are used to give the film their thriller genre are diegetic/ non diegetic sounds, synchronous/asynchronous sounds and ambient sounds ect.

In our thriller we used music from the beginning to link our logo into the film. We used music that stuck to the convention of the thriller genre with high pitched sounds to create tension and a scary not knowing atmosphere.

However in the main part of our film as it was at the beginning on the relationship we wanted to create a romantic atmosphere so used music which didn't create tension but in contrast was relaxing

SOUND

Mise en Scene Mise en scene contains important elements which helps add

thriller to a film and helps add suspense. We used dark lighting in the majority of our film to help give a

more gloomy mood and add suspense to a film this is a general thriller convention to have low key lighting

We also tried to concentrate on the props in our opening and used the TV to reflect the atmosphere of what was happening at the time. We see him watching boxing before his wife interrupts and he attacks her which reflects his violence. When she is on the floor Jeremy Kyle is on the TV to emphasis the family problems which are happening inside this normal home. We also put a valentines wife card in the background saying “I Love You” which is ironic as he is abusing her

Boxing

Jeremy Kyle

Valentine Card

Dark lighting