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

Our opening scene incorporates many generic thriller conventions, these can be identified as:

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  Creating Enigma - The opening the scene raises many questions, that will be answered throughout the film and maybe not even until right up to the end. This is an aspect which I have noticed in many films and we felt it is very effective.

Click here to seem some examples of enigma in our opening.

We were influenced by other titles in the genre and after our research and analysis on thriller films in the planning log I found many thriller traits and we decided to include the ones we felt were most effective but at the same time we didn't want to conform to one style. At the time of our planning other groups, in our media class, had decided to conform to the "stalker" plot but we said to our selves "why can't we do something a bit different?" which is what a few thrillers have done, such as "Memento", "L.A. Confidential"and "Sin City".

Enigma in other thrillers (Click to see enlarged version):

• Partly Establishes a Shadowy Atmosphere - A conventional thriller will create a dark and shadowy atmosphere, in places we have used shadowy scenes but we have also tried to create a dramatic scene without conforming too much to the main conventions. This is because for our opening we wanted the audience to be able to see and get an understanding of the characters emotions and atmosphere, that way they can understand what is going on. In scenes that are too dark and shadowy sometimes the characters face may be obscured, this is good for a stalker or killer plot but we felt for our plot we needed the viewers to fully interpret the characters emotions.

Some shadowy scenes have still been included in our plot, these scenes make sure the atmosphere doesn't become too bright and change the mood.


As you can see we normally split the scenes lighting in to two halves for maximum effect, either:

DARK background LIGHT foreground

LIGHT background DARK foreground

• Plot Structure fits Thriller Conventions - Even though we have tried to do something different in other aspects of our filming, the storyline is one that fits in to many thriller conventions.
  

- There is a fight versus Justice and Injustice (The younger brother wants justice for his older brother, even though his methods may turn out to cause injustice to others)
- We have included a lot of suspense and have tried to make it as dramatic as possible without becoming unrealistic (Realism is a key factor that we feel makes our plot effective)

This makes our plot a hybrid of the thriller genre, we would classify it as the sub-genre " Psychological/Drama/Action Thriller".


We think the movie Changing Lanes has a similar plot line to ours, as the character wants justice but goes about it the wrong way using harsh methods.