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

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

Thriller:

A thriller is a genre of media, typically in the form of film or literature, which stimulates specific moods within
the individual. These moods often include anxiety, worry or fear and aims to engage the viewer by keeping them on the edge of their seat. Thrillers usually include a storyline that follows the life of a hero that aims to take down a villain that seeks revenge. This results in the climax of the film being the point where the two meet and fight one another. They’re typically set within realistic places to make it seem like it is something that could happen in ordinary day to day life. 

Within the thriller genre there are numerous sub genres. There are many sub genres that a thriller can fit into and those sub genres depend on the content featured within the thriller. Some examples of subgenres are: 

• Religious thrillers: where the thriller is heavily religion based 
• Sci-fi thrillers: based in futuristic societies usually on other planets within space 
• Action thrillers: contain a lot of violence and often include a quest that needs to be fulfilled 
• Crime thrillers: follows the story of a detective or investigator trying to overcome issues whilst solving a crime 
• Eco thrillers: usually include characters trying to overcome a natural disaster that has occurred 
• Mystery thrillers: antagonist and protagonist competing to solve mystery 
• Romance thrillers: follow a lot of dialogue and are based in realistic settings 
• Supernatural thrillers: include supernatural elements within the thriller and are often disturbing or frightening to the viewer.  

For our thriller opening, we chose the mystery sub-genre because it included a lot of enigmas towards our child kidnapper and it creates a mystery that could be solved as the aim of our movie. As a mystery thriller, our audience will expect the mystery behind who the kidnapper is and why he is taking children and whether or not the child will be saved or if she’ll become another victim. To keep our thriller under the mystery subgenre we used specific conventions. We created an unsolved incident which will be open to be solved by a detective (the protagonist) later within the film. Our kidnapper has become the villain of our thriller and this is who the protagonist will later confront at the climax of the film when he has followed all the clues and has enough to solve the crime. We used a few fades from and into black within our piece. We used it at the beginning to make it seem like the opening was a memory to imply that this was an event that had happened previously and numerous times before. We used quick fades to black when the child is looking around at the forest to create the idea that she is growing tired and that she is hallucinating slightly due to this. These are all typical elements of a mystery thriller which we developed to suit the narrative of our movie.  

Thrillers contain specific conventions that classify thrillers as thrillers. These conventions can be categorized within the following things: 

  

•  Narrative: A hero trying to stop an evil villain who seeks revenge on the world.  Thrillers that include this sort of storyline include The Hunger Games, the villain being President Snow who forces children to fight to the death and the hero being Katniss who seeks to stop the games. 

• Lighting: Low key lighting to make a sharp contrast between light and dark. These are used in a lot of thrillers and are an important aspect of Mise-en-scene. Usually it is used to hide the identity of a certain character or hide things in the darkness. This causes a strong contrast between light and dark and can cause a lot of tension. A good example of low key lighting is the scene in Jurassic World when Owen and the raptors are searching the jungle at night to look for the Indonimous Rex that is hiding somewhere amongst the darkness and will most likely kill everyone. 

• Sound Effects: Slow, low pitch music often plays within the background to create tension. Sound effects such heavy breathing and screams are also used.  The most famous piece of soundtrack and sound effects would be that of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Within the scene a woman is taking a shower when she is suddenly stabbed to death by another woman. During this scene the music is very slow and low pitch until the victim starts being repetitively stabbed and the music erupts into loud, high pitched violin screeches which adds to the tension and fear that is being created within the sequence. The music then fades back to the slow low pitched sound it was before when the victim is dead. The music almost resembles how the victim was calm until she was stabbed and the high pitched music resembles her fear. When it returns calmly it could represent her life slowly fading away. In this scene they used sound effects to make it sound like the victim had actually been stabbed. The music in this piece is synchronous because it follows through the build up, climax and downfall of the event and diegetic sound comes from the woman who is screaming and it can be seen that she is. The music score was created specifically for this scene and it also works as incidental music. There is also a use of ambient sound for the water falling from the shower to remind the audience that she had been in a place of safety but it has been threatened. Sound bridges may also be common in thrillers when a character screams. For example in movies like Tron Legacy, though it is not a thriller, the sound of a woman screaming out her grandson's name in panic is heard through a soundbridge as we see him run away as a child and the scene cuts to him as an adult.  

• Camera: Shots avoid revealing the identity of the villain until later in the film. There are a lot of jump cuts and close up shots. Shots like the can also force the audience to look at a specific object or event that is unfolding that is either crucial to the story or that is significant to create fear within the viewer. Psycho is also a good example of this as it uses close ups of the knife to show the audience that the victim is in danger before the victim knows it themselves and it focuses a lot on the water so that the water creates some sort of significance to later when the body of the victim is dumped in a river.  

• Mise en scene: The locations are usually realistic. Locations such as forests are effective because they create the idea of isolation. Constant changing settings create the idea that the character is running away from something or someone. Props are usually quite intimidating and create fear and danger when they’re shown. Props are usually guns or knives. In Skyfall, a lot of guns are used throughout the movie. 

A thriller opening should create enigmas and mysteries that will keep the audience interested in what’s going on within the narrative and want to keep them watching. A boring, slow paced opening that doesn’t create enigmas may cause the audience to switch off or not feel the desired emotions, such as fear, within the opening. An effective thriller opening should be fast paced and suspenseful. It should create excitement within the viewer and keep them on the edge of their seats. It should create lots of enigmas so that people keep guessing what could happen and it should build the foundations for a good narrative. An example of an effective thriller is that of the 2009 Sherlock Holmes.  

This opening sequence creates many enigmas and uses a lot of typical thriller conventions. A lot of low key lighting is used which hides the identity of the majority of the characters. The low key lighting doesn’t obscure the identity of the major characters however or characters that the camera wants you to focus on for the plotline which is effective because we establish who the main characters are and the props that they’re holding which in this case are guns. It creates questions such as ‘what’s about to happen?’ and ‘why do they have these weapons?’ It establishes a range of enigmas and creates anticipation within the audience. The lighting also builds up a climax to the main character of the movie, Sherlock. By hiding his identity right until the end of the sequence, it creates excitement and wonder as to whom this character is and establishes that this is the main character overall. 

The setting is realistic though it challenges the conventions of a typical, realistic setting as it takes a location – London in this case – and reassembles it to what it was during the Victorian Era of history. However it is still very realistic in the sense of its time period. For example a foggy atmosphere links to when the Industrial Revolution took place and factories let out intense amount of pollution into London’s atmosphere. It is also a city which is effective too because it means that there is potential for a lot of danger and crime because it is so heavily populated. The many back alleys and passage ways make for good hiding spots for danger and so overall the location and setting can create a lot of fear and tension.  The characters themselves’ are also wearing clothing of that period which help to add to the realism of the scene. We can establish the social classes of each of the characters too, because clothing during the Victorian period was a symbol of your social class. We can also recognise some of the jobs that these characters do, for example it is clear that the people within the carriage are part of the police.  

The narrative within the opening resembles that of a crime thriller. It is evident from the costumes and props that it is the police that are currently running to the scene of a crime. It establishes the foundations to a crime thriller because it shows that a crime has been committed or is being committed and so that means there will be some form of villain within the story that our hero will have to face.  

The sound effects used are also typical of a thriller. Before the action begins the music is very slow and low pitched, creating what feels like a sense of ‘calm before the storm’. Diegetic noises such as the sound of horses’ hooves and carriages passing by help to establish a calm atmosphere.  When the carriage passes by, the music starts to rise in pitch and begins to slowly become more fast paced which helps to develop excitement and anticipation for what is coming at the climax of this scene.  

The camera follows the moving carriage throughout the whole sequence and by doing this it creates the feeling that the carriage is going incredibly fast which implies the sense of emergency. It therefore creates enigmas towards the crime and how severe it must be or if they’re trying to catch the person who’s in the middle of committing it. It also creates the same effect when it follows Sherlock throughout the scene. It cuts quickly between the police carriage and Sherlock which almost appears like a dual narrative, showing that the police have assembled together to solve the crime from Scotland Yard and Sherlock has come from elsewhere with the same intentions but by himself. It denotes a bit of Sherlock’s characteristics and how he never directly worked for Scotland Yard and for Lestrade though Watson did involve himself a bit more and that is why he is with the police. There are a lot of close ups to props such as guns and the characters readying their guns which implies that what they’re about to find is a threat and that they are going to need protection whilst they confront their villain.  

All of these conventions combine together to make an incredibly effective thriller opening that keeps the viewer on the edge of their seats and creates many enigmas as to what is going on and what they’re about to face. It establishes the foundations of a crime thriller and starts to build a storyline within the first minute of the movie. It is very fast paced and uses typical music and sound effects of a thriller to grow anticipation. 

There are numerous thrillers that inspired our thriller. We looked at a variety of thrillers and each of us found similar thrillers that we combined influences from to create the idea for our thriller.

One of the inspirations was BBC’s Sherlock Holmes the Hounds of Baskerville episode. This followed the story of a gigantic hound that haunts a nearby forest and kills the father of a small child, named Henry, who tries to escape the forest and is too afraid to return to it because he is so traumatized by the event. This helped to influence the idea of filming within a forest because they’re incredibly isolated. Anything can be hiding or can be hidden within a forest and victims can be far away from any sign of civilization which could save them. Within this episode, the characters become isolated by themselves and cornered by the threat of what they thinks is the hound and the actual killer of Henry’s father. 

In our thriller we used a forest location to isolate our victim with our antagonist. The forest acts like a maze that our victim can get lost within and eventually become caught in. In a forest it’d be easy for the victim to become lost or to run into other dangers. 

Another thriller that inspired us was Taken. Taken is a thriller movie about a father whose daughter is taken and he has to rescue her. The daughter is essentially the victim of the movie and her capturers are the antagonists. This influenced our thriller because we thought that it would be particularly effective on an audience that have children because it seems to be more upsetting if a child goes missing rather than an adult. In our thriller we used a very young child to be the victim of our opening. We thought maybe this would be more effective than using an older victim because they’re more vulnerable and they’re innocent. We also incorporated other, real cases of children’s missing cases to make it sound like other children have gone missing and their parents have desperately tried to find out where they are and are telling them that they want them to come home soon.  

Conventions in our thriller 

Our thriller opening uses a lot of these conventions. Within our thriller opening, we used a range of props that insinuate danger. We used props such as rope and a water bottle which is supposed to represent chloroform. These are both threatening props because the rope can be used to strangle a victim and the chloroform can knock them out. By showing these props at the beginning of the opening it insinuates that the villain has bad intentions and that the child is in a lot of danger.  So this will create fear and nervousness within the audience at the beginning of the thriller and creates enigmas which make them question what is going to happen to the child when she’s captured. 

Other thrillers that use props to show that children will be in danger is The Hunger Games. The characters begin at the start of the games by running towards a weapons haul so that they can pick and choose weaponry they find best to later murder the children they're up against in the arena. 

Our thriller opening’s storyline introduces a villain into the equation after committing a crime which in this case is kidnapping. This is typical of a thriller because it means that a ‘hero’ can be introduced later into the film that will ultimately save the day. This also is what makes our thriller a mystery thriller because a mystery thriller is categorised as having a villain that has committed a crime and a hero that has to solve the mystery of these crimes and stop the villain from committing anymore. By introducing the villain and showing him committing a crime, it creates lots of enigmas for the audience such as who this person is stalking the girl and why he is.   

An example of a thriller that we can compare this to is Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows. Sherlock Holmes is introduced as the hero of the movie and he has to defeat the villain of the movie, Moriarty. Sherlock Holmes searches for clues throughout the movie and tries to solve mysteries and clues to find out who and where Moriarty is after he attacks John Watson and his Wife and has committed crimes relating to bombing. Ultimately Moriarty is defeated by Sherlock by jumping off Reichenbach Falls with him.

The setting and location is typical of a thriller movie as well. Typically within thrillers the setting is usually isolated or desolate. It is cut off the real world so that the victim of the film is on their own and has to fend for themselves against the antagonist. We chose a forest because it is incredibly isolated. Forests are huge and it is easy to become lost within them or trapped or even injured by the forest alone. By doing this we felt it would create the most response out of the audience because they will see our victim get easily lost within the forest and it will cause them to worry for her as she tries to seek out help or a way out of the maze of trees. It also creates the sense of claustrophobia because the child is surrounded by the large volume of trees around her and the more she runs deeper into the forest it creates the sense that more trees are surrounding her and she is becoming further and further lost in the woods and further away from safety.  

An example of this in a real thriller is Psycho. The victim is murdered in Bates Motel which is somewhere isolated but also somewhere to be thought of as being safe. It creates the idea of claustrophobia too because it brings about the idea of entrapment because the guest of the hotel is not the only person that can get into a room and has keys to be able to get in.  

Our props are typical of a thriller film because most of them are lethal and deadly. Two of the props that we used fell under those categories. The first prop was a bottle of liquid and a cloth. Though in actual fact the liquid was just water, because it would be against health and safety regulations to use the actual liquid it was supposed to represent, it was meant to look as if the antagonist had a bottle of chloroform that he was going to use to cause our victim to become unconscious when he captures her. The second prop we used was a piece of rope that he would fiddle with in his hands. This would create the connotation that he was either going to strangle his victim to death with the rope or that he was going to tie her up. Both of these props imply a great deal of danger to the victim. Rope is a restraining piece of material that can be used to prevent something from running away and keeping them in a certain place or for deadlier matters such as strangling or hanging a human to death. Chloroform is a liquid that can make one become unconscious which is very dangers because it means that anything can be done to them without them feeling any pain or being aware that it is happening because they are completely out. Some people, particularly historians, may also be aware that small dosage of the liquid can result in just a person becoming unconscious but a slightly larger dosage can actually kill a person.  

The camerawork also follows typical conventions of a thriller. We used a lot of close ups and over the shoulder shots to prevent revealing the identity of our villain. This allowed enigmas to be created as to the identity of our villain and why he is doing such things. It also means that when characters are later introduced into the movie, people will become suspicious of each of the characters introduced and start to become engaged with the film's story as they try and figure out themselves who is actually behind all of the missing children cases. We also used close ups on our victim. We did this so the fear and panic that she was feeling could be shown through her facial expressions and be made obvious to the audience. By doing this they start to sympathise with the victim and it could possibly trigger the audience themselves to also feel panicked or scared. By showing the emotions of the characters,  it establishes the atmosphere and intended emotions within the audience. Extreme close ups were also used within our sequence because it brings the audience uncomfortably close to specific details within a shot and it makes the shot more dramatic.  

We used a lot of longshots within our sequence too, especially when we panned the camera, so that we can see the victim running away and show the antagonist lurking somewhere within the background. These longshots allowed us to show the victim running through the forest and showing the audience that the forest is hard to navigate and there is no clear way in or our what so ever within the scenes. Composition wise, she took up a small amount of the rule of thirds whilst the forest trees dominated the composition. This emphasized the victim's vulnerability and innocence because she appeared so small and she was surrounded by something that was overwhelming her. When we panned the camera we used a tripod whilst doing so so that the camera's movements were smooth through the clip. By panning too it allows to smoothly show the character moving through the forest without having to constantly change the clip to a new segment of the forest to show her clearly moving throughout it.  

Typically of a thriller movie, the clips and footage is edited in a fast pace. And so when we edited our piece we made sure that the clips within our product were kept short so that we could quickly cut between them and create a fast pace. By creating a fast pace with our product, it creates suspense and action. It also reflects how quickly the victim is trying to escape from the antagonist as she tries her best to run away from him. Being fast paced, it makes the opening feel exciting and engaging because so much is going on and it is only the beginning of the film. A lot can happen within these short moments so it also enables us to set up enigmas and the foundations of the story for our thriller. We kept our footage as raw as possible and kept the lighting within the piece as natural as possible. We used bare minimum visual effects and the ones we did use were just basic pan/crop edits to create the hazed appearance on the trees and levels to help balance out the brightness within the product.  

Other thrillers that use fast paced editing with short clips is Godzilla when Godzilla faces the two Mutos. The fight is violent and a lot is happening so there are a lot of fast past quick shots that make the fight look more exciting and shows that there is a lot going on. These clips especially work well at this pace when it is obvious that Godzilla has begun to bleed and the two Mutos have started to overwhelm Godzilla.  

Our titles and font selections also are typical of thrillers. Thriller fonts usually reflect the themes or style of the movie's storyline. For example, the Se7en opening adopted a handwritten font which resembles how the antagonist in the film creates books of his victims. And the thriller movie Taken uses a thick, grungy red font because it links into governmental influence in the film. We chose to use a handwritten font as our title because we were inspired by the way the antagonist from Se7en records data of his victims which is similar to what our stalker in our product does with his. So we used it on the names of the crew members and the title of the thriller to make it appear like the antagonist had written it himself and help to link it into the thriller's story. It also further suggests an idea that there are multiple victims. For production company jobs, we used a more formal font to differentiate them from the names within the opening sequence. 

In conclusion, our thriller uses a lot of typical conventions for a thriller such as low key lighting and face paced editing. But it also develops and challenges conventions because we used a much younger victim in our product when usually the victim is of a much older age. By doing this it had a more emotional impact on our audience.