Evaluation Question 1

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

Our final product follows many generic conventions associated with our chosen Crime Thriller Sub genre as many aspects that we focused on seemed to fit into the same style as the films we looked at during our research stage of the process. For example, we decided to edit the colors of the opening shots from normal colors to black and white which we believed added a more sinister appearance as there is no color in the shots which may connote that there is no life around. It also helps signify a different time phase as the clips were in the past as they were previous victims so this old fashioned style may depict this. We also decided on this as it followed some conventions used in well known thrillers, such as 'Savages' as this begins with a black and white edit to show a different time line.

The sound we decided to use also followed the idea of a Crime Thriller as it is rather mellow and the words used are parallel to the images on screen as they talk about death whilst the images show a dead couple and a psychopath. According to our audience feedback the chosen music helped to indicate what style of film they were watching which also helps them get into the mindset of a Crime Thriller. There was only one song used throughout the entire opening however once a character began to speak the sound of the music minimized allowing the audience to focus on the dialogue rather than the music. 

Our style of opening credits are also well associated with some hollywood thrillers including 'Se7en' which begins with a psychopath preparing himself for his next murder with breaks between each shot revealing the names of the actors and actresses involved in the film, which is where we got our inspiration as we believed that this style of opening helps to spread shots which adds to the suspense right from the beginning which is a typical convention for a thriller film as the audience must be thrilled from the beginning. 

Our opening also included our production company intro which is traditional for all film openings as it presents what company they are working with and who helped them create their film, which is why we decided to show it at the begin.

However, after looking through our chosen movies for research we decided to go against the idea of beginning with an actual murder taking place or an action scene to begin with, as we decided to begin with a slow pace which set the scene for the film as it shows a previously murdered couple so this shows that this may be thriller as they do not know how they died or why. By simply doing this we go against some conventions within Thriller films as we have missed the actual murder taking place which is not usual in most thriller films, but we chose ours as we believed that it would also intrigue the audience as they will begin asking questions, as they will create an enigma to start with. 

We also decided to try and develop a particular convention within some thriller openings, again like 'Se7en', which was having pictures of the killers victims within the first few scenes as it creates a better understanding of the villain as the audience are able to know about what he has previously done and know that he is a very dangerous person. Our film opening consists of the killer crossing off his 4th victim whilst 'Se7en' also shows pictures of the killers victims.

Another way that we followed conventions of other thriller movies was the way that we used camera angles and lighting. We had used a wide range of camera angles to give different portrayals of characters, whilst following a key aspect of most thriller movies which was the use of close ups to enhance the characters facial expressions and add importance to certain aspects, as well as low angles to show the characters importance within the frame. We also used a pan of the family pictures which then led onto a shot of 5 pictures on a wall which gave a connection between the shots as they both include images that are important to someone, and this connotes that Rick is the antagonist right from the start. The lighting that we had chosen was especially chosen for the scenario as we had to try and portray Rick as a sinister man with darkness within him , therefore the choice of a single filament light on the floor was ideal as it gave a much more menacing look about him. However we went against some generic conventions of a thriller movie as the normal use of cameras in most thrillers is that they sneak around the rooms to show that something is hidden and something could happen, yet we chose to we open with our shots with no movement as we wanted our audience to clearly see what had happened but not reveal too much. 



According to our audience feedback, the way that we had portrayed our film, they were able to understand that they were watching a crime thriller, which is exactly what we had hoped for as we know that our film is portraying exactly what we want.