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

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

A thriller is a novel, play or film with an exciting plot, typically involving crime or espionage. There are many subgenres and hybrid thrillers as shown below:

Our thriller is based on a psychological thriller with elements of action. Before making our thriller we carried out research on our target audience. We found out that the target audience of a psychological thriller is mainly men aged between 15-35 because younger children may find the storyline scary. Also due to our thriller having elements of action in it we believe it is aimed more towards men. Action films are aimed at men due to the genre including cars and fighting which interests men more than women. We chose to incorporate action into our thriller after watching 'Cape Fear' which was a big influence for our thriller. 'Cape Fear' includes a car and a chase which are common elements found in an action film, we used a car in our thriller because it created a setting which is common but can also show abandonment.

The setting in a psychological thriller is usually in a city or inside a building, not however in the countryside as it can be confused with horror films. However we decided as our thriller wouldn't have worked inside a house we would film in a very open space, because as well as showing abandonment it also shows the victim to be in an unknown environment and so is at great risk of not being able to find her way back. Also the setting allowed us to, as well as use a quiet road, put the child in a common situation. This makes our thriller more eerie because it shows how bad things can happen in the most common situations

The costume in a psychological thriller is dependent on the part being played. The antagonist typically wears smart clothes and the colour scheme for the costume is usually dark. We decided we would use this convention in our thriller; therefore the antagonist in our thriller is wearing dark trousers and a black jacket. Dark clothing signifies danger, suspicion and mystery and so we decided to use this convention to show the antagonist to be someone who shouldn't be trusted.

The actor who played the antagonist, Danny, wore a black coat

However the victim, who in our thriller was a young girl, is shown to be wearing a white dress, which shows purity, but has a dark coat over it. This foreshadows that her purity is going to be taken away and although she is pure someone could take that away from her. In psychological thrillers however the victim is usually wearing bright colours, however because we wanted to show the foreshadowing we decided to adapt this idea to show how the victim could change from being the conventional pure child to someone else.

Our thriller was filmed in the early morning at around 7am, which gave us morning darkness. We chose to film at this time because the morning darkness was more eerie and easier to work with than filming at night. In a typical thriller the lighting is usually dark with street lamps to lighten the shots. The darkness in contrast with the street lamps can allow the film to use shadow to create tension and atmosphere. However we decided to film when it was lighter because, as well as the lighting being difficult to control, it also allowed the viewer to get a perspective from the back of the car when our antagonist runs past. This allows the story to commence and also adds tension because the viewer has seen something that the characters have not.

Prop are usually a main aspect in a psychological thriller as they are normally used to create clues and foreshadow what will happen during the film. These clues are used to keep the audience thinking and engaged. I believe the most important prop in our thriller is the teddy bear, as it shows the youth of the victim and how vulnerable she is. The teddy also is a reoccurring object which is referenced throughout our thriller opening, it is shown in flashbacks to keep reminding the viewer of the youth of the child and also due to it being shown at the begin of the opening it also foreshadows what will happen and so is a clue which keeps the audience engaged to find out what the importance of it is. Therefore with the idea of props we used the normal conventions linked to a psychological thriller.

High tension music or eerie sounds are commonly used in a psychological thriller. Instead of using the convention of either having eerie sounds or high tension music, we decided to incorporate the two. To do this we asked the Nayana (who played the child) to sing 'ring around the roses' in an eerie way, with a sudden rise in tension at the end. To create this sudden tension we asked for Nayana to sing the nursery rhyme very slowly and as she nearer the end to get louder. To make this soundtrack more tension filled on the final time she said 'down!' she drops the teddy, to show an end to the reoccurring reminder of her youth.

Finally it is common for the editing in thriller films to be fast as it creates tension and makes the audience suspect something is wrong. Our editing was simple but effective in the way we used it. One conventional aspect we used through editing was the use of flashbacks, we edited our opening to keep cutting back and forth between one prop (a teddy) this was used as a reminder of the past and what changes throughout the opening and was a visual clue as to what would happen during the opening scene.