How does my media product develop or challenge

HOW DOES MY MEDIA PRODUCT DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS

OF CONVENTIONS

GENRE

The main conventions of the genre are shown through the narrative of the films. They are also shown through the use of the themes. The genre of my film is a Psychological Thriller and they often have a main character who has a psychological illness. From looking at many well known films in my research I found that among the themes within the genre there is a psychological illness, death and mourning, social commentary, suspicion, action packed, violent and the transition between reality and imagination.

Our plot shows these conventions because the main character has a psychological illness which is schizophrenia and switches between a state of reality and imagination for example when he knows he has to find the killer of his son but then can imagine him there and can still see him.

4. RELEASE DATE

• On all types of trailers the releases date of the film or ‘Coming soon’ is presented near the end of the trailer to inform the audience when the film will be out in cinemas,.

• In ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’ trailer at the very end the last shot that is shown is the one in the upper picture. This Cleary shows the date in which the film will be in cinemas.

• In ‘Lunacy’ the release date has been shown at the end of the trailer also, in a large and bold font, so it can be easily seen and hopefully remembered.

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Lunacy

2. A PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDER

• In all Psychological thriller films there is always one main character who is suffering with a psychological disorder. In most films these characters do not realise they have this disorder until near the end of the film.

• For example in ‘A beautiful Mind’ the main character has schizophrenia but doesn’t realise until most of the events that he caused has happened. In this part of the film (in the image) he doesn’t realise that he is having a hallucination, as the character in the image with him is not actually real.

• In my trailer ‘Lunacy’ the main character ‘Simon’ also has schizophrenia, but doesn’t realise until he is diagnosed later on in the film. This disorder also makes ‘Simon’ see his dead son and in the image on the right shows when ‘Simon’ is also in a hallucination.

• To the right you can see that he is writing on a wall to work out who killed his son.

A Beautiful Mind

Lunacy

3. NARRATIVE OF A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

• One convention is that the protagonist is mostly unsure about what is happening in the narrative of the trailer, and through the disequilibrium we can see that he is trying to puzzle together information and clues events that happen throughout the film.

• In ‘A beautiful Mind’ this happens when the protagonist is working out a math calculation which gives clues towards his delusions.

• In ‘The Number 23’ the protagonist is also working in a particular location and from the image is doing calculations to work something out on the wall.

• In ‘Lunacy’ I have tried to do the same where the protagonist is working who murdered his daughter. He does this located in his work shed and is composing calculations and maps to try to work this out.

A Beautiful Mind

Lunacy

The Number 23

6. PROTAGONIST’S CLOTHING

• It is conventional for a psychological thriller for the protagonist to be wearing dark, messy clothing when they are in the worst parts of there disorder.

• For example in ‘The Number 23’ when the protagonist is at the worst time he seems to be wearing all black clothing, this seems to highlight a pale face in contrast and signifies illness.

• In ‘lunacy’ the protagonist is also wearing fully black clothes when he has the breakdown. This also shows a more pale face to show a contrast and the illness.

The Number 23

Lunacy

7. DEATH

• In all Psychological Thriller’s the protagonist normally goes into a mental state with their condition and murders another character.

• For example in ‘The Number 23’ the main character is shown to be in a delusion and wants to kill someone, using props like a knife.

• I followed this conventional in my trailer as I used a knife and we see ‘Simon’ go on a mission to kill someone. We also find out that he was the one who killed his daughter.

The Number 23

Lunacy

8. USE OF PROPS

• It is conventional to reveal some tension based props in a psychological thriller for example in ‘Memento’ many props are used especially a gun, knife, letters and other weapons. The letters show the identity as part of another convention to Psychological thrillers.

• I used this convention in my trailer because I mainly used a knife to be the main weapon which is seen as dangerous and that then allowed the protagonist to have power over other characters and be seen also as dangerous.

Memento

Lunacy

9. SHOWING THE EQUILIBRIUM, DISEQUILIBRIUM BUT NOT REVEALING THE

REVOLUTION

• For the form of a trailer it is conventional to show parts of the equilibrium, the disequilibrium but not the

resolution. The equilibrium is shown to introduce characters and the narrative of the film. The

disequibrium to show the main action of the trailer which would draw the audiences attention and allow

the tension to be raised. The resolution is not revealed because then this makes the audience want to go see

the film at the cinema to find out what happens. • I followed this convention because I didn’t expose the

resolution which ends the trailer on a cliff hanger which would make the audience want to see this film.

10. SPECIAL EFFECTS

• It is conventional to add special effects to a Psychological Thriller. This is normally the way the producers convey the Psychological thriller to the audience, for instance in ‘A Beautiful Mind’ the protagonist has schizophrenia and his delusion is being shown through the skills of the special effects as you can see in the picture to the right, numbers are being put across the shot to show that the numbers on the board are jumping out in front of him. Unfortunately we didn’t have the technology to produce this kind of special effects and wasn’t able follow this convention, so we tried to convey the disorder in other ways.

A Beautiful Mind

5. TAGLINE

• It is normally unconventional to have a tagline within the trailer of a psychological thriller, I didn’t follow this convention and added a tagline to my trailer. I did this because I thought that the trailer was lacking something to add tension and more excitement, to add a tagline it made sense as this made the trailer more suspicious and would more likely get the audience to be more interested with wanting to see the trailer.

Lunacy

1. INSTITUTIONAL INFORMATION

• Any trailer of any genre will always show some form of institutional information.

• For example this Psychological Thriller trailer ‘The Number 23’ the ‘Newline Cinema’ logo is presented at the beginning of the trailer to attract the audience and to inform them that this film has been produced by a well known institution which could induce them into wanting to watch it.

• My trailer ‘Lunacy’ has not followed this convention, this is because we didn’t have time to create a production companies logo, in which we didn’t quite need.

The Number 23 trailer

Lunacy’s trailer