Question 1

1. QUESTION 1: IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

2. Upon doing research on thriller conventions, we learnt the stereotypical ingredients to make a thriller opening. Thriller openings primarily consist of three things, suspense, tension and wonder. Audiences are meant to be hooked from the beginning, making them want to watch on, and see what happens throughout the duration of the thriller. Our main goal when creating our thriller was to adhere to these conventions and make the viewer want to watch on, to find out what the story is. Conventions of thrillers

3. For example the physcological thriller, from which we took the most inspiration for our thriller from, Gone Girl, includes many techniques to keep the viewers watching on. An eerily set of music and a close up of the protagonist Amy, looking beautifully seductive, accompanied by the apparent antagonist Nick Dunne saying I picture cracking her lovely skull the immediate contrast between what the viewer is seeing and what they are hearing is something most directors of thriller films try to capture, us included.

4. The Gone Girl Opening I Aforementioned

5. For example in the film Reservoir Dogs directed by Martin Scorsese, the iconic scene in where a character is getting his ear gruesomely cut off, there is light- hearted music on in the background with words like Here I am stuck in the middle with you. This majorly contrasts what is portrayed on scene as we see the character holding the others ear, covered in blood. The contrast with the soundtrack to what is happening is something special and thought provoking that is used in horrors and something we wanted to capture in our thriller also.

6. Reservoir Dogs Opening Scene

7. By following these special, but conventional techniques from typical thrillers with regards to soundtracks, we were able to keep the tension and creepy atmosphere, despite what was shown on screen. For example when the montage full of happy memories that the couple in the thriller have shared is playing, the creepy and haunting music that was playing subtly in the beginning of the thriller remains playing, to hint at the underlying problem and also contrast what is playing on the screen. This creates a feeling of unease, and that despite the happy times there is horror to come.

8. Our media product also develops forms and conventions of thriller films, as it leaves a lot up to the viewer to decipher. Most thriller films have to leave the viewer in suspense throughout, to keep them entertained and enticed. We have chosen to do this in our thriller as most thrillers do this, however we have took it one step further as the voiceover in our film really adds suspense with our protagonist saying this like Is this what weve become? at the end of our opening. By leaving the end of the opening on a rhetorical question, it leads the viewer wondering what will happen for the duration of the thriller. And already, by using the use of voiceovers to leave a lot open to interpretation, the viewer is experiencing the same thoughts and emotions as the protagonist is throughout.

9. Black Widow Scene

10. We chose to use a voiceover to get the effect of knowing the character more personally, being able to hear the emotion through her voice and understand how shes feeling. By having this uncertainty, and not making it clear in our opening we leave the reader to think, has she killed her lover or is she merely plotting to kill him? This is exactly the kind of reaction thriller openings want to create from their openings, hence why we decided it would be much more suited to leave our opening as an unanswered question, as opposed to our original idea of making it clear that she had killed her lover. If wed have gone with this option, it would have limited where the story could go from the opening,

11. However since we decided to leave the question more unanswered, this allows us to have many potential plotlines; perhaps she has killed him and will go on to kill more men, perhaps she is delusional and hasnt killed him, perhaps she has cheated on him and it has made her go insane. The unlimited possibilities of options where to go with the plot from here meant that we had a clear vision when making and editing our thriller, where we wanted to go with the narrative, and how we wanted to develop conventions of thrillers, such as the uncertainty of what will happen. We chose to have no clear difference between what is reality and what is the protagonists imagination, it could have

12. It is definitely arguable that through this narration, it is an unreliable perception of her views on her lover and if we had been told the story from his perspective, things may be completely different, and perhaps more creepy as he is constantly living in fear of the unknown, and what his lover may do to him should she found out about his infidelities

13. We chose to have the story told from the perspective of the woman, as we felt that females in thrillers arent represented as much as males, and we wanted to challenge this majority. Female Perspective

14. For example, the film The Woman In Black has a leading male character, Daniel Radcliffe, who discovers the mystery surrounding The Woman In Black by himself, with no help from females throughout the film.

15. Females, when they do appear in thriller films, are perceived as dumb and ditsy being the first to be taken away, or killed however in our thriller the woman (whilst perceived as manipulative and evil) is also shown to be clever and witty with her plot to kill her lover.

Question 1

Education

thriller conventions

thriller openings

physcological thriller

conventions of thriller

directors of thriller

conventions of thrillers

iconic scene

media product use