Evaluation AS 1

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

Looking at the generic conventions of a thriller, I was able to pick up on the blonde female victim. I noticed that blonde female victims are religiously used within thrillers down from the 1960’s to this present day and I believe this is because blondes are stereotyped to be this vulnerable, unintelligent and easy target type. Psycho, Scream 2, Human Centipede and Jaws are some examples of the films in which I have witnessed a female blonde victim being used, these are successful thrillers. Also by including the vulnerable blonde victim, it shows my clear understanding of how thrillers work in order to create and set the scene, therefore my group and I felt it would be a good decision to make our victim a blonde female.

Another feature that my group and I took inspiration from is in Shutter Island where the main character is wondering around what appears to be an abandoned underground place, there is the sound of a heartbeat which had been to be over exaggerated as it emphasises the fear and emotion that the character is feeling. Therefore we felt this would be good to include in our opening sequence because it shows that our character is feeling scared and as a result of this, engages our audience as they feel sympathetic towards the character. By placing this use of non-diegetic sound in this particular part of our opening sequence, it heightens the theme of fear and helps towards creating shock, surprise and suspense. 

Looking at iconography, I was able to see that typically, knives are a used throughout a lot of thrillers. I have seen them being used in Psycho, Scream 2 and various other well-known films. This use of iconography helps us to establish the theme of it being a thriller and enforces to the audience that there is something wrong going to happen and once again created shock, surprise and suspense. For example in my opening sequence we have used a knife, this can be seen when the killer first enters the vulnerable house and goes to the draw to pick up the knife. The impact of this on the audience creates a sense of tension and danger in the atmosphere so the audience become more cautious with what events could happen within the opening sequence.

Another generic convention of a thriller is the location used within thrillers that I noticed is a house. For example, in films such as Paranormal Activity, Halloween Town, Scream 2 and The Strangers and many more there is the element of reality to the films as it makes the audience feel vulnerable. This is because the 'home' is scene as a safety net, and so by showing a scary scenario makes the audience feel anxious towards the film and their safety in their homes, showing that this element is used successfully. Therefore, I felt that if my group and I was to use this idea in our opening sequence, it would help my group and I to create a successful thriller because our characters are everyday people who own homes which relates to the audience because they are the same, as a result of this our audience will be more likely to get the three elements of shock, surprise and suspense. 

One other generic convention of a thriller that my group and I have used is low key lighting. Low key lighting can be seen in films such as Saw 2, A Time To Kill, Scream 2, Paranormal Activity, Shutter Island and many more. These films are successful thrillers that explore the effects of low key lighting and therefore I was eager to include this within my opening sequence as I felt it would be a hit and create the audience to feel shock, surprise and suspense as well as becoming expectant of something bad to happen as a low key lighting creates an eerie atmosphere and a sense of foreboding.

Lastly, I was able to see that another generic convention of a thriller is the editing. It can be seen in films such as Paranormal Activity and Saw 4 which use handheld camera. This makes the scene seem unstable and out of control which can be seen as a metaphor for how the characters are feeling in this type and the state of their mind at this point in the film. Therefore, my group and I was very enthusiastic towards including hand held camera within my opening sequence as it allows the audience feel that there is an unstable atmosphere creating the audience to feel uneasy and panicked. This helps contribute towards the shock, surprise and suspense of my opening sequence.

Out of all of the above listed thrillers, as a group we decided upon likening our thriller to Scream 2. We felt that our opening sequence tied into Scream 2 the most because it contains many different and unique inspirations, so therefore we wanted to include them into our own opening sequence and be able to show our understanding of the effective techniques by using them and changing them in our opening sequence in order to show what skills we have learnt and how our research has helped us to produce a fantastic final product.