Q1. In what ways does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

Nikitha Manthena

Use of conventions

Our media product uses generic conventions as most thrillers are seen to have guns, shooting and blood within it to make it more gory and give the viewers a thrill whilst watching it. As we have a shooting scene and you see the dead body and the blood and hear another gun shot where the audience supposedly thinks someone else has been killed, it therefore uses conventions.

Development of conventions

Our thriller also develops these conventions, when you watch our opening you wouldn’t suspect it to be a thriller, you would only know because we have said so, therefore our film builds and develops a story to create a slot for there to be a gory scene to make it a thriller. Which shows how our film has developed the convention as the entire opening is revolved around that shooting scene and the thrill of it, hence shows development.

Challenges of conventions

Our thriller also challenges the convention as no one actually dies and in reality there is no blood and gore; because it was all just a dream. This challenges the convention as none of that happened and it was all the protagonist’s imagination, therefore it plays around with audience and tries to make them think its real and be shocked, when they find out after that it was only a dream and nothing happened.

Sub-genre

The use of conventions indicate that our thriller is a sub-genre of spy-thriller. The conventions of this is mainly linked with the props and the behaviour of the protagonist. There are other generic conventions that indicate the spy type genre such as special and hi-tech gadgets used within the film such as the protagonist special and unusual bracelet, her ipad and computer. Also her behaviour is secretive and everything she does or says is supposed to be hidden which also shows this.

The Usual Suspects My thriller opening

Darker setting

Conversation between the shooter and protagonist.

Lighter setting

No conversation between the shooter and protagonist.

Builds suspense of shooter

Heartbeat and flat line as background soundtrack

Musical background soundtrack

All characters wearing formal clothing

Shooter wearing formal clothing only, victim wearing informal clothing.

Gun shot

Hidden identity

Non diegetic sound

Low angle shotShooter

wears dark clothing

We compared our thriller to another thriller called “The Usual Suspects”, we watched the opening and found the similarities and differences and put it into a Venn diagram in class, after jotting down our opinions we turned to our groups and discussed what other things fell into those categories that we didn’t mention.

Thriller Conventions

This is a generic thriller convention as most thrillers have guns in it to give the audience a thrill when someone is about to and has been killed. Also associate with the spy-thriller genre as guns would be the main prop.

This is a generic thriller convention as dead bodies are key. They create the fear and worry that the audience feel. There are many dead bodies in spy movies as the good guy has to kill all the bad guys for example, so this goes along the lines of the spy-thriller genre.

This plays the convention as everything was just a dream and it was a big twist. Thrillers usually use twists and turns to make the film more interesting. There are many film that use dreams as a twist towards the end to shock the audience that it was fake, an example could be breaking dawn part 2.

Opening Sequence conventions

This convention shows that Saroop is a weaker person than Alessia as she will be taking his position within the firm, and as you can see he is knocking on Alessia’s door asking if he could come in which shows she is in power.

This shows us that Alessia is the stronger character as everyone is up on their feet to shake her hand and congratulate her for winning the big case. This also shows her power within the firm and she seems somewhat popular and people are trying to get on her good side, because she will be their boss someday.

This subverts the thriller convention as you can see a lady killing people and you see the lady to be the bad guy with the gun. Normally y would see a man do those things as it is seen as a masculine activity, therefore this convention is subverted.