Question 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Similar genres/ sub-genres; Espionnage, crime.

Audience’s expectations;

· minor key music, death, old era

· Conventions; low angled shots, minor key music, time relevant mise-en-scene i.e.; cars, clothing etc.

Inspired and influenced by: double indemnity ( character roles/themes/era), tinker tailor solder spy ( costume/themes/characters) The liability ( car scene) Quentin Tarantino (music/editing)

We were set the task of creating the opening to a thriller, with a sub-genre of our choice. We tried to create a dystopian view of the Second World War. We gave the audience the point of view from both the victim and the killer. The thriller conventions that we used were not stereotypical conventions of an average thriller. We tried to break these conventions in order to surprise our audience even more and to have a new take on the genre, our opening has been quite heavily influenced my films directed by Quentin Tarantino, such as pulp fiction and Kill Bill.

We developed from the modern music mixed with violence we heard in Quentin Tarantinos films and used a similar idea and style in our media film. Our thriller opening is inspired by the music choices in these films because although they didn’t fit in with the music people would expect to hear, in the genre of thriller or crime, the music still emphasised the mood and the themes in the film. The music we used in our thriller helped to build and emphasise the mood by the main chorus overlapping with the action, of the victim being strangled.

Thrillers can be defined as being a realistic film or play usually based around crime; typically thrillers involve a death of a character, death could then lead into a subgenre of a mystery, forensic or crime thriller. Most thrillers are set in big cities or well-known places people could relate to. Other subgenres of thrillers are:

Our thriller is based on the sub-genre of espionage and crime; we were also hoping to create a post-modern genre similar to the films created by Quentin Tarantino. By using music that would not usually be associated with the thriller genre we have tried to re-create a similar theme as we have seen in many of Tarantinos’ films. Although the music we used, Non Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf, did not fit in with the stereotypical music used or expected to be heard in a thriller we still made the strong beat and French lyrics fit, I think the timing of when we started the music. We synced the music with the visual action of harry starting the car, the radio tunes in as the car starts, the music also begins when the main action in the opening happens. We The main reason the music worked was because it is so powerful, it also fit the theme of our thriller being set in France as the whole song is sung in French.

Conventions:

· Duel Narrative

· Flashbacks

· Fade To Black

· Quick change between shots

· Cut away shots to details i.e.; weapons, victims

· Extreme close ups

· Long shots

· Shadowed framing

· Music in a minor key

· Pulsing music eg; heartbeat, sudden build up

· Male killers

· High angled shots=weak

· Low angled shots =intimidating

How we broke conventions

· Lyrical music

· Female killer

· Open framing

· No duel narrative

How we used the conventions

· Use of cut away shots to details; gun; keys

· Intimidating angles

Most thrillers follow certain conventions to help create an effective opening. Over all these conventions help to highlight the details in the film the viewer may find thrilling. In our thriller opening we chose to use most conventions typically seen in thrillers for example we used high angled shots when the focus was on the victim. We also used cut away shots to show extra details such as the gun of the victim implying that he had a reason to protect himself. We also emphasized on the shadowing and the use of black coloured clothing on the victims killer, we did this to create almost a doppelgänger effect by clearly showing a difference in lighting between the characters to emphasize their characteristics.

We broke the conventions of a stereotypical thriller firstly we used non-minor key music. Instead we used lyrical music with a strong beat, we chose to use Non Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf because the song sounds very powerful and it is also all sung in French which helped to set the scene of our thriller as we hoped to set it in post war France. The second move we made to go against the typical conventions of a thriller was to use a female as the victim’s killer. Most thrillers use men as they can be seen as being more powerful or intimidating we chose to use a female as it would then imply that she has the strength or skills of a man, this would then make her a lot more intimidating.

How other thrillers inspired our work;

James bond films; spy, killer, mystery, style, visual appearance, good guy vs bad guy