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1. CIE MEDIA STUDIES: COMPONENT 1- CREATIVE CRITICAL
REFLECTION
HOW DOES YOUR PRODUCT USE OR CHALLENGE
CONVENTIONS AND HOW DOES IT REPRESENT SOCIAL
GROUPS OR ISSUES
IMO HOLLAND-PECK

2. • For my opening sequence we made a thriller called ‘Broken’, with the sub genres
action and prison films. My thriller shares many media conventions with a few
different films and tv conventions and how i will be comparing my film with parts
from the tv shows and filmsof ‘prison break’ ,’shawshank redemption’ and
‘supernatural’.
MY THRILLER

3. SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
• this is my first film i will be comparing my sequence to.
this film shares many plots, camera angles and other
features with my thriller
• the film was released on the 17th of February 1995
• The director was Frank Darabont

4. PRISON BREAK
• The second TV show i will be comparing my film to is Prison
break. Prison break slo shares my things with my thriller
such as costume, age, gender, camera angles and sound.
• It was released on the 29th of August 2005
• The director was Paul T. Scheuring

5. THRILLER CONVENTIONS IN MY OPENING
SEQUENCE
• Slow pace- there is a slow pace to the thriller to build suspense and tension
• Low key lighting- the lighting is dimly lit which makes it more mysterious and scary
• Ambient sound- The characters cannot see where certain sound is coming from which as suspense and tension.
• Surprise- the thriller plot is revolved slows through building shots
• Mysterious setting- The thriller is filmed in a series of tunnels under the ground which will make the audience wonder where they are and what
will happen next.
• Varied viewpoints- You see the actors journey through a series of viewpoints to give the audience a more varied view of the thriller
• Protagonist - a brave male character. The prisoner could be seen as the protagonist in this as the audience are on his side and want him to
escape
• Cliff hangers- the ending shot of my sequence ends with the prisoner being caught where the guard shines and torch on his face and shouts
‘stop’ this creates suspense and a cliff hanger so the audience is keen to watch more to revel the rest of the story and what happens next.
• Close ups- to allow the audience to see the characters emotion to create sympathy and suspense
• Opposing sides- my thriller has two clear sides - the prisoner and the guards. this is to create almost a hero and a villain it allows the audience to
be on a side and there for create tension around certain characters

6. KEY THRILLER CONVENTIONS
• A thriller usually consists of a battle between a antagonist and a protagonist.
• low key lighting
• Jump cuts
• Shadows
• music to build tension
• Montage of shots
• Ghosts
• Violence
• Screaming
• Conspiracy
• Mystery
• cliff hangers
• Suspense

7. CAMERA; MOVEMENT, ANGLES AND
COMPOSITION
• the first camera similarity between broken and shawshank redemption is the use of
a hand held shot of the prisoners climbing through a tunnel . From this shot we can
see the character has enough strength due to their fairly young ages so they are
able to climb through. W can see through gender they are both male, which they
are stereotypically stronger. This shot allows the audience to feel claustrophobic
and the tension of climbing through a small place. The difference is in shawshank
he is having to climb through stagnant Seward water where as ‘Luca’ the character
in our sequence is clean and climbing through much cleaner tunnels , he also does
not have the struggle of having to hold a torch.
Shawshank and my thriller also shares close up shots. This is
to allow the audience to see the emotion shown by the
character very clearly. Here in our you can see the character
is clearly surprised he has been caught and also a little
disappointed, compared to Shawshank redemption where
you can see the character is very distressed and angry. again
this shot allows the audience to clearly see the gender of the
character which is male and male are stereotypically angry
and in prison compared to females

8. EDITING; PACE, TRANSITIONS AND TITLES
• My thriller is similar to the film inferno as they both share a slow pace. This is to slowly build
tension which a series of building shots. The slow pace allows you to observe the setting,
mediate on the story as it unfolds or sustain anticipation and tension for a long period of time.
• I could also compare the pace to Shawshank redemption which is also a slowly paced film. This
is important to the film as it has a very clear story line which the audience needs to understand.
We tried to copy the as the slow pace creates tension in the prisoners escape out.
Pace

9. EDITING; PACE, TRANSITIONS AND TITLES
• In our thriller we have normally straight cuts. We can compare this to Shawshank
redemption, which all transitions in the films are straight cuts. The is to show how
serious the film is and its straight to the point
• The only different our transition our film contains is a fade from the title of the film
to the first shot, this is to nicely introduce the first shot.
Transitions

10. EDITING; PACE, TRANSITIONS AND TITLES
• We can compare our titles to titles used in
supernatural. For the main titles we used the
idea of a simple but effective font which was
also used in supernatural
• Although we can compare our main title of
the film to the main title of supernatural they
are similar in a way as its one simple title
although they are different as supernatural
adds effects around the title. This is clever as
it makes the title more interesting and exiting
which may draw in the audience
Titles

11. SOUND; NON DIEGETIC AND DIEGETIC
• The male voice used as the prison guard is the typical stereotypical voice
used by a male prison guards. So its clear we can understand that gender
is important as its mainly males used as we follow the stereotypical
conventions
• We can compare our film to prison break as that tv show uses similarv non
diabetic sound of male prison guards as we have used. Although there is
a lack of non diegetic sound, prison break uses non diegetic sound to
create suspense and tension using music we can compare this to our as
we have no backing track, we did this to build suspense in another way as
we can clearly hear exactly what is going on in the scene. We can also
compare our to prison break as we have similar diegetic sounds such as
paper scrunching and walking to create atmosphere.

12. MISE-EN SCENE; COSTUME, HAIR, SETTING AND
LIGHTING
• We can firstly compare our thriller to the TV show
misfits for costume a we have used the similar
costume of a orange prison jumpsuit. This tv
programme also shares age with ours as its about
teenage/ young adults in prison and ours is about
a young man escaping from prison. The
characters both share that they are delinquent,
brave and naive. Ours is supplement in a sense as
misfits has two genders and we focus only on the
male gender.
Costume

13. MISE-EN SCENE; COSTUME, HAIR, SETTING AND
LIGHTING
• We can compare hair used in our
sequence to the hair in prison break. In
our sequence our character has the
stereotypical shaved head look. This is to
show his gender and age as he is a strong,
brave and rebellious prisoner. This hair
style is generally used for young male
prisoners as it enhances their manly look.
This is effective as it creates a personality
to the character that is easy to pick up on.
Hair

14. MISE-EN SCENE; COSTUME, HAIR, SETTING AND
LIGHTING
• Our setting used in our thriller is easily
compared to the setting used in Shawshank
redemption. They Bothe have setting of the
prison escaping through underground
tunnels. These scenes Bothe share that they
are effective in creating suspense as they
audience is waiting in suspense to see if they
escape from the tunnel successfully. The
audience is able to see form the front shot
the emotions clearly shown by the actors and
the struggle they are facing to get through
the tunnels.
Setting

15. MISE-EN SCENE; COSTUME, HAIR, SETTING AND
LIGHTING
• I have chosen to compare he lighting we
used to the film the ‘cube’ (1997). this film
has shared the use of red lighting to create
a intense, dark, mysterious and tense
environment. They film the cube has used
the red lighting to create suspense as the
characters are in a struggle we have similar
used the red lighting to enhance the
struggle the character faces in trying to fit
through a tight gap without being caught.
Lighting

16. MISE-EN SCENE; COSTUME, HAIR, SETTING AND
LIGHTING
• Our thriller sequence shares the same plot of having a
escape plan written on paper as prison break. In prison
break they have a escape plan whiten on brown paper
card and folded up as a swan which is similar to how
our character has his escape plan written on paper. in
our thriller we can see the prisoner opening up the
map and reading it this creates suspense as the
audience is wondering what is on the map.