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

2. Conventions of the Thriller
genre
A Film Genre is defined by its codes and conventions & these must be present to make a film a genre film but
should involve some aspect of innovation, subversion &/or inflection ( otherwise it becomes a formula
film). Generic conventions can be to do with sound, editing and Mise-en-scene. Particularly in thrillers they will
include things such as:
• Eerie/tense music, silence, exaggerated sounds
• fast paced cuts, obtrusive editing, jump cuts
• low key lighting, strong directional lighting or chiaroscuro
to fulfil its main elements (suspense, tension and excitement).
• Surprises & Twists
• Plays With Viewers Mind
• Quick Cuts & Change Of Camera Angles
• Music To Add Tension
• Use Of Lighting To Create Shadows
• Mirrors
• Stairs
• From Killers Point Of View
Although we haven’t filmed a full
• Flash Backs
movie, there will be surprises and twist, but
• Pass Of Time Sequences
we never added any in the opening because
• Make Audience Think
we want our audience to stick with the
stereotypical aspects such as innocent
girl, dangerous antagonist whose a guy etc.

3. Mise-en-scene, Camera angels, Editing &
Sound
Camera shots/movement:
Different camera angles Sound: Contains important
create different senses of elements which make up a
body language and emotions. thriller such as:
• High pitched
• Close up shots sounds/orchestral
• Mid range shots • Diegetic/ Non-Diegetic
• Tracking/Dolly shot sounds
• Synchronous/asynchronous
http://youtu.be/vuVWUj sounds
HSLV8 • Ambient sounds
• high tension
• eerie
• silence
Editing:
Fade to black
Quick edits & changes in camera
angle- increases the feeling of
fear and shock. Often used during Link to camera
significant scenes
shots used in the
thriller ‘Panic
room’

4. Mise-en-Scène: Contains a few important
elements which help add thriller to films
and helps to add suspense such as:
• Props: in thriller films there is a lot of
sharp objects and weapons like
glass, knives, guns etc: shows the audience
that the objects are going to be used to kill
someone or something.
• Set design/ location: locations and
settings such as a the city or dark woods
give a thrilling film as it shows mystery and
suspense/tension towards the audience.
• Low level lighting- shadows to create
fear/tension.
• Flashbacks- time disorientation confusing
the audience or showing the past to give an
insight into why the characters are the way
they are.
• Black and white colouring- increase
effectiveness of shadows.
• Claustrophobic spaces- entrapment of
the mind, planes or house.
• Font/colour of title- may be written in a
certain way to emphasise the theme of the
film.

5. Use, develop or challenge?
• Because our thriller ‘Live
To Tell’ is a hybrid of
thriller sub-genres, we
made sure the opening
three minutes showed the
particular sub-genres
http://youtu.be/2B_iSupVgFc which was mainly crime
and Psychological.
• The elements of crime
come from the beginning
scene which started of
with the police station
and Detective Morris
looking at photos of
victims to murder ( 0:11-
Clip of our 0:37 ) whereas the main
film Live To psychological part comes
at the end with the note
Tell Mandy receives ( 2:21-
2:23). I would say our
thriller used these
conventions well.

6. • Conventions of the thriller genre contain
these elements aswell as red herrings and
cliff hangers which try to lift the holds
the audience’s attention with an eye-
grabbing situation with a troubled
character trying to overcome an
obstacle(antagonist).
• We used elements of mystery because we
wanted to stick to the conventions of
those particular sub-genres and create
suspense. This will require using your mind
to try and figure out who and what is
what? therefore the audience will be
intrigued to see how it all unravels in the
end when and if the antagonist is defeated.
• This is seen in many thrillers especially
horror thrillers like ‘I know what you did
last summer’ and ‘When a stranger calls’
where they never showed the killers face.
I think that because of the use of these
conventions it indicates what type of sub-
genre our thriller is because we have used
many stereotypes which you can see in our
final finished product.

7. Here’s a particular scene from ‘I know what you did last summer’ and a still from
our opening to our sequence ‘Live To Tell’ of the antagonist. The use of low angle
shots shows that they have some sort of power and because their identity has not
been revealed, it turns it into a mystery which leads to suspense, linking to what I
mentioned beforehand. Also they’re wearing dark clothing which indicates
something bad.
Hidden identities
& low angle shots
showing power and
building mystery.

8. • When choosing the location for our thriller we wanted to create a lot of tension and suspense because we
feel that they’re essential necessities of a thriller. To do this we used a big forest looking area behind a
secondary school even though we only used a section of it, I would say it fulfilled its purpose.
• The scene opens with a high angle shot of the location and the protagonist approaching the opening of the
gate to the forest which emphasises the fact that she's heading for danger. When you see the forest one
of the first things that spring to mind is scary, creepy area and if I’m honest I was scared myself to be
filming there because it was silent and no-one was around except us and the actors/actresses.
• The surrounding resembles the ‘Blair Witch Project’ which also used a forest as their location. It was
filmed in parts of the forest where they were the only ones there so they were sort of isolated from the
world. The lighting is very dark with the essence of shadows creating the effect of chiaroscuro which
tells/shows the audience they’re helpless to whatever or whoever is out there.
• Below is the location of the forest in our thriller and the one for the Blair Witch Project’.
Left is ‘Live To
Tell’, & on the
right is the ‘Blair
Witch Project’

9. We also used Point of realism and
view shots to put audience
the audience in the involvement in the
mind of the action.
antagonist which is
used a lot in films
especially
crime/action
thrillers when
someone’s being
stalked or chased.
It is used to
In horrors they usually have a girl or
enhance a sense of
woman who is the innocent helpless
protagonist, as seen in many horror
films such as Scream, I know what you
did last summer which are part of the
horror genre. But in a thriller genre
particularly crime thrillers, its mostly
male dominated and the only time a
girl will be in it, is if she’s playing some
sort of love interest for instance Vera
Farmiga in ‘The departed’. We
developed/challenged that and made
our protagonist a girl, although there
are two main males the opening will
focus on her. This sort of picks up a
convention of a horror but we’ve made
it work with the sub genres we are
using.

10. Characters & Narrative theories
• Our thriller opening uses a mix of all the
narrative theories (Propp, Strauss, Barthe
& Todrov). For starters, the opening scene
starts has equilibrium with the protagonist
casually walking home, and then the main
part has disequilibrium when she gets
stalked and attacked and then back to
equilibrium until she receives the note
which stirs thing up a bit.
This is part of Todrov’s simple recurring
formula. In addition to that, the note in
particular creates an enigma as mention in
Barthes code which teases the audience by
presenting a puzzle or riddle. This incorporates
mind games which is a convention of a
psychological thriller. On the otherhand the way
the characters are shown in the opening three
minutes falls into the typical functions Vladimir
Propp studied e.g. villain(antagonist)&
princess(protagonist), and throughout our
thriller you can see how the binary oppositions
are being portrayed in the characters and their
actions, another theory devised by Claude
Strauss.

11. Barthe: Note, & police
reports create enigma
Todrov: Equilibrium and
disequilibrium of her being
attacked which disrupts the
sense of equilibrium. You also
have the typical villain, and a
princess or in this case a young
girl.

12. Propp: ‘Villain &
Princess’
Strauss: ‘Good vs. Bad’
Helper Villain
Princess
These theories can be seen in the horror
thriller ‘Scream’ particularly Propp’s theory
where you have the villain, princess and the http://youtu.be/P0Okyfq
helper etc. oXf8