Evaluation Question One

In what ways does your media product USE, DEVELOP or CHALLENGE forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product challenges, develops and follows the forms and conventions of real media products. As my film is a thriller, from the opening sequence it is clear it follows the codes and conventions of thrillers through the use of sound, lighting, props and various technical aspects. My film challenges the forms real media products through the narrative and it develops forms and conventions through using ideas from previous successful media products.

My film follows the conventions of another thriller movie named Memento, like Memento and other thriller films; my film provides many clues in the opening sequence for the audience to interpret, clues about the narrative, the characters and the settings. For example, in the opening sequence there is a room full of newspapers, and on the newspapers there are specific words that have been drawn on, highlighted and circled in red, words like ‘Murder’ and ‘Kidnap’ these are clues about the narrative. Furthermore, like over real thriller films, the opening of my product is set in a mysterious place; a room filmed with newspaper articles, photos and a kidnapped person.

My film challenges the forms and conventions of a thriller as it is sort of like a psychological thriller, and it has elements of action and romance, therefore my film is a generic hybrid. This is clear through my opening sequence, the lighting and the writing on the wall link together, because as there was a dim light, the majority of the light was also red just like the writing on the wall and the theme of red can be associated with death, love and action. Also the narrative of my film does not follow the usual forms and conventions of most media products; it has a montage sequence which was inspired by the film Memento which also has a non-linear narrative. These codes and convention ar used to define the main genre of this film, even though it is a generic hybrid, it's biggest genre is thriller.

Like other thrillers, in my opening sequence one character is introduced and the other main characters are established. Like Memento, the other characters in my film are established through photographs and newspaper articles which are like clues. The idea of presenting characters through pictures was used in Memento, but I then developed that idea and showed the photographs in a different way, rather then making them appear in darkness, they were shown stuck to a wall full of newspapers, this is how I challenged the idea.  There is also non-diegetic, diegetic and parallel sounds in my media product. For example, the diegetic sounds are the sounds of the father walking into the room and the door opening, the non-diegetic sounds are the sounds of the heartbeat machine and the voiceovers of the characters, and the parallel music is the soundtrack matching the action on screen.