Evaluation Question 1

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


We decided from the start of our research into film genres that we would like to have our Main Task genre as a thriller. We did a lot of research into thrillers and although we changed our storyline a few times during the process we have always stuck to this genre. However, we are unsure at the moment exactly which genre our film fits into. At the beginning of planning our storyline for our Main Task we focused on typical thriller conventions and as we developed our ideas we have also included a few typical psychological thriller conventions; we liked the idea of having it as a psychological thriller because we can have twists and unanswered questions in our opening scene and this therefore makes the audience more intrigued to watch more. Our film includes elements from both genres and this makes it unlike typical thriller and psychological thriller films.

While researching thriller conventions we began to learn a lot about where a typical location would be to shoot our opening scene. A typical thriller opening leaves the audience with a lot of unanswered questions and this is something that we thought would be effective to use. The location is usually somewhere typical like in a field or a wood at night but while we were considering doing this for our opening sequence we also had to think about the quality of the equipment that we would have and the weather conditions that are very unpredictable. We also had to bear in mind about the amount lighting of shooting in somewhere typical like in the woods at night because a professional film will have good quality equipment and they can make their own lighting whereas we do not have this luxury. After a lot of consideration about where to shoot we came up with the idea of a bathroom and this created the creepy effect that we were looking for. We removed all things from the bathroom that were not appropriate for our genre, for example we removed all the make up and decorations so that the mise en scene for our opening sequence will remain in the typical thriller conventions. The white bathroom walls and wooden floorboards give the bathroom a creepy effect and the amount of blood used in the bath instantly tells the audience the genre of this film is horror or thriller. For the mise en scene we have not challenged the typical genre conventions at all because this is something which is essential for telling the genre of the film. From the first few shots the audience could think that 'Delusion' is a horror, for this reason we decided not to show a body and use the plastic cover in front of the lens to create a blurry mysterious effect and this tells the audience that it is more of a thriller film.
We shot our opening in the morning, at this time there is little sunlight but as time progressed it gradually became lighter and we therefore had to edit the lighting on the Macs. We edited it darker because this creates a spooky effect and puts the audience on edge because having it shot at night is a typical thriller convention. In typical thriller films, murders most commonly take place at night and not in broad daylight, so having the lighting changed to dark makes our opening seem more professional. In this aspect of the film we have not challenged typical genre conventions at all because having it shot at night creates the whole atmosphere and gives the film an overall sense of creepiness.
For our music we simply went onto Youtube and searched for music that would fit well into our opening sequence, we were looking for something slow and slightly scary to create tension. Using background music is a typical convention for a thriller film because it creates suspense and mystery which immediately lets the audience know which type of genre this is going to be. We found a piece of music which we thought worked very well with our opening sequence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0LwGL8QMCA After listening to the song lyrics a few times we felt that this song added juxtaposition to our Main Task because the woman is singing about love and this seems slightly unusual when watching the opening sequence. This music also took away from the effect and made our film seem a bit like a music video and the genre was hard to tell. We then did a little bit more research and found a song which consisted of only instrumentals and is suitable for the opening sequence, this is because there are no lyrics, therefore the audience's concentration will be purley on the character. Due to the fact that our music has such a strong effect on our opening sequence we decided against having narration beacuse this could take away from the mystery. For the majority of our film we have muted out all the sound but we have left a few shots unmuted because this creates realism and makes the character more believable. We kept the sound of her being sick for example, this is so that the audience get the full affect of what is happening. By having no narration and no character speaking, we are pushing the boundaries of typical genre conventions because we are telling the audince the genre of the film solely through the characters actions and the music that is playing. This challenged us because choosing the exact right music and other things including mise en scene and camera shots are essential for telling the audience the genre of the film.

We decided to have a young woman play the main character, this is because it is not a typical genre convention and it is quite unusual to see this in an actual film. Having a woman makes our film original because it is most commonly a male character who is the murderer, this could impact our film in either a positive or a negative way. The audience might decide that our film looks unique and decide to watch something with a twist and a bit more originality rather than going to see a typical thriller film which all seem to be similar in a way. The female audience could also relate to this character, therefore giving us a wider range of audience. On the other hand it could have a negative impact due to the fact that some people prefer to watch something which consists of typical genre conventions because this is what they are used to watching and the prospect of watching something which seems unfamiliar to them could drive them away; in this way we are challenging typical genre conventions and pushing the boundaries.
We use a lot of elements and we do challenge typical genre conventions in some ways, which doesn't necessarily mean that our product will be hard to sell, it means that we have an original product with unique selling points and this should attract a wider audience. While we have challenged these media conventions, we have also used a lot of them and for this reason I think that our product overall will get a positive response and sell quite easily.