In what ways does the media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Thriller films have many common conventions and we have tried to portray some of these elements in our video so as to convey the appropriate genre of our film. We especially took influence from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho film as this is one of the most famous thriller films.

 

Bus Stop was influenced by shower scene in Psycho

We wanted to take the element of the unseen protagonist from Psycho into our film. We made sure that the antagonist of our narrative was not seen clearly and that you could only see the outline of him or aspects of his body, you never actually see his face. We found that the mystery of who the antagonist is keeps the audience interested in the film. This technique is also used in the opening scene of No Country For Old Men. The antagonist of hidden in the back of the police car until around 5 minutes into the film when we finally see his face. We filmed the antagonists movements and made him keep his hood up so that his face wasn't visible so as to make the audience feel uncomfortable for not knowing what he looks like and to show that he is dangerous.

No Country For Old Men influenced the idea that you can't see who the antagonist is clearly in the beginning.

    Black and White flashback influenced by Memento.

We also used flashbacks like in the films Memento and the Bourne Ultimatum. I especially liked this technique in the narrative, I think it keeps the audience intrigued about a certain characters story. It will make the audience understand a character more in a short period of time but will also give them leading questions about the narrative. In the film Memento, the flashbacks are major scenes in the film, making it confusing but interesting. When used properly, it can put big twists in the narrative within a short period of time. We wanted people to understand enough about the antagonist in our narrative, to know that he has been obsessed with the female victim since a young age by showing flashbacks of him giving her a rose while in school uniform. We also wanted to show the kidnap scene as we knew that would be the scene that could create the most fear in the audience and it would also explain how she ended up tied in the chair. 

Another convention that is often used in thriller films is voiceovers. We took this convention and used it in our own film. It helps to make the narrative clear to the audience but also helps to create suspense as the audience can't see who is speaking and that would make them uncomfortable.

To add to that the sub-genre of the film had to be interpreted to the audience somehow. Our film is a psychological and crime/conspiracy thriller as the antagonist has a psychological disorder and because the narrative includes a detective as the antagonist trying to save the female. The psychological element was fairly hard to put into the two minutes as the opening focuses in the situation of the female being kidnapped and the antagonist psychological state would've been revealed closer to the end of the film. So the only feature we included to show that it was also a psychological thriller was the flashback of when he gave her a rose when he was younger. The rose is first scene as a stick (which is the reality) and then quickly changes to a red rose (which is what he sees it as). His psychological disorder means that he has a altered state of reality so when someone asks negatively towards him he wouldn't understand and would continue to talk to them. The quick cuts to reality and an altered state of reality shows that he doesn't see things right and has a psycholgical problem, much like in the film the Black Swan. The main character in the Black Swan frequently sees things that aren't real and the quick editing from one reality to another shows this.


Psychological aspects influenced by The Black Swan.