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

Our media production was to create an opening to a thriller that lasts up to two minutes. We created a 'British gangster' genre thriller. Our thriller consisted of twin brothers who were involved with a gang. One brother (Archie) is asked to do a job by the gang leader and when he refuses it results in his death. The other brother (Nathan) is very distressed and upset, and then decides to take revenge.



Weather in Cathing Justice



Weather in Essex Boys

One of our biggest influences on our opening is Essex Boys as it has the British Gangster sub-genre which we also tried to create in our own opening but following the same techniques and conventions, for example the dull, grey sky which represent typical English whether, therefore we chose a dull day to shoot our footage. (example above). Our opening and Essex Boys are independent films; which both the locations indicate. For example, Essex Boys and our thriller opening both include scenes in dirty, gritty garages which wouldn't be seen in mainstream films. In our thriller opening we decided to dress our characters in gangster clothing, for example, jeans, hoodies and hats that represent the idea of rebels and youthfulness. Our main prop was the gun which was used to kill the main character brother, a lot of thrillers contain weapons to make the character seem demanding, authoritive and powerful. The gun also builds up tension as it is seen a before the actual murder. I think we made our gun user have high status by shooting low angle shots of him. We used other props such as pens, paper, hole puncher, books and photos this was during the planning of the revenge to suggest the idea of organisation of how determined he is, but when he pushes everything off the table it conveys how unstable he is.

The Black Swan

In the editing of our film, we included flashbacks which is a technique that thrillers such as Memento and Casino Royale used. In Memento they used flashbacks to give the effect that the main character was confused and disorientated and we use flashbacks to try and convey the same effect. In Casino Royale the flashbacks are in black and white to show the past time and in our thriller it is to show the imagination of the main character because he wasn't actually at the death of his brother. Flashbacks are a narrative device that gives the audience details of the storyline, which is another main reason we included them. The lighting in our thriller is quite dark to create the sense of danger and tense atmosphere, which is included in most thrillers, for example, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Bourne films and The Black Swan.



The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo





In Essex Boys a voice over from the young male protagonist is used to help the audience identify with him. In our thriller opening we have a young male protagonist but he doesn't have a voice over but hopefully the camera shots, for example, close ups helps us identity with him. A typical convention of thrillers is claustrophobic space and is used in Essex Boys with a car going through a tunnel and as in our thriller the technique is used to create tension, and also may convey an uncomfortable situation.



The characters in our thriller opening include the gang leader/murderer and the twin brothers. The gang leader/murderer is a threatening, evil man whom most thrillers include. We used Hattie's Dad for this character as he was convenient and we could make him suit the role. In British gangster films the gang leader or the person in charge usually pass their jobs onto a younger weaker characters that isn't sure about being a criminal/gangster. In our thriller Archie has this role. We decided to use Hattie's Brother Jack for this character and he was also used for Nathan, Archie's twin in the flashbacks. As well as these characters being convenient they also fit the criteria of the characters we wanted and also the convey the conventions of thrillers. In some cases this caused a problem as it wasn't always clear to people that they were twins. Twins aren't usually used in thrillers so it was good to try something new and  to see if it would work well. I thought it was good but if it didn't look clear it can add to psychological apsect of our thriller.