Question 1 - Adam

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

A Thriller film is a film which uses suspense, excitement and tension as the main elements. Most Thriller films are sub genres which are formed of two genres such as:

• Crime Thriller
• Mystery Thrillers

Thriller films are meant to be mysterious and psychological whereas Horror is mostly supernatural and Action is mostly violence.

Thriller films often incorporate:

• Enigma (puzzles)
• Iconography
• Protagonist and Antagonist
• Restricted and Unrestricted narration 

Restricted narration is often used to keep a characters identity hidden (often the antagonist). It also adds mystery to the story. The first picture above is a screenshot from The Usual Suspects which is a Thriller film, this restricted narration keeps the mans face hidden from the audience so there is no way of knowing who he is, this creates mystery. The second picture is a screenshot from The Naked Gun which is a Crime-Comedy film. Even though it is not a Thriller they still use restricted narration for both comedy and mystery as we never see the mans (Al's) face.

 In Thriller films the camera angles are often high up to indicate that someone is being watched which adds to suspense and tension. The camera also tracks from a further distance at ground level following a character, this also adds to suspense as it shows the point of view of someone following the character.

The editing of Thriller films is often done by having a low frequency of cuts which then increases as the tension builds. Fast cuts indicate imminent danger. The cuts would also be used to abruptly end a scene when it approaches a crucial moment to create suspense and mystery as to what has happened.

The sound used in Thrillers match what is happening on screen. The Sound would start of fairly quiet but build up during a suspenseful moment and often abruptly ending if nothing happens or will explode with sound when an event happens suddenly. The sound often consists mostly of pianos and violins.

With Thriller films the setting/location is usually in a dark environment, normally either outside in a forest for example or inside a building (usually old or abandoned). The costumes are often dark as well to either match the environment or to indicate who is the antagonist. The lighting would be minimal or mostly small pockets of light e.g. street lights. The hair of the antagonist would be either spikey or long and probably greasy depending on the films characters and make-up would be mostly used to make blood. The facial expressions of characters would mostly be scared and frightened especially when tension builds. The characters body language would be that of unease, taking caution when for example entering a dark room or walking through a dark forest. Weapons would be the main prop in Thriller films. The colour of Thriller films might be altered using filters either to desaturate colour or to emphasis the frighting moments e.g. red filters to show a dangerous situation or the danger of the Antagonist.The composition would have the characters fill the frame, unless restricted narration was used and the the camera would mostly track for following characters and if static would be handheld.

Our Thriller

Our Thriller follows a lot of conventions for a Thriller:

• It is not very clear who the antagonist is at first until the end of the opening when it is revealed that the character from the start is of significance to the storyline. His identity is kept hidden during the middle of the opening so it is unclear if it is the character from moments ago. This is to throw the audience off as to whether he is a significant character or not.

• Fake blood was used to show that the female character had been attacked.
• The camera shows a POV shot near the end of the opening which is handheld to show the female character being followed by the character in the car.
• At the start and at the end of our Thriller the setting is in a dark wood with little light to create mystery as to where she is and why she is there.
• Our Thriller uses mystery sounding music during the scenes where the female character is in the darkness to create a sad mood which is what the character would be feeling.
• On a few occasions the jump cuts are used to end a scene abruptly before changing to the next location and time frame in the story. 
• Our Thriller starts with (using Todorov's theory) equilibrium and a disruption. The timeline starts with the disruption, then does a flashback to the equilibrium before then catching up to the disruption.
• In 1971 a British Thriller was released called 'Assault' which follows a similar story to our Thriller (it is not a direct copy and we only discovered this during title research). That means that our Thriller is definitely a Thriller if it is similar to another Thriller film. (Trailer Below)