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

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

Genre – For my AS Media Studies coursework I had to construct the first two minutes of a film, thus being a film opening (of any chosen genre).  I chose to do a film opening with the genre of Thriller and sub-genre of a psychological/crime thriller, picking these genres mainly because of the fact my favourite genre and sub-genre were these (having favourite films being thrillers such as Shutter Island & Silence of the lambs) and also because of the fact that I felt that it also went outside my comfort zone and would be quite a challenge for me as it was a blend of two sub-genres – which was a challenge which I was up for. As I was working and constructing a psychological/crime thriller I researched the typical codes and conventions used in thriller films, to make sure that my film was identical as possible and replicated an actual thriller media product. To add on to that, I also knew I had to include and research typical thriller codes and conventions because of the fact that the audience would feel more comfortable and happy watching a thriller which fitted and conformed to the codes and conventions as it is something the audience would be familiar to and something they can clearly identify, therefore giving audience pleasures and also avoiding confusion/discomfort. An example of this like when we as an audience are watching horror films, we have expectations such as jump scares and victims and if that doesn’t happen we as an audience would become confused.

Codes and conventions – Within psychological thrillers the typical codes and conventions include: one of the characters suffering from a mental illness/psychological disorder, mind games/brain teaser (this usually involving the audience), a sense of danger/mystery, isolation. Whereas, codes and conventions of crime thrillers tend to include: a police officer/detective, a clear criminal/criminal act, investigation, car chases, based in cities. One code and convention in thrillers in general (so applies to all the sub-genres that come underneath thrillers) is ‘the big twist’, this being  a big change or unpredictable event in the narrative that is used to shock the audience because it wasn’t expected (an example of the big twist in a thriller film being in Shutter Island when it ended up being Teddy who was the psychiatric patient the whole time) Because I was doing both sub-genres I had to interpret and merge both conventions and codes into one film, so the audience could clearly identify the two sub-genres. This is what I am now going to examine whether my media product applies, develops or challenges these codes and conventions in my opening sequence.

In most thrillers, one of the main and biggest convention is there to a form/presence of some kind of action, be this: whether this be a car chase or even a running/fight sequence. Originally, my plan for my thriller was for it to be all shot at the beach, so one setting. However, when designing and constructing my individual thriller, I realized that within the actual opening I had no action element to it, therefore, my product/opening in fact challenged forms and conventions of real thriller media products. Although the use of action is not necessarily a requirement, I felt like I needed to add some type of action because it would be a good indicator for the genre and could meet the audience expectations of what a thriller should be like. So because of this, I decided to add an extra scene in the beginning of the young boy on the floor, and although this isn’t particularly an action packed film, it adds an element of action and is a bigger indicator of the genre and shows off more thriller conventions compared to if it was all just shot at the beach.  This is because it was a dramatic scene which included low key lighting and also sound including a heartbeat, heavy breathing and police sirens – these all conforming to conventions of both psychological and crime thrillers. This also creating action and enigma codes for the audience, such as the action of the boy lying on the floor creates enigma codes such as: “Who is he?” “What happened to him?” and the action code of his eye and legs twitching creating enigma codes such as: “Is he alive?”

Narrative/ narrative structure – I believe my narrative fits and conforms to the conventions of real life thriller media product. This is because not only does the narrative show similarities to both my sub genres (being psychological and crime thrillers) but overall within the narrative, it is easy for the audience to identify and recognize that my product fits into the genre of being a thriller.

My narrative is based on two budding scientists/psychologists, Norman and Rue Crow, who were budding psychologists who were basically rejected by people within that industry after creating a hypothesis that they can turn normal children into feral, psychotic children. They soon had to flee to an unknown, identified island, but the rejection and disapproval didn’t stop them because they ending up kidnapping children to create and test their exact hypothesis, and finally create an a private institution to complete their prolonged experiment, kidnapping a total of 270 children over a ten year course (27 per year), and see if they can turn them feral by leaving the children and ‘re-birthing’ them in their institution. The plan works at first, these children turning psychotic and after being released, causing chaos or some of the children end up even working for Norman and Rue. That’s until the 27th child in the 10th year.  Jonah (the 27th child or more specifically 270) disappearance becomes worldwide news (after his mother – who is a single mother stops at nothing to find him), and throughout the film we are shown how the family deal with it for the following year, this being paired with short soft focus scenes of Jonah’s traumatic experience. A year later after his disappearance, Jonah’s mother sees Jonah’s father who abounded them and follows him home after his sneaky behavior, only to lead her to a remote and practically isolated area – the institution. Soon Norman and Rue’s evil activities are exposed to the world alongside the 270 children they kidnapped, but at this point most are dead or far too unfit for society.

I believe that my narrative used and conforms to conventions of a psychological thriller; this is because there is clearly mentally ill/psychological unfit characters within my narrative, two of them evidently being the two elderly scientists and the other ones being the children who unfortunately become mentally ill. To add on to that, there is also brain teasers throughout the entire film as information is never fully revealed, even at the end it is still not fully clear what happened to the other kids who were not found, also as the father is found to be part of the kidnapping scheme it confuses and messes the audience’s head, making them think a lot, trying to understand, puzzling them, which is the whole point of a psychological thriller – it is basically just a big brain teaser.

Linking up to crime thrillers, my media product replicates a real life, typical thriller media product because the situation of kidnapping is clearly a criminal and illegal act (this automatically being a convention of thrillers), so because of this, there will also be characters such as a police officer (who is exactly one of the main characters in my media product and acts as the donor and helper within my media text) which is also a convention of crime thrillers. My film also

To add to that, my media product uses forms of conventions of real media products by following narrative theories which are used and apply to the majority of films you see, this being Propp’s character functions and Todorov’s narrative theory. Below I will create to demonstrate and show how both these theories are used within my text.

Propp’s character functions within my media text

The Villain	The Kidnapper
The dispatcher	The chief police officer as it becomes an investigation
The hero	The Mother
The False Hero	The Father
The Helper	The Police man
The Princess	The Police man?
The Donor	The Police man.
The Father	No relevant father figure in my film.

Despite my film following Propp’s character functions theory, some of the people who have the roles of particular characters are not stereotypical or typical within that genre, this challenging forms and conventions of real life media products. An example of this would be the helper, the princess and the donor who are all the policeman. The reason why this going against conventions of this genre is because it is usually a man protagonist who has a sidekick and gets a woman as a reward/love interest (princess) – this happening stereo-typically within this genre. However, within my film it is the other way round, in which the woman (mother) is more dominant with the policeman almost working as a side kick, this going against stereotypes of women in film and thriller films are women are usually conveyed in a way of being dependent on men.

Todorov’s narrative theory.

Equilibrium	Before when both the mother and son had a normal life and good relationship (this demonstrated in the beginning when they are happy and interacting on the beach)
Disequilibrium	When the kidnapping occurs
Conflict	This is the whole process when the mother is looking for her son alongside her son.
Problem	When the kidnappers are caught and Jonah is found alongside the other captured children.
New Equilibrium	Mother and Police officer start a relationship and family with Jonah. Happy ending.

Camera/ editing/sound– Within my media product, I used a high quality camera being the Sony handycam and used a MAC and software being Final Cut Pro to edit my film opening on, although this may be something minor, it caused my media product to look more professional and less amateur, thus, replicating and being more similar to a typical film media product that you would see in actual cinemas.

When it came to my soundtrack, a use a mixture of diegetic, non-diegetic and synchronous sound. I used non-diegetic sound such as a heartbeat and I also used a voice over specifically as they are both sound conventions of thrillers (as they are both used to create suspense/mystery) and I also used a the sound of a wheezing man and also police sirens as both these sounds are linked to crime, thus linking to my sub-genre of crime thrillers.

Overall, I feel that my opening sequence was successful in not only selling my story-line, but also conforming/using codes and conventions of a real media product, therefore ultimately being similar/having similarities to a psychological/crime thriller. Although my media product was overall very similar and stereotypical of a thriller which had the two different sub-genres, I also did challenge a few of the codes and conventions within my genre. For example, instead of using a male protagonist,  I chose to use a female protagonist in the role of the mother,  as this would not only make my film stand out but also go against expectations, this surprising the audience, which links to the whole purpose of thrillers, being to thrill and get a lot of emotions out of them.   Finally, I feel I worked very well in producing a media product that was true to other existing media products, focussing on character, locations and props and looking at existing media products to help get ideas and inspiration.