Question 1

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or 

challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

Within our film we developed numerous conventions as well as 

occasionally contrasting them too.  

Firstly, we ensured that our film looked professional and 

naturalistic by following the conventions of the order of the titles. 

Titles are essential for an opening sequence as it gives the audience 

a little bit of background detail on the production of the film they 

are about to watch. 

Also, the layout, names and background of the 

production/distribution companies often set a mood for the film. We 

ensured that this was the case for our film by creating a production 

company called ‘Thrillseekers Productions’ which clearly integrates 

with the psychological thriller genre that we decided to be the 

category we’d put our film under. The titles are written in a sans-serif 

font, which challenges the usual serious tone, which is found in 

thrillers. However, the font we used is unique and has quite a 

scratchy sort of sense to it as if written in a rush, which could possibly 

imply panic and fright, which are occurring moods within our film. 

We decided to put the titles over the first few shots of the film so 

that they could intercept the mood we were trying to portray whilst 

acknowledging the titles. Our shots had graphic matches of smoke 

and metaphoric symbolisation of isolation. We did this because 

smoke connotes emotions such as isolation as well as panic, fear 

and eeriness. By doing so, we clearly portrayed an establishing 

mood/theme that will be continued throughout the film.

To add to this, we also added music containing extremely high 

and low pitch synth sounds to keep the audience on edge as well 

as ensuring that the film looked and sounded even more 

professional. We decided to make our soundtrack from scratch so 

that it’d suit our film perfectly and frighten the audience at the right 

time. This exaggerated the mood even more to ensure that it came 

across to the audience. By using these specific sounds to create a 

build-up of tension, we developed another convention found in 

thrillers.  

Within the thriller genre, there are often aesthetic conventions 

found too. For instance, there is usually a female protagonist. This is 

because women are stereotypically known for being vulnerable 

and weak whilst a male villain creates the disequilibrium within the 

film. Refreshingly, we decided to make the protagonist who faces 

life-threatening problems within the film male and to cast the 

hallucinogenic villain within the film a female. This sticks with the 

conventions of having a distressed protagonist, but contrasts the 

genders of the conventional characters to be unique.

Opening sequences also the convention of giving the audience 

an equilibrium so it can set the scene so that the audience know 

what is the norm within the specific scenario. Films then carry on 

with a disequilibrium followed by a new equilibrium. We opposed 

this convention by containing all three within our opening sequence 

as well as following it up with another disequilibrium. This is shown 

within our opening sequence by seeing our protagonist take a bath 

(an equilibrium), have blood drip on his head whilst in the bath 

(disequilibrium) followed by him running out of the bath to take pills 

so that everything is back to normal (a new equilibrium). This is then 

followed by a hallucination that has come to life and risen out of 

the bath after him (another disequilibrium). This creates a cliffhanger 

effect ensuring that the audience will want to carry on watching 

after the opening sequence. Although this contrasts with the normal 

convention of giving the audience an equilibrium, it follows another 

which is leaving the audience with questions. 

Low key lighting is another convention within our genre that is 

used to hide visual elements causing the audience to ask questions. 

We opposed this convention by using high key lighting. This is used 

so that we can shock the audience as we are not trying to hide 

anything and this will consequently frighten them even more. It is 

also an effective contradiction to the smoke theme shown at the 

beginning of our opening sequence.