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

The different conventions of a thriller:  

Various different close ups:
These are used in many different thrillers these are used to show the audience something of importance to this particular scene these are usually small photographs or a weapon that will give us an incite to the protagonists life.

This is a close up of a woman's hand which will be of some importance to the opening and the rest of the film.

This is a photograph that will be of some importance throughout the film

 Must obscure information:

A successful opening sequence needs to give out some information but will need to hold most of the information away from the audience a good example of this is in the film Sucker Punch (Snyder 2011 US) as at the start of the opening sequence we see the woman sitting down upset which obscures the information why is she sitting down we then see a dead body which clarify some information but doesn't tell us why she is dead both of these examples are good indicators that the opening sequence of sucker punch is on the right lines to be very successful but will need to do all the other conventions to be a very successful sequence.

Another film that obscures information very well in its opening sequence is Brick (Nolan 2005 US). We see the man sitting looking at the dead body this is obscures information because we don't see how she died and who did it but it lets us know that she is dead. This is a very good opening sequence for obscuring information as we see a lot of information but there are a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up over the course of the film.

 Titles:
 All movies will have a title sequence this lets you know who starred in the film, the director etc. These are very important as you will need to know who directed the film but also to settle the audience down. If the director choose to jump straight into the action the audiences minds may not be focused and settled and may not be concentrating fully on the movie and may miss some valuable information and not enjoy the movie. Sixth Sense (Shaymalan 1999 US) has a very good title sequence.


Make you ask questions:
A good opening sequence will make you ask questions about what you are seeing and what you want to happen next. The reason that it will make you do this is it will want to keep you thinking about what is going to happen next as the director will want you to keep focused on the film at all times. A good opening sequence for this is brick.
 

Introduce some characters:
This is very important to the opening sequence as if we didn't see any characters we wouldn't know what to expect from them through out the movie as you will usually see what some of the characters will be like but you do not want to see all of them. This is very similar to obscuring information as you will only want show the audiencve a snippet of the movie to give them a taste of what the characters will be like. A good example of this would be in the movie the dark knight rises.





Having a male protagonist:

In thrillers you will usually have a male protagonist. This is because they are stereotypically seen as the 'dominant' sex. In thrillers the protagonist will usually have to be very strong and clever as they are usually having to solve something and kill someone or something along the way.

 Low key lighting:

This is usually used in thrillers to create mood. They will also use the low key lighting to show that the movie may be a bit dark and there is also the element of surprise linked with the darkness.

Our opening sequence:

Close ups:

We used many different close ups in our opening sequence these are used to show a piece of interest in the film these can be various different things for example a photograph or maybe a gun. That will be a very important in the film.

This is a close up of the protagonist looking out of
the window after hearing a sound. This shows
what sort of character he is that he is
very paranoid about what goes on outside.   

This again is a close up to show what the protagonist is
like. He is writing notes on what he is seeing walking past his
house this shows us what sort of character he is again.

Must obscure information:

In a thriller it is very important to obscure information when in a thriller movie especially to leave the audience wanting to carry on watching the movie.

This is obscuring information from the audience because you cannot
see the two peoples faces meaning that you are trying to work out who
they are and what they are doing. 

This like the image above is obscuring the identity of the
person in the movie and we will want to know what he is doing there
and whey he is there.

  Titles: 

Titles are a big part in film they show lots of different things about the movies background and what sort of movie it will be. We chose our distribution company to be Vertigo Films. We chose this becaue we did lots of research and this seemed like the best option. Our production comany name was chosen by the group we chose this name because we felt it was a good fit for our film. 

Make you ask questions:

This is a lot like obscuring information this will be needed for the audience to have the hunger to carry on watching the film.

This will make the audience ask questions like what
is he doing and why is he writing them things.
This will make the audience want to carry on watching the movie because
this is not usually seen.   

This will make the audience ask questions like what is he looking at
and they will want to watch on because they will be intrigued
by what they are seeing and do not know what
they could see next.

Having a male protagonist:

We choose to follow the convention of having a male protagonist because we felt that this would make the audience feel that the film was easier to understand. 

This was our protagonist

Low key lighting: 

Low key lighting is a very regular thing in thrillers and is used to show danger and the unknown.

This is low key lighting used in the instance to show the
mess in the room to make the character seem messy
and unstable the use of the low key lighting
further develops these points.

The low key lighting is used in this shot to
show the mystery of the protagonist.