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

Looking back at our research on codes and conventions of film openings and of the genres; thriller and crime, we have put together this mind map to show all the conventions considered in our research and how we have used/ developed/ challenged these in our own film opening. The highlighted conventions are the ones that we have used.

Looking at the conventions of a film opening we have used all of these apart from the introduction of a protagonist. We challenged this convention in our opening sequence as it is not made clear whether or not the entire plot follows the character shown in our opening sequence, or what happens to her at the end of this opening. This creates more interest for the audience as it is not clear what happens to her, creating mystery.

The detective in our opening sequence meets the conventions of a detective in a crime film as she wears a trench coat, heels and is formal and independent. We chose to use these conventions as the heels made an effective sound along the pavement in the outside scene, therefore adding to tension and creating a strong use of sound. 

By having her in a trench coat, combined with the non diegetic voiceover at the beginning of the sequence, we were able to make it clear what was happening within the plot. Having an independent female detective makes her seem more of a vulnerable character and also makes her more relatable for the audience. Our actress wears subtle red makeup, which emphasizes and foreshadows the idea of danger which meets the conventions of a crime film.

We used the convention of having a villain in dark clothing, which fits in with the both the genre of thriller and crime, this meant that the audience would want to continue watching the film to find out what was actually in the house and why. We also developed this convention by only having visible silhouettes of the 'thing' and the hand at the end which was in a glove, therefore making the mystery more intense.

Inkeeping with the setting conventions for a typical thriller film we chose to locate our opening sequence in an abandoned house in the evening. The time of day was important as the darkness, accompanied with our low key lighting, created shadows, and distorted the audiences vision, putting them on edge as one of their senses has been impaired. We used the abandoned house to increase the sense of danger for the audience as it increased the idea of isolation and vulnerability.

Melissa Hudson