Forms and Conventions

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

Amy Peacock

Research into genre and conventions

Researching the genre beforehand helped me because I got a better understanding of what could go into my opening sequence The films that I was interested in were Memento, Kill Bill and The Ring, this is because they all kept you interested in different ways but all had very strong cinematography and editing techniques This made me think that our idea had to be entirely unique but include some obvious conventions of horror/thriller just like the films I discovered had, they also all had some kind of mystery to them where I could clearly pick up that we needed our antagonists identity to be a mystery Kill Bill blood The Ring woman victim, creepy girl featured Memento gun and blood

Genre Signifiers
Cinematography we used a POV shot which made out audience go into a subjective state where they were directly involved in the action, this is an obvious theme of a thriller/horror. Sound the soundtrack we used was slightly melodic and jumpy in parts which conformed to the conventions of our genre. Editing We used very short takes throughout our filming to signify anxiety and confusion which are major conventions of a thriller/horror. Mise en scene The props we used such as a hammer and saw are very stereotypically horror themed however in costume for our main character we used smart clothing which subverts the type of clothing you would normally expect to see in the genre.

Encoded messages
For our opening sequence we wanted to put in certain props such as the hammer to really signify danger will later take place in the film Another encoded message that we wanted to show was that by a man researching in a library he is probably trying to find out who the killer is featured in the other scene We felt that by adding in clips to the flashback scene it made this message obvious

Decoded messages
The way that the audience would decode these messages are quite successful to what we wanted them to decode The child hiding under the bed the audience are very clear that the man is dangerous

The man in the library would clearly be decoded as an intelligent man as he is in a smart shirt and glasses clearly signify intelligence

Did our opening sequence meet expectations or challenge conventions?

Cinematography By using a restricted point of view shot in our opening sequence we followed conventions by not showing the audience too much

Editing For our editing we used lots of short takes to build up suspense in our opening, this was very stereotypical of the genre but we felt that long takes just wouldnt build the type of tension needed.
Soundtrack By not adding a really dark and jumpy soundtrack all the way through we challenged the genre however as it did feature some heightened noise at the killer scene it would follow some of the conventions of sound in thriller/horror Mise en scene Most of our mise en scene challenged the genre due to the smart costume for our protagonist and the library setting we used to challenge conventions. However the props we used such as the hammer and saw were stereotypical mise en scene that we needed to make sure the genre was signified clearly.