Evaluation Question 1

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

The Thriller opening that we chose to create was based upon an ‘Action Thriller’ genre. The film starts with a man waking up in the street to discover he has what would appear to be a fatal gunshot wound on his, he has no recollection of who he is or how he sustained his injury. As the story unfolds the protagonist is chased by a group of dangerous individuals trying to hunt him down whilst also trying to discover the dark secrets of his past.

One of the thriller films that had an influence on the production of our thriller opening was ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’. We utilized this film’s conventions for example the way in which we edited having shots on screen for a little amount then moving onto the next, this convention was used to give the effect that the audience were fully immersed in the action as it was taking place, it also speeds up the pace of our opening which is very similar to the opening of ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’.

 Another influence was ‘Memento’ this is because in our film we have a series of flashbacks which helps explain the narrative of our film. These flashbacks are shown in ‘black in white’ to help the audience recognise the transition from the main story and the flashbacks which led up to what we first see; this was also used in ‘Memento’. Another convention that we have developed is similar to ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ in which we distorted the shot during a flashback to give the impression that the audience and protagonist are both recalling an event crucial to the story, this also helped the audience to identify with the protagonist, they are experiencing it as the character on screen. The Television show ‘Misfits’ had an influence in the way we edited our product, this is because misfits is shown as gritty with a dark atmosphere and this is done by altering the saturation and contrast of the shots, we developed this into our own product to give a similar gritty impression.

An influence on our cinematography and the way in which the film was shot was ‘The Blair Witch Project’ this was because of the ‘shakey cam’ technique, we developed this into our product because of the mysterious and sinister atmosphere it gives in ‘The Blair Witch Project’ this was the impression we wanted the audience to experience when watching our product. When constructing our characters, especially our protagonist, we decided to research other protagonists, ultimately our protagonist was influenced by the character of ‘Clark Kent’ on the Television show ‘Smallville’ in the season 10 premiere when an injured ‘Clark Kent’ awakens after a battle.