Year 12 Media Coursework Evaluation- Question 1

Year 12 Media Coursework
Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
Jade Morgan

At the beginning of this project, I researched into
what the conventions of each media genre are,
focussing primarily on the thriller genre as that is
the theme on which we have been asked to produce
a movie opening. This research, as well as my
analysis’ of other thriller movie opening sequences,
‘The Secret Window’, ‘Resident Evil: Afterlife’ and
‘I.T the Clown’ has given me a clear view of what is
expected of the thriller genre; the typical features of
tense atmospheres, dark shots, and fast takes.

Analysis of my thriller Evidence from my thriller Comparison to an existing product
My thriller opening features
characters that are easy to
relate to in everyday life,
conforming to the
conventions of many genres,
though the use of a dark
antagonist in red attacking
other characters conforms to
the thriller genre. The
antagonist’s appearance of a
clown both challenges
‘normality’- as clowns are
typically associated with
circuses and children having
fun, and uses the conventions
of a psychological horror-
thriller, inspired by the
existing product ‘I.T the
Clown’, though this concept
has also been used in an
episode of the thriller series
‘Supernatural’.

There are many enigma codes
in the thriller that leave the
audience wondering and
wanting to continue watching
to see how the answers
unfold, such as why only
certain people see the clown,
and why those people in
particular are targeted. These
features are conventional of
thrillers, as the feature of
mystery and uncertainty are
part of what makes the movie
thrilling, an example of this is
how Bruce Willis’ character in
‘The Sixth Sense’ is treated
and ignored by most
characters, until the answer is
revealed at the end.

There is a heavy use of low-
key lighting in all locations to
follow the genre’s
conventions and fulfil
audience expectations of a
horror movie. However,
juxtaposing a child which
would typically represent
light and happiness, with the
dim lighting and dark
antagonist further develops
this convention by giving the
audience a false sense of
security with the young
protagonist as well as
someone with whom to
empathise, similarly to how
the character ‘Cole’ is used in
‘The Sixth Sense’.

There is a variety of shot
types used; the high-angle
shots of the cleaners is alike
to the CCTV style that
‘Paranormal Activity’ is
shot in, giving the effect of
the audience being silent
observers that are unable to
do anything about the
characters’ unfortunate
outcomes, however this
fuels and develops the
human fascination with the
characters’ suffering,
appealing greatly to the
target audience.

The way in which the
clown is not fully in shot
until the end is a typical
use of camera in thrillers,
keeping the audience
unsure but guessing what
the antagonist looks like
for a while, much alike to
the shark in ‘Jaws’ and the
alien in ‘Alien’.
All music used in the
sequence was composed by
a member of the group to
conform to the thriller’s
features of suspense and
mystery, as well as unease
and fear. Additionally,
there are sound effects
taken from Garage Band,
such as the giggle, and
sounds that are used
specifically to represent
negative feelings or
characters.

The strange, first appearance
of the clown is signified with
the sound effect of a child’s
laugh, then the clown’s
violent intentions are
represented by a grated synth
piece which is sudden and
unpleasant to the ears, this
effect is also used with the
similar sound in the
‘Slenderman’ horror-thriller
games when the antagonist is
seen.
The movie title was designed
to conform to the thriller’s
colour scheme and have an
effect alike to blood. Out of
the titles that were used for
research , the Saw title was
the one we found best to base
ours off of.

The mise-en-scene is firstly
school-related, with the
location being a school at
night when the cleaners are
working, which is typical of a
thriller, especially one with a
plot that orientates around a
child; their bedroom at night
also being a typical location.
A special effect that we
incorporated into our movie
was the flickering of lights,
which is extremely typical of
thrillers that feature old
buildings at night or
supernatural forces, such as
the recurring use of electrical
failures and flickering lights
in the ‘Supernatural’ series,
used to represent supernatural
activity.

There are lots of different
editing methods used in the
sequence, such as a sound-
bridge between two
different scenes with related
characters; the original idea
inspired by the introductory
sound-bridge in another
thriller, ‘Secret Window’.
The use of editing with a
mixture of long, slow takes
filled with suspense, and use
of fast, frightening ones
conforms to the thriller
genre to keep the audience
interested through different
methods.

The way in which the first
clown attack was edited with
flickering images, is
conventional in how it is an
unsettling effect that unnerves
the audience.
Iconography is used in the
piece with the colour red,
which appears in many places
including the cleaners’ tabards
and all over the clown, to
represent either the danger
that the character could be in,
or the dangerous antagonist.
‘The Sixth Sense’ is also an
example of the use of red to
connote danger or death, as
M. Night Shyamalan is
known to use a lot of
enigmatic iconography that is
made sense of at the end of
his movies.

Year 12 Media Coursework Evaluation- Question 1

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