Leena Evaluation Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product uses and develops conventions of real media products in the following ways. Firstly, typically in a psychological thriller there is a disturbed character, usually male. We have used this feature, as the main character is a crazy gynaecologist. We are shown his spilt personality through his sartorial code, he is dressed as a woman when he is approaching the victim. Also, we have used a young blonde girl to be the victim, this is another typical convention, as females are often shown to be victims in thrillers (Alfred Hitchcock's, Psycho).


We chose to use classical music as the people we surveyed preferred classical as appose to any other type of music for our thriller. The music gives a sense of psychological tension and goes with the visual very well, keeping our media product mainstream.

The dialogue was kept to a minimum again developing on the conventions of a thriller. In the opening sequence of Rear Window (a mainstream thriller), the audience are only shown visuals to introduce the characters, there is no dialogue. I think this is a clever technique, as the audience stay engaged, and make assumptions on certain characters that could again play on their expectations.

I was very pleased with the ranging shot selections as they added suspense and mystery to the opening sequence of our thriller. I especially liked the rear view mirror shot, as we could only see the antagonists eyes making the audience fear as to who he is and what will happen next. The side view mirror shot was also very effective as the audience now see the connection between the stalker and the victim.







Our media product challenges thriller conventions in terms of the setting. In the thriller Psycho, there is a sense of pathetic fallacy as we are shown bad things taking place during the night, when women are most vulnerable. However, our thriller is shown to be set in the daytime, making it less dramatic and more unusual for negative things to take place, playing on the audiences expectations. Also the fact that we see a young innocent girl in school, we do not expect such a thing to happen, again moving away from the typical conventions, and surprising the audience.
This scene suggests to the audience that Mindy (the victim) is vulnerable as she is shown to be by her self. The audience automatically end up sympathising for her as she is in total isolation.