Evaluation Question 1

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

Our main goal for creating our finished product was that it looked like a thriller and looked like a film that fits this genre. I order to achieve our goal we research what elements when put together create a successful verisimilitude

Because our film is a thriller as such we have tried to follow the codes and conventions of a stereotypical thriller, these consist of dramatic music, antagonist/protagonist, and relatable characters. The music we have chosen for our film is from Jamendo, a website that the music on it isn't copyrighted, meaning we are free to use any song we wish without breaking he law. The song we chose for our film is dramatic and helps to create an uncertain atmosphere which is what people expect to see/hear from a thriller genre.  This is important to making our film as realistic as possible, and fit the the codes and conventions of our chosen genre. Another aspect of our film which is purposely enhanced to mould our genre is the characters, which suppose to represent average people which are in and unusual situation. Our protagonist is a college student, thus making our target audience relate with our protagonist because they themselves will most likely be students. This is is because our film is 15 age rating, making it accessible to a lot more people than if it were an 18.

 Throughout our film we have tried to make it reflect our genre as much as possible with just a few alterations to stereotypes. Starting with lighting, we have used dim dark lighting as a subtle way of presenting pathetic fallacy eg. Our storyline is sinister, thus we have tried to make our lighting equally as dark. This is a way in which we have followed stereotypes because in other thrillers this key theme appears. A style of our our film that has differed from stereotypes is that we have only male characters, although this was more to do with lack of actors and resources.  We have not conformed to the male gaze theory of women in cinema, but instead have used characters our audience can identify with.

It could be argued our film follows the guidelines of specialists theories. The 5 minute film we have created follows the theory of Todarov, in that our film starts of fairly normal in a common environment, a college. This is what's called equilibrium. When events take a turn for the worst half way through, eg Protagonists friend disappears, then notices he is being followed is call disequilibrium. Then finally the end although ambiguous and leaves the viewer wondering what happened, still brings the movie to a resolution. These theories show why people watch films, and what they get from them, we have tried to incorporate this into our own narrative.

Films that resemble ours and that we have based ours on are other thrillers with stalker elements such as Enduring Love, and Se7en. It could be said that the darkness of Se7en is used in our film in order to pay homage to David Finchers classic. In Enduring Love they have set the stalker theme in an urban environment, much ours which is set in an around homes and college because they show realism.

Jamendo website we gathered our films music