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

The main conventions of our thriller opening are:-

As part of my research i looked at some thriller openings to see what conventions they had used, to get some inspiration when starting to plan my own. i thought it would be very useful as i take ideas from them and develop them. 

 It is crucial that in the first few minutes of a thriller you are able to hook the audience in a way that will make them want to carry on watching the rest of the thriller opening, it needs to have an air of mystery to it so the audience feel like they need to keep watching to find out what happens next. The opening should also include titles, introducing the characters and the people behind the making of the thriller, such as the editor and director. Most importantly it should also include the main title of the actual film itself.



the conventions that are included in our thriller opening are very typical of what you would normally find in a thriller. For instance we used a series of close-ups because after doing my research i learnt that close-ups add suspense and tension. You can also get a good feeling of a persons emotions and thoughts by doing a close up of someones faces this can also add to the tension running through a thriller film.

A thriller that has influenced my thriller opening is "No country for old men" which is a typical western film opening that consists of 11 western landscapes each lasting about 6 seconds each. We took this idea and developed it into our own thriller. I also like the minority of pans that no country for old men has and again I took this idea and used it in my own thriller opening. I also liked the idea of having an eerie opening to represent the point of isolation and I think the few stills at the start we incorporated highlight this. We were going to have voice over, over the top of stills, telling a brief outline of what has happened to set the viewer up for what is about to come. However we thought it would make the opening too complex and as we wanted to create confusion putting some narrative in would prevent this. The sound at the start of No country for old men is vert tranquil and we want to take this idea and use it for our own because it adds tension of wanting to know why its so quiet and whats happened or whats about to happen.

Another film that inspired my thriller opening is Seven, the circling of photos and the close ups of writing particularly inspired me when creating our thriller opening. I thought it was a good way of creating confusion for the audience and made it more edgy.
When we were choosing the music there were a lot of things we needed to take into consideration as choosing the right music was key. The main thing was that it fitted well with the shots we had already got; we also wanted it to have a slow tempo but didn't want it to be too dramatic.

the shot where the victim is being caught we wanted there to be no music to change into a different sound clip to highlight the fact it was a key shot with our opening. We managed to get a sound effect of a heart beat and someone breathing and blended them together to create a different sound. We managed to put the original music back into the opening and it flowed really nicely.