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

In order to create a successful short film we decided to use, develop and challenge different forms and conventions from the "thriller" genre. The general target audience for our media product is older teenagers (15+) and therefore we used typical conventions of the thriller genre for inspiration into our media product.
Our original idea stemmed from the stimulus we was given: the colour red. From this colour we decided the themes our film could entwine which involved: anger, passion, love, revenge, murder, betrayal, and fire. We felt the majority of these themes matched the ingredients of the thriller genre. We decided to focus on revenge and betrayal as our main themes, ignited by the passion between two characters. Therefore our film uses the convention of stereotypical themes for the thriller genre. Films such as "Don't say a word", where a psychiatrist's wants revenge for his kidnapped daughter, use similar themes of betrayal, anger and jealousy and also like our film use a stereotypical isolated character. However, our film does develop the conventions of a stereotypical thriller film, as it entwines the themes of romance and passion. This is similar to the themes portrayed in the film “Obsessed” staring Beyonce, as this film also develops the typical themes of thriller.
Like in many thriller films our short film has the stereotypical "psycho" character which is reflected in our character Alfie. This character is a typical convention of thriller films as this typical “psycho” character is used in films such as “Scream”, “Waz” and even the character Sam in Kidult/Adulthood. His character is paralleled in typical thriller characters, whereas our character of Johnny develops stereotypical characters of a thriller genre as he is not aggressive and eager to get revenge, yet he makes an important role in the film as he is motivation for Alfie's revenge. This is similar to Marie's character as even though it is not typical for her style of character to be the lead in a thriller film, this convention can be challenged against the usual "damsel in distress" and she can control the trouble she has caused.
In our film, the setting in my opinion uses the conventions of a stereotypical thriller genre.
The setting of our short film consists of long isolated corridors and the small classroom which create a typical environment yet these conventions are developed as we had to make this work in a school setting, working with our constraints. One key convention our setting challenged in our film was that way it was set in broad daylight. It is common in thriller films for the main plot action to take place during the night, such as “Prom Night” and “The Dark Knight”.
A way in which we used camera in our media product strongly reflected to me a clear use of typical thriller convention. The extreme close up of Alfie's eye in scene 2 shows the intense emotion, which is similar to "Psycho" when there is close up of Marion's eye after she has been stabbed. Both shots hold focus for a few seconds to add to the realism of the emotion. It is hard to match a typical shot type to a specific genre of film as camera is used to be creative rather than always reflect the genre. However, the slow paced panning and tilting shots in scenes 2 and 5 are typical of a thriller genre as they are used to create suspense. This similar style of shot was also used in one of my group members AS opening sequence, and this was also a thriller genre.
We also used the convention of fast, snappy editing for our flashbacks to show the characters mind over playing the past in their mind, which we felt was typical of thriller protagonists, as they usually are reminded of their motivation for their flaw before they commit it, for example, this happens in the film "La Haine" and also in “Don‘t Say A Word”. Our scene 3 flashbacks are also similar to Matt Damon’s “Bourne Ultimatum”, which again shows quick flashing shots. We incorporated this style of editing and developed the convention as we added the black and white effect which we felt added realism. This way we felt it was easier to identify scene 3 as past events. The sound we chose for our film built tension in the way that was typical of a thriller genre. The first track played in our film was very slow paced with the hunt of a soft drum being beat in the background. It is a very gripping track which gets the audience enticed and filled with mystery which is the usual motif of thriller film openings. Overall, I think our film both, used, developed and challenged typical thriller conventions, and think the films of the genre were able to give us the inspiration we needed to make our media product a success.