Georgia DeBranco-Chessum - Evaluation - Questions 1 and 2

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

We used darkness as one of the main elements of our piece. This is common in thriller films to create uncertainty and fear, and can represent death. We used darkness to create this effect in most of our piece, as we felt that the scenes in darkness had a more sinister element and were mostly in the point of view of the attacker, who had a dark perspective on life.

Our whole piece was mainly in black and white, with sepia used to make the ‘old home video’ look to our piece, as we wanted to emphasise that a huge part of understanding the plot was seeing through the attackers eyes. The black and white elements also helped to create an eerie atmosphere, which would help to create tension and  suspense for the audience.

In this particular scene we used a high angle shot. We did this to show how vulnerable and in danger the character was. At this point, the attacker was peering over her as she slept in her own home. The angle of the shot helps to emphasise that the attacker was in her home, and was extremely dangerous. Violence is a huge part of thriller films in real media, and so we wanted to incorporate this in our piece. It helps to create tension, suspense and sympathy, as well as providing entertainment for the viewers who enjoy violence in the plot.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• We relied heavily on using stereotypes to represent different social groups, as we thought this would help us gain wider relatability for the audience. Our product represents the social group of teenagers by displaying stereotypical activities that are associated with them, for example chatting to friends, which we used a couple of times to gain relatability. The main female character was represented as very ‘girly’, however was against the stereotype that girls scare easily, which helped to emphasise that she was in real danger because she was very fearful of the male protagonist. Also, we incorporated Vladimir Propp’s character theory and used her as the ‘princess’ or ‘prize’, however we did not have a hero that could save her to put a twist to the plot. We had a villain, the male lead and protagonist, in order to create a detailed plot and a basis for our film.

• We also used stereotypes while portraying our male lead, who is a psychopath with a number of mental disorders. The character conformed with the stereotypes associated with a psychopath, in the way that he was very obsessive, he had no sense of whether his actions were morally acceptable and he was sly and manipulative to get what he wanted. An example of this is where he pretended to be a secret admirer of the female, and sent her a note to meet him. However, when there, it is shown that he lured her there so that he could kill her. Also, the fact that he accepts and conducts violent behaviour with no remorse associated with the negative stereotypes linked with psychopathy.