Evaluation – Question 1

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

Typical conventions for a thriller opening would be non-diegetic in the background to create tension and to feel what the characters are feeling and to set the scene. Maybe slow paced editing as it keeps the audience questioning and waiting for what is about to come. Maybe show the end of the film at the opening and then the whole film will be about why it actually happened and why it happened and to show the what the narrative is. This is a method and convention that thriller movies usually use in order to keep the audience wanted to watch more in order to find out more.

In some ways our thriller opening has used some usual conventions of a typical thriller opening. Such as, mysterious music in the background when credits come up. Our inspiration for our thriller opening was originally Stephen King’s IT but coincidently the film Halloween (1978) related to our film in quite a few ways as the conventions in the real media product was similar to ours. Our thriller opening also used some other conventions as the film Scream at the beginning had a girl by herself at home with no guidance, older figure there, she’s almost like a ‘demzel in distress’. This means a girl or a female needed help and is in trouble some how which shows that females are stereotyped for being vulnerable. And in our media product the female actress (myself) is by herself, no one to protect her and she is in a very vulnerable situation. This convention is usually used in thriller/horror films as the audience knows what is in store for them and know what is going to happen and they build a liking for the female character as they seem sweet and innocent until a psychopath comes along and the audience does not want them to get hurt or killed.

 

 

Both Halloween and our own media product had similar conventions because at first mysterious, non-diegetic music starts playing which also plays at the start of Halloween. This is significant as it shows that something mischievous or dangerous is about to occur, symbolizes what might be going through the psychopaths head and it could show the range the character has which creates the suspense of what is going to happen next.

Halloween is also similar regarding the characters as there are teenagers involved and children involved which is similar to mine as the main character is a teenage girl and she is a baby sitter too and there are children in the film as well as in our thriller opening. This shows that thrillers do share familiar conventions in order to gain the gain the thriller fans and the same audiences as other thriller movies. Another thing similar convention both Halloween and our media product has used was a mask, this hides and disguises the psychopaths identity which makes the whole film a lot for thrilling as the audience would want to know who the person is, why is he wearing a mask and why is he targeting a young girl. Also, both locations are similar as they are both filmed in a house, this is significant because homes are supposed to be safe, comfortable , relaxing and secure but this juxtaposes as a killer or a psychopath is in the comfort of their home and a psychopath does not make a home safe and secure as it usually is. This came from the idea of Alfred Hitchcock as you play with the characters mind and locations and you make it unexpected. This is also to scare the audience as it is important that the film stays in their mind, so when the film was located in a house, everyone has a home and this would scare the audience.

The film also juxtaposes when there is an innocent teenager and children and the psychopath for some reason wants to hurt them. This keeps the audience thinking why he wants to do such a thing to such innocent, young people. This creates empathy.  

 Psychopath in Halloween

 The babysitter from Halloween

The titling in our media product was appropriate in size and colour as the size was ideal because it was not too big so that the viewers were not able to see what was in the frame and it was not small so that the viewers could not be able to read what was written. The colour of our text and titles were red which connoted danger, blood, murder, evil, the devil etc. We also thought it was appropriate because it fit in with the clown theme as it was quite colourful and red is one of the main colours of a clown and it also had a dark meaning to it too. The name of our thriller is called ‘Harlequin’ which is another, old fashioned, historical name of a clown.

A Harlequin next to a mother and her baby.

Influences

Our influence at first and originally was Stephen King’s IT as the clown is to entertain children and but within this film the clown is evil and terrorizes children. Clowns are supposed to be funny, entertaining and child friendly but the movie went against that portrayal and made the clown opposite to what society thinks a clown should be like. We also used various ideas and influences from Paranormal Activity 3 because there are children in the film and there’s one part in the film where they are being babysit. Also, we realized that Halloween (1978) had a lot of similar aspects to it that we did not recognize at first. For example the masked psychopath, the baby sitter and the children were all the same type of characters played in our thriller opening.

 

In our thriller opening there’s a important scene where the babysitter sees the masked psychopath through a window and Halloween also has a similar scene. This seems like a typical convention as the scene through the window shows the psychopath is stalking the character, and you’re wandering why is he following the character and what he wants. The audience keeps wandering and it gives them a thrill for what is in store for them.