Evaluation For Movie Opening (Dear Diary) - Question 1

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

• Similarities between our movie opening and the variety of other productions out there include (tense music, jumping straight to the action, flashbacks, sense of the unknown and suspense).
• These similarities allowed us to attract the vast and secure audience that we know already enjoy watching thriller movies that incorporate this themes. Yet it allowed us to branch out and use other ideas such as female protagonists that aren't so common among the thriller genre.
• Another similarity is having the kidnapper as a man, in keeping with the general stereotype that men are more strong, dominant and controlling. We did briefly talk about switching this roles however after doing thorough research we came to the conclusion that it could be to much of a risk. However, our main protagonist is still Lily therefore subverting the stereotype that men are usually the more prominent character. We wanted to show a female who subverted stereotypes in many ways and despite the or deal she goes through remains a strong willed character. Something many women in horror/thriller films lack.
• It develops conventions due to the switching of locations and time periods but also the introduction of a central character through the use of props and location is something that subverts traditional thriller movie plot lines. Additionally, secrecy was used to mask dangerous and sinister character such as the kidnapper which keeps the movie engaging and tense.
• However, it challenges conventional media by using dialogue in the opening sequence, many thriller movies including the one's I have analysed simply use a tense sound score along with creative and intricate camera angels and editing techniques to introduced their film. The limited dialogue we added felt introduced characters well and subverted conventions which made our opening stand out.

Conventions of Thriller -

• Dark colour pallet
• Low key lighting
• Sinister music
• Eerie location
• Mysterious characters
• Fonts that correspond with the genre
• Camera angles that reflect the desired mood

Our production addresses many of these conventions of thriller movies; lighting and sound are both things that we felt were fundamental to keep very similar to that of movies on the market due to there relevance to the genre we have chosen. These conventions allowed us to have a secure audience and also gave us some guidelines when planning and filming our movie opening to make it more realistic and relatable.