Keanon Mcsween

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

The title of the production

At first we found coming up with a title for our production to be a bit difficult, but after a lot of consideration and a long list of names we finally came up with a suitable name that let our audience understand what our film was about, but still left them with some ambiguity about the narrative. Which adds to the audiences sense of unknowing and mystery which links to our production called “The Challenge”. Our production is about a boy who likes to set people challenges with vicious consequences, until he finally gets a taste of his own medicine and is set a vicious challenge by an unknown person.This links with the conventions of thriller films, and keeps the audience interested from before they begin to watch, creating an early atmosphere of suspense.

Title font and style

For the tile shown on screen we chose a black background with clear solid white letters, the font we used was BlairMdC tt. This followed the codes and conventions of thriller films, as a black background with bold clear writing seems to be the norm. We chose a black background to symbolize the unknown which links to our production because throughout the film the antagonist is unknown to the audience. The title is written in clear white capital letters so that it is simple and not over the top, but still stood out as the title.

Keanon Mcsween

The setting and location

Originally we chose to set our production in a forest this added to the mystery factor of our production, unfortunately this location gave us some problems with filming so we had to come up with a different location.We then decided to locate our production in a warehouse, as we couldn’t get access to a real warehouse we used the workshop in the DT department of our school as it looks just like a warehouse with boxes stacked up around the room and different machinery also dotted around the room. We also used the ambient sounds of the machinery in the background to add to our verisimilitude. This would also help the audience to relate to the location as most of our production takes place in this location.

Camerawork and editing

As camera person I worked closely with the director and spent time with the editor making sure that we had enough quality footage to create our final production. We made sure that all ideas and changes to camera work or editing were discussed with all members of the production team.Together with the director and the editor we made sure that our production contained as many different shots and angles as possible, these include; establishing shot, close up, extreme close up, long shot and some high angle shots. We used an establishing shot to show the location at the beginning of the production. We also used close up to show the protagonist facial expressions and costume, we used POV to show the protagonist looking at the props beside him. The use of high angle shot was made by the group to shot our protagonist from the

Keanon Mcsween

perspective of a CCTV camera being watched by the antagonist, this was made clear to the audience through the use of a cut away showing the antagonist watching the protagonist on a digital device.

In addition throughout the editing process we repeatedly watched back our footage, making sure that all our shots flowed and represented our story clearly referring back to the script.

Costumes and pops

As a group we discussed at great detail the costume that we wanted our protagonist to wear. We wanted him to wear clothes that made him look like he was taken out of his bed but we didn’t want him to look cheesy. We decided to dress him in a plain white, slightly torn, blood stained T-shirt with black sports shorts and black socks. We chose this because we thought that it resembled clothing that a normal teenager would wear to bed, simple and comfortable. The costume our protagonist is wearing throughout the production clearly represents him as a typical male teenager. I feel that the protagonists costume makes him more relatable to the audience.

In this production we used many props which all helped to add the atmosphere that we were trying to get across to our audience. The props we used included; a hammer, chisel, a mobile phone, a welcome mat and a picture of an X-ray. All the main props that we used had great importance to the story, all props either added to the perception of our antagonist or was directly used by our protagonist to carry out the challenge set by our antagonist.

How the character is introduced

The protagonist is instantly introduced to the audience as he wakes up confused and with his and trapped in a vice. At this point the audience are instantly pulled into the story making them curious as to why this person is in this position, this may also create suspense as they wait to see what is going to happen.

What is our genre and how does the opening suggest it?

Our production conveys many codes and conventions of thriller films, such as brining the audience directly into the action in the film.

Keanon Mcsween

The genre we chose to base our production on is a hybrid of both horror and thriller. We took inspiration from the film “Saw” but made sure we toned down some of the blood and gore but added mystery and suspense so that the audience can relate the film as being part of the thriller genre. Like in our production in the films Saw 1, 2 and 3 the characters are set life threatening challenges as pay back for something they had done in the past. Our use of sound effects and background music links to those used in popular horror films this adds to the tension and helps to create an atmosphere that is similar to the atmosphere found in real thriller films.