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

The title of the film ‘LUST’ reflects a short, punchy and memorable title in which we chose so that the viewers of the film would have it stuck in their heads. The title is just on a blank screen and appears shortly after the action happens and appears quickly too. This uses the forms and conventions of a typical thriller as the font is serif and this is also a typical font of thrillers. The title is basic and mirrors similar titles used in other thriller films as it tells the audience that it is based on a genre commonly used in thrillers such as a certain type of obsession in the film.

Title of the film

The setting that we chose to film the beginning of our film opening is clearly a rural area as you can see by the houses and cars around. We chose this area as it makes the scene as real and natural as possible. This setting and location uses typical forms and conventions of thrillers as it shows, like most other typical thrillers, that action can start in the most unlikely of areas, even a quiet residential area. This builds on the story as it progresses from two friends bumping into each other on the street and then it turning into more in the next scenes. We also chose to film in a normal everyday area which contradicts the conventions of a thriller because its very normal and not exciting. Lastly we chose to film our final scene in a subway. This uses the forms and conventions of thrillers because it is a usually isolated area where there are not many people around.

The setting/location

The use of props such as phones and clothing etc… really sets the characters personalities into perspective to the viewer and they also challenge the forms and conventions of thrillers because for example the antagonist (which is the girls stalker) can be seen as intimidating or harmful as he is wearing a hoodie and covering his identity which is typical of a villain in thriller films. The protagonist (the innocent girl) is wearing casual everyday clothes and smiles a lot, which makes her look very approachable which is typical of thriller protagonists.

Costumes and props

The camerawork and editing was by far our most successful aspect of our film and how we used it to convey the personality of our characters. For example we used a lot of high angle shots on the girl in order to make her appear more small and vulnerable and we used many low angle shots on the guy to make him appear bigger and more intimidating to the audience. This was done to enhance the fact that the audience imagines a guy of this build to be stalking an innocent girl as frightening. This is typical of thrillers also because they use many different angles to deliberately convey each character in a particular way. In editing terms, the lighting was low key on the guy as to keep his identity hidden which is also typical of thrillers. Many of our angles are canted angles which uses the forms and conventions of a thriller because it makes the visual look ‘off’ and unusual which can confuse the audience and make them feel a little on edge.

Camerawork and editing

Throughout our thriller and particularly at the end of it, we have created a sense of dramatic irony as the girl is always unaware of the stalker being behind her. This challenges the forms and conventions of thrillers as normally a character in a thriller would have some sort of idea that someone was following them. However, this could also be borderline to a typical thriller as the pace of editing sped up and the shots were more broken up with a variety of shots and this builds tension with the audience as they are constantly wondering what is going to happen next or when he finally gets hold of her. We have used an over the shoulder shot, low angle and canted angle shot all to give our opening a very eerie and unsuspecting feel as to what will happen.

Camera work and editing continued...

The credit font and style that we have chosen to use is a sons serif font which isn’t very typical of thrillers as they normally use a serif font and so our font style challenges the thriller genre. We chose to make our credit sequences slide in and this mimics a very sudden slide in of the man who is stalking the girl, like he is about to slide into her life again. We chose to use the same font all the way through our opening as to make it a consistent style and not confuse our audience.

Credit font and style

The story starts off with two old friends bumping into each other and then they plan to meet up the next day for a coffee. Little does the innocent girl know that a mysterious man is watching all that she does, could he be an ex boyfriend? Enigmas of ‘who is that there?’ etc.

The pair meet up the next day at the Moby Dick and have a chat about what they’ve been up to lately, just so that they can refresh their memories of a friendship that they forgot they had.

Whilst the pair are chatting, that familiar hoodie pops up again and is behind the girl (as always) and she is as usual, unaware of his presence. We know from the first shot of the phone showing a picture of the two, the guy and girl were once a couple. Something must have gone wrong… too possessive?

Finally, from the last scene we can see from his eyes that he wants revenge and is yet again following her! She is also unaware again and once he grabs her we are left not knowing what he could possibly do with her…

Story and how the opening sets it up

Genre and how the opening suggests it

The genre that had to base our film opening on was the theme of thrillers. Our opening has many different aspects of the thriller genre, all adapted to our perception of the theme. Aspects that we could pick our were, an innocent girl that looks perfectly normal minding her business and just walking down the street (typical protagonist who gets caught up in a dangerous situation that they cannot control). Then we have our intimidating, hooded figure who has their identity hidden. Clearly as we can see they are stalking the girl and we do not know why (typical antagonist/usually male in thrillers). Then there is a graphic match which screams thriller as they use this technique a lot. And finally there is low key lighting and an isolated subway. The low key lighting we have kept in mind throughout our opening is typical of the thriller genre and the same thing with the isolated location as this is a typical mise en scene for thriller movies.

How characters are introducedOur protagonist, the

innocent girl, is revealed physically after one shot of her legs, but her identity mentally is kept hidden until the second scene. We see her as a friendly, approachable and confident girl, yet once she opens up about her break up with her ex, who is stalking her in the opening, she comes across as more vulnerable which is usually the situation with thriller protagonists, we are given their identity almost instantly so the audience can bond with them and feel sympathy for their situations.

Our antagonist, the guy (typically masculine) who is mysteriously following the girl, is revealed slowly in the stereotypical thriller genre way. This was done intentionally due to the fact that in thrillers, we want to keep the audience guessing the mans identity throughout the whole film opening. We at first feel a little on edge about his appearance as we cannot see what he looks like but then as we see his face and then see a photo of him and the girl, who calls him a ‘psycho’ , we immediately associate him with her and assume that he is her stalker.