Valerie Folivi

In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge the forms and

conventions of a real media product?

The story of my thriller opening in summary is

about two sisters who are separated by a woman

who just adopts one sister not knowing that the

sister she left is possessed and holds supernatural

powers. She then stalks the two until she gets into

the women’s house and seeks her revenge.

This narrative is similar to

other thrillers I have analysed, so in my opinion my opening does use the codes and

conventions of a thriller. For instance there is a protagonist being the women who

adopted only one sister and there is the antagonist the sister that was rejected this

story line builds up and ends in a dramatic confrontation or twisted ending.

Wakewood SilentHill Case

39

Wake wood is a new thriller- horror film out run by an independent movie company

called Hammer Film productions, Silent Hill is a an American produced film, not too

big budgeted however it does use a lot of editing and special effects and lastly case

39 also an American produced film and the film my group and I really concentrated

on and used as inspiration for our final idea.

The reason these films inspired our final idea was because of the protagonist in the

films. These were the young girls illustrated in the images above. This was

significant as they also challenged the conventions and stereotypes of females. In our

final idea we subverted the stereotypical protagonist and made a female the

dominate character in our opening this was unusual which is one thing my target

audience was looking for so this was done hopefully to engage with them more.

Valerie Folivi

As in common with case 39 the antagonist the young ‘demon’ girl is not a usual

character in a thriller and so we challenge the conventions in that aspect. The small

‘demon’ girl although wearing coloured tights to suggest her age always wears a

thick black jacket to indicate her as the villain.

.

Our opening was mostly inspired by case 39 the main character relates to our main

villain both possessed by the devil and beholds supernatural powers. The narrative

is very similar both girls abandoned and seeking love and attention to the point that

they get revenge on those who threatening them in a dramatic confrontation.

Throughout the opening their were

quick cuts which were generally face

paced which again is a code and

convention this was done to relate to

our sub genre which is horror thriller,

we needed unexpected and

unanticipated moments which are usual

in horrors. We also showed the horror

thriller sub genre through the girls menacing threats and attacks, the non digetic

tension building music and the editing special effects. One of our soundtracks

related to the twist in character, it was a horror rendition on the famous soundtrack

‘twinkle twinkle little star’.

The title of the film inseparable also grabs

attentions, it’s very upfront and forceful, and

has that fearful element which relates to the

elements in the thriller. The house was really

essential, when analysing other thriller

horror movies such as case 39 I found that

you could create a lot of thrilling effects in

confined areas such as a house. Shadows and lighting come almost natural in a

house and you get typical things such

as mirrors and stairs which we used

to the best of our advantage. Once

again attending to the audience’s

wants and needs the house is where

they feel most safe and our opening

changes that and out of all our

locations that is where most of the frightening things happen.

Valerie Folivi

We used a house as a location to put our audience out of their comfort zones. They

rely on their own house as safety so my group and I wanted to play around with that

by doing menacing things in the house to add that extra sense of fear so people so

longer feel safe in their surroundings we wanted people to relate and be affected by

our opening and by playing with the sense of security we hoped we achieved this.

Mirrors and stairs are used quite often mostly used in psychological thrillers and horror films

One of the most significant things we did

was by using the filters on final cut pro made our whole thriller black and white

throughout again relating to the codes and conventions.