In what way does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media

products?

My media product is a short film which comes under the

thriller genre.

The first convention I used was a limited amount of

characters. This is because short films usually have small budgets and keep

things simple. I only had 2 characters to keep it simple.

This is similar to the short film ‘Cargo’ where the two characters throughout the film are a dad and his baby

and there is a only one character who can speak which is the dad. This is

similar to my film where the main character is the

brother searching for his kidnapped brother and the other character is another kidnapped victim who does

not speak.

The next convention I used was that the film was the fact the film is very short.

This a convention used in most short films as short films are again, low in budget and

about simple plots stories that can be told in about 5 minutes.

Some films extend to about 10 minutes but I kept mine very short to about 5 minutes.

Another convention is the protagonist is the only person who can solve an enigma in the narrative. I used this convention because in my film this example is true as the protagonist is the only character the audience knows and throughout the film he is the one trying to solve the problem of his kidnapped brother by paying a ransom. There are usually lots of cuts and a variety of different types of shots in thriller films and in my film this is also true as there is a lot of different types of shots and the shots cut to one another quite quickly to build up a bit of a quicker pace to the film. This is similar to the short film ‘Cargo’ because the dad is the only person who can save his child before it is killed. This is what makes the protagonist the main character of the film and helps add to the narrative enigma and leaves the audience asking why is he the only one who can solve the problem.

 One convention I challenged was that the enigma is solved at the end of the film. In my film this does not happen and my film is left on a cliff hanger. The reason I did this is it what leave the audience thinking about the film more after they have watched it wanting those questions answered and another is because it made the storyline more interesting and gave it a bit of a plot twist. One might argue that I used the convention of a twist, which is another common convention in short films like in ‘Cargo’ the twist is that Dad dies where the audience might expect him to live, so that’s the twist.

Another convention I challenged is the audience’s unrestricted knowledge of the antagonist. I did this by not even letting the audience see him or hear him. I did it so that it would add to the narrative enigma of someone completely unknown to the audience could have such a strong hold over the protagonist. This is similar to the short film the dark knight because they do not know that much about the antagonist the Joker. This makes the character more interesting and gives the character there own enigma.

Lastly, I developed the convention of having music in my thriller short film by choosing not to have any and just using the natural sound of the location instead. I think that this gave the film a more realistic edge to it and might be an unexpected element upon audiences as mostly mainstream films incorporate non diegetic score music.