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

The conventions of the thriller genre are dark/isolated setting, a victim, a protagonist, chase scene, suspense, shock, surprise, iconography, low key lighting and enigma. One series of films that uses these conventions well is the Scream series, always having a victim and a killer involved in a chase scene, the iconography of the mask of ghost face, also an enigma of always who is the killer.

One convention I followed was iconography, this is the killer's weapon, and I chose to use a hammer instead of a knife because it portrays a more brutal side to the killer, which reveals more about the killer to the audience, which intrigues them, and makes them want to watch on hoping to find out why he uses a hammer.

 A film that uses the convention of iconography well is Scream, they use the stereotypical knife however uses it well, as the audience already have an instilled fear for knifes as people know the damage that they can cause. Scream plays on that idea and therefore uses it for the killer portraying him as deadly.  Another convention I used was a chase scene, this is because this is a good way of creating suspense in the scene, as the audience begin to emphasise with the victim, therefore as she is being chased by the killer they want her to get away, therefore putting them in suspense as to whether she is going to get away and what is going to happen if she is caught. This is important in a thriller film as suspense is one of the main effects that the thriller genre aims to create for the audience. One film series that uses this convention well is the Halloween series, as it often uses them throughout the series, like our chase scenes they are made in order to put the audience in suspense, as they wish for the victim to get away and are scared for what is going to happen to them. This is the same effect that we are trying to create, and is a key convention of the thriller genre. Another stereotypical convention of the thriller genre I used was low key lighting, this is used to add enigma to the scene, this means that less of the scene is revealed to the audience, which leads to them not being able to see what is behind the characters and etc, creating a sense of tension and suspense. I used this convention throughout the opening and especially during the chase scene, this reduced the audience's view of the scene and gives the idea of the victim being lost, as you cannot see where she is going, therefore it gives the idea that the victim does not know where she is going. This was used well in the film Mama, this was used during a chase scene and throughout the film.