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

My film follows the conventions of theme as it mysterious and has a sense of crime and danger. It does this by having the main character seem shady and troubled. I got the crime aspect by having him take a large knife with him when he disappears. As you do not know what he has done or where he is going, you can infer that he has done something possibly criminal and it leaves you guessing as to that he has done and what he is going to do. The title of my thriller ‘Derelict’ means to abandon ones duties or obligation. This also gives the sense of mystery as you do not know what he is running away from. By using low key lighting in the start, it makes the opening seem mysterious. However, when the character goes inside, I used a makeshift ‘spotlight’ this is supposed to represent the feeling of all his emotions being on show and making him seem vulnerable during the breakdown. After this the lighting goes back to being low key or ambient.

It follows the convention of setting by being set in a familiar setting, a house. It starts in a quiet neighbourhood. This is similar to another thriller I researched, Blue Velvet, which starts off on a quiet street.

My character follows conventions of costume as the innocent victim. Although you cannot be sure of whether he is the victim or not, he is assumed to be a victim of some crime to stress him out so much. To seem stressed, I make him have a sort of breakdown where he collapses and pulls his hair and covers his face, as well as swearing and slamming his hand against the door. This made him seem erratic and stressed. I made him seem like more of a victim by dressing him in casual clothing. This goes against conventions as I intended for it to be revealed that he was in fact the villain towards the end of the film. This is similar to the film ‘The Usual Suspects’ where you assume someone is the victim but turns out to be the villain.

The camera shots I used suit the theme of thrillers. I use lots of close ups as well as mid shots and establishing shots. The close ups are used to get the audience to sympathise with the character as they can see the emotions clearly. I also use a high angle during the ‘breakdown’ sequence. This is to reflect his loss of power and stability of his mentality. The establishing shots are used to show the quiet neighbourhood that the scene is set in.

My editing doesn’t really fit with traditional thriller editing as often thrillers use quick cuts, whereas most of my shots are long and use simple straight cute. However, I tried to disorientate the audience slightly by using lots of cross dissolves between shots in the ‘breakdown’ shot. This is used to reflect the characters confused state of mind and hazy thought process.

In my thriller, I did not use non-diegetic music and used very little dialogue as there was only one character. However, all my shots contain lots of diegetic sounds, mostly ambient sounds or heavy breathing. I didn’t want added music as I wanted to keep the quiet neighbourhood feel. I also wanted to keep the emphasis on the heavy breathing and murmuring. I did also add the sound effect of a police car. This was to add to the effect that the character was worried about authority as he hides away from the sound.