Evaluation Question 1

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

During the initially drafting session with the rest of my team we decided upon the idea of making a psychological thriller, however we wanted to create a trailer with aspects of the action thriller genre and consulted our focus group.  They recommended that we based the trailer around the psychological thriller genre as be didn’t have the facility’s to make realistic action scenes that are seen to be part of the action thriller codes and conventions that we have researched into, and additionally didn’t  have the budgets to facilitate this. Therefore our production is based on the postmodern theory technique called a hybrid, and the idea that our production is a combination of two different genres.

During our have used the codes and conventions of both a psychological thriller and action thriller through the use of low key lighting used throughout, we did this using a sport light, this allowed to create a sense of suspense and darkness behind both the narrative and the character, as well as the reflecting on the villains. This sense of darkness is also created as the male lead wears a suite throughout, the dark clothing perhaps suggest that they have something to hide and allows them to blend in with the narrative. The use of suites and dark clothing also fits in with the of an action thriller and conventions of actions thrillers such as existing media products such as James Bond how the main lead is always smartly dressed, even during action scenes. On the other hand our media product and challenges the conventions and the idea and representation of women as we have a women of high authority within our production that challenges the codes and conventions of most existing products of the same genre, however she is place for the male gaze and is also dressed in a low cut top and skirt that emphasises this theory. However the product also puts emphasis on and follows the conventions of almost all existing media products through Propps theory and the idea that several types of characters within all narrative situations. We have followed this theory though the use of a main protagonist and agonist and the idea that there is always a hero and villain within the narrative. Additionally our products uses hermeneutics codes as first suggested by Barthes and that are conventions of action thrillers through the use of props such as weapons such as guns and documents that signify a preferred reading to the targeted audience, about how this could signify a specific detail within the narrative. The use of uses and gratifications theory allows these props such as weapons used in most action thrillers is used to position the audience into thinking that they are signifiers. Our production challenges, uses or develops codes and conventions as the production is originally based upon a psychological thriller, however after development the products has more codes and conventions of the action thriller genre.