Finlay McGow - Question 1

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

In many psychological thrillers the opening sequence is used as a set up for a character, but not what is going to happen later on in the product. You see this in Taxi Driver when he is doing an interview for a job. We have tried to do this in our opening sequence as well by focusing on our main actress, using different camera angles, to try and show her importance and to try and allow the audience to try and think about that character and their personality. You could say we have challenged conventions by introducing our victim around the same time as our villain. By doing this it could change the perceptions of the audience by what is going to happen as they would not know who the true villian is until later on.

We thought it would be an interesting idea to do our credits on envelopes, as it symbolises our music star receiving fan mail. We also have challenged conventions by having the letters fall in from right to left; this makes our viewers feel slightly uncomfortable. This Idea fits into the conventions of psychological thrillers making people feel uneasy.

This is the final shot of our opening and it shows are actress in the crowd. This may unnerve the audience as they start to see her obsession with the star. You also notice that she is amazed by the sight of this star as she is the only one standing still staring will the other members of the crowd are jumping around and smiling. This shot shows that she is a different type of fan than t he others.

In this shot we see our actress writing a letter to the music star. You notice that she is writing number one fan, you hear this repeated a number of times in the voice over. This enables our audience to both see and hear what’s going on. The voice over also allows our audience to get into the head of our actress and get a better idea of her character. This follows the conventions of the genre by wanting to get the viewer inside the head of the person on screen.


The music that we used in the background follows the conventions of many psychological thrillers as it builds up a slow uneasy tension that makes the viewer uncomfortable. This type of repetitive music can also be found in the movie cape fear, with those very distinctive and dramatic horns in the background which start straight from the beginning. The voice over we have used gives the viewer a sense of whats going on and as it is in time we with camera shots helps them realise whats actually going on, but at the same time not fully letting them know whats going on. The use of repetition in the voice over again goes along with convention as a clue for an unhealthy mind.

Our product both uses and challenges forms and conventions of real media products. I have shown you key areas were are product meets conventions, such as with the music and the voice over. But challenged forms and conventions with how we introduced our credits.