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

In my final product for my media film, I had to take into account several techniques in order to fulfil the thrill conventions. A Normal Thriller movie often uses several techniques in order to maintain the conventions and still attract the viewer’s attention. Some of these techniques that are maintained in thriller films are red-herrings, cliff hangers, Young attractive women, heroes and villains and many more. Within a film, I think cliff hangers would be the best way to end a film. It creates such attention that it leaves a viewer at ‘the edge of their seats’. This creates more of an impact because it makes the viewer want to view more and wonder what is going to happen next and it builds up such suspense. Within my film, I and my group tried to use a cliff hanger when the killer ran away but not noticing that Richie was just at the side of him. It creates such great tension because the audience would expect Richie to retaliate, but all he does is not react and pretend like he didn’t see him. Within our film, we were inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock Thriller ‘North by Northwest’ for the cliff hanger. But in our film, we edited it slightly as I explained. We were inspired at the cliff hanger when the characters are fighting for their lives on ‘Mount Rushmore’. We then had to end the film with a close ending when Richie said a simple sentence ‘The good ones always have to go’. By me adding the cliff hanger just before the end, it created which make the viewer want carry on watching the film so that they know what would happen next. Another convention we used was the usage of Heroes and Villains. The clear Villain was the killer which was ‘Nick’. We don’t know why he killed the girl but he just did. The Hero was suppose to be Richie but it was a race for him to get there on time which he didn’t (Hence the title of the film ‘Race Against Time’). My group was inspired by the hero and villain from the film Spiderman. We established that the hero was Spiderman but sometimes he was a bit too late when saving someone in a situation. The Villain was the octopus man and he was the one that killed people and wanted to rule the world. The other Convention we used was the usage of the girl character ‘Akua’. She was dressed in quite a revealing way from the waist down that’s why she wore leggings. We try and make the audience feel that’s why he targeted her, but they do not know the real reason. We also used a Red-herring when it came to the girl making a phone call. We make the audience feel like she’s calling someone she is suppose to be waiting for, but when she makes the phone call, she ends up calling someone which their phone is in their bag. It makes the audience think whose phone it is and why it is in her bag. This creates such great impact towards the film. We were also inspired with the Red Herring in another film by Alfred Hitchcock which was Psycho. The Red Herring in that Film was the $40000 which the woman had. But in our film, the red herring was the phone.