Further Evaluation

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

When researching other film trailers in the thriller genre I realised a lot of forms and conventions of the thriller genre. I made conscious decisions to both conform to and break the codes and conventions of the thriller genre. 

One of the conventions that I  did follow was the use of fast editing. I used this as I felt like it was a really effective way to build tension, this is used in both action and thriller trailer as both genres want to make the audience excited for the film without giving too much of the story-line. I realised this when looking at the Expendables 3 trailer as well as a lot of thriller trailers such as The Stanford Prison Experiment. 

Another convention that I followed was the fact that I showed the story-line in a non-linear order. This made sure that the audience would not know what was going to happen in the actual and the story-line was not given away. This is a convention of a lot of thriller trailers as it makes the story even more confusing for the viewer and means that plot twists are not given away. 

Furthermore in all thrillers there is a mystery that the protagonist must figure out in order to save themselves or someone that they love, such as in Taken Liam Neeson must find his daughter and save her. I decided to have my person saving herself. She must find out who has taken her memories and replaced them with someone else's in order to make sure that her memories aren't taken forever. I chose to have a woman saving herself as it challenges the conventions of a thriller as they normally have a man, normally an ex-army or spy trying to save the "damsel-in-distress". I felt that this had all be done before, therefore, even though my protagonist looks scared and worried in the trailer, she also looks very determined and she is going to go out and save herself. I wanted her to be seen as a very self - sufficient woman who can stand up for herself.

I decided not to show the antagonist of the film, I have not even hinted at who it might be, I did this to create an enigma that will keep the audience guessing and will make them want to see my film. The use of the enigma is a typical convention of the thriller genre as it keeps the audience on the edge of their seats and keeps them more involved in the film.  

Another of the conventions that I decided not to follow was the was the use of multiple exotic locations. This is mainly due to my budget and time scale. However I did use multiple locations, as I filmed whenever I went to different places such as when I went to visit Falmouth University, which does follow the conventions of the thriller genre. Furthermore I didn't use exotic locations as this made the whole trailer a lot more plausible. This was to create more tension and fear for the audience hence meaning that I had a better film trailer.