In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

The title of our film is 'No Way Out!’ we chose this title because it is a line that could be used throughout the film. Telling the audience that James (our main character) is trapped in his head and that there is no way out. This can also deceive the audience, thinking that they may see a thriller film where someone is trapped and may be murdered.

Our media product was able to use, develop and challenge forms of real media products in a variety of ways. This is because our final media product can be considered differently from others. This is because our film is a psychological thriller, which is actually based on a psychological disorder (schizophrenia). The intro is used to show the day when James’ schizophrenia became severe.

It’s similar to other psychological thrillers because it starts, allowing the audience to connect to the main character, living in a house. However, we change straight away to him taking his medication, this shows the audience that he is different; this is because someone his age doesn’t usually have to take medication as soon as they wake up.

All our camera work is still shots on a tripod; this allows us to have professional looking quality. This is similar to real media products, where a majority of the time films have some still shots. However, we were unable to add some other effects used in films due to the fact that we didn’t have the equipment, for example a jib, crane or a dolly.  We also used a variety of camera shots to keep the audience engaged; this is used by many types of thriller films.

We challenged conventions by not using the conventional music that is seen in thriller films, the music they usually use is used to build up tension. The music we used was to show that it was a song that was on the radio, but not a pop song. Throughout the film James was supposed to recognise the song, hearing the words ‘you can have it all’, he believes the song is talking to him.

The genre of our film is is psychological thriller. We show this because the film is supposed to have an affect on the audience usually by frightening them e.g. building tension by using music, or having faster cut scenes. Examples of psychological thrillers are the black swan, the shining and the woman in black. These films all build tension by using music and getting into the audiences minds.

 We also developed conventions of using many point of view shots throughout the intro. This is used when James can see Joe (his schizophrenic hallucination) who also tells James what to do.