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

Narrative

The opening sequence of our film is a non-linear narrative, we often get flashbacks from the therapist office to shots of her at home at the scene of the murder. This keeps the audience intrigued and it also exaggerates Lucy’s mind and how her life is falling apart.

We decided to display our title sequence at the start of the opening sequence, this is to not divert the audience’s attention from the action later on in our sequence.

Genre

Our film is a psychological thriller, to show this we used conventions such as knives and by the use of flashbacks. Psychological thrillers focus on the mind of the protagonist, we portrayed this by showing the flashbacks.

Lucy is dressed quite casual, this is to create the realism in the film, therefore representing our genre as thrillers usually focus on real life events.

We looked at ‘Silence of the Lambs’ as research for our genre, this film is of the same genre as ours. There’s lots of thriller iconography used throughout, including an original yet realistic storyline.

Camera angles, Editing, Sound

We used shot-reverse-shots to convey the conversation, it also shows the contrast between Lucy and the therapist. Cleary stating that Lucy is of a lower class and has had a rough upbringing.

Close ups of Lucy’s face are used throughout the dialogue with Sophia in the therapist office. This is to demonstrate Lucy’s state of mind and that her facial expressions show that she is distressed.

Continued

We used a point of view shot when Lucy finds the knife, this is to make the audience feel involved in the film but it also gives them an insight of Lucy’s state of mind and implies she’s seeking revenge.

We used sound effects such as heavy breathing and a heart beating to emphasise Lucy’s panicked actions. In the therapist office, we used gentle music so we didn’t distract the audience from the dialogue, this music stops for the flashbacks. We use very high pitched music on the last flashback to build tension.