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

My media product, Columbine, uses key conventions that you would find in a typical film of the thriller genre. My film is actually a biographical film which is a film that dramatizes the life of a non-fictional character, and their most historical years of their life.

My media product has different camera shots in which conform to the typical locations shown in thriller films about bullying. In my product there are shots of the character at school, which where most of bullying takes place and close ups from behind the character to show how the bullying has forced him into a corner isolated from everyone and can only show his feelings through a diary. I have also used establishing shots to set the scene with the character secluded in the middle of the frame to show that he is an outcast and doesn’t fit in with the rest of society.

The use of non-diegetic sound works well with the camera shots I have used. One particular type of editing I have done is the uses of a new shot each time the bell tolls. This makes my media opening more dramatic, and connotes the genre that I’m trying to convey – thriller. This is also shown with the soundtrack I have chosen as it gives the film opening more of an impact on the audience.

Although the shots used signifies the consequences of bullying and how it can affect a person, I think that the soundtrack used over it, and the narrative counters this and can make the audience feel ‘edgy’ conforming to the genre of thriller.