Evaluation - Q1

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

Todorov's narrative theory -

This theory explains that all films all follow the same 5 stages.
1 - The narrative starts with a state of equilibrium.
2 - A disruption of this equilibrium by a character or event.
3 - There's a quest to restore this equilibrium.
4 - The narrative comes to a climax.
5 - Equilibrium is restored.

Films that follow this theory; Nemo, The Simpsons Movie, and Kick Ass.

I believe our opening, follows this theory however, with an extra twist.  As I've mentioned, our film begins with a group of friends on their first trip/holiday away from home. In their log cabin they are drinking,laughing and joking as normal friends do-state of equilibrium. The disruption of a murder occurs at the end of our opening with Brad being killed. This would then carry on throughout the film, as others go missing one by one, a quest to figure out why is set-quest to restore equilibrium. This would come to a climax when the murderer is found and there is a fight to stop the murderer. When the murderer is stopped, the equilibrium is then restored. However at the end of the film, a relapse of the past happens with the younger generation and so starting this theory again.

Although our product may be classed as a 'typical' horror thriller, we aimed to slightly challenge the conventions by putting the ending twist (although this wasn't able to be shown in a 2 minute opening).

Some conventions I mentioned in earlier post, was that in many thrillers, in order to create suspense, the sound, editing and camera shots are very important. The sound in ours (although we couldn't add everything due to technical difficulties), add to the suspense but also may throw people off guard. With the group listening to a bit of Bieber, this challenges spooky music typically used in horrors, and so may create a bigger shock to the audience when they realise a killer is on the loose, which intensifies the storyline. However, a couple of shots used do follow a thriller pattern. a shaky point of view shot is used to give an 'unedited' and 'uneasy' feel to the audience. The mis en scene of our thriller also applies with some conventions. The walk into the woods showing a rural isolated area - which tends to be where many muderous events occur in films. The way the friends are going about like all is fine and there is nothing to be afraid of - although in the middle of nowhere - is also a way of setting out that something is about to go wrong as all can't stay perfect. One more aspect, is that one of the friends splits away from the rest of the group and they get targeted - in this case, murdered! (I certainly know I wouldn't be doing that if I was in there situation).

Thriller characters:

• Hero
• Villian
• Sidekick
• Damsel in distress

Although not clearly specified, our thriller does involve a couple of these. The villain - clearly the murderer. The hero however, could be classed a the escapee that catches and kills the murderer. Although the friends are all dead, they may have just saved the the rest of the area or the next group of friends going to the cabin. A sidekick is not shown in this film, yet when the ending twist occurs, could this be a an old sidekick becoming a new villain?