1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge conventions of real media products?
The camera angles used in my preliminary and my main task were inspired by a wide range of thriller films.
The brief of my preliminary task was to create a one minute film which showed a character entering a room, walking across this room and sitting down on a chair opposite another character. This had to be done using camera angles such as the 180° rule, match on action and shot-reverse-shot. This rule which is common in the making of films; this allows the audience to be able to comprehend the narrative through the spatial differences of the characters.
To fully present the piece I used these camera angles as well as others such as low angles, high angles and close-ups. This was due to the findings of my research, films such as ‘Syriana’ and ‘The Negotiator’ used low angles and high angles to present the characters in a particular manner.
In my preliminary I used low angles to present the detective as dominating.
I used a high angle shot to present the character being interrogated as low in status which can also be seen in the thriller film ‘Syriana’.
I found that representation of status through camera angles was a common convention of thrillers, this can also be seen in horror thrillers such as ‘SEE NO EVIL’, where a low angle shot is used to present the characters as superior.
Macarthy Productions