1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge conventions of real media products?
However, using these examples, I found that the character often looked away from the camera. Therefore, in my main task I decided to have my character face directly into the camera in order for it to seem as the audience was being addressed in the film. By doing this a tense atmosphere was created, which coincides with the genre of thriller.
From my research, I found that a common camera angle in thrillers were extreme close ups, particularly of a person’s eye. This provokes the audience to feel an emotion in response to the angle, this may be the feeling of being watched due to the intensity of the camera shot, or it may allow them to gather the tone of the play through the expression of the character. In the opening sequence of Donnie Brasco, whose opening was created by Kyle Cooper a renowned opening sequence creator, the close up of the character's eyes in addition to the colour tones used in the angle, grips the audience’s attention due to the concentration and peculiarity of the shot.
Other films where this is present include the film The Negotiator, the close up of the characters eye, conforms to the conventions of thrillers, and this is advocated by the use of editing in the shot. The black outline of the shot draws the attention to the eye. From the repetition of eye-focused extreme close ups, I concluded that extreme close ups are a convention of thriller due to the tension and mystery created by the camera angle. Moreover, close up shots allow the audience to identify the character’s emotions.
Furthermore, in the filming of my preliminary task, although there were brief moments of close ups, I decided to film the majority of the task with more distant camera angles, this was in order for the audience to have a better grasp of the surroundings which would present the theme of isolation.​
Macarthy Productions