Forms and Conventions of Media Texts

Psychological thriller Our movie is a thriller movie

There are different types of thrillers

Our movie is based on psychological thriller

A psychological thriller is a thriller that “emphasizes the psychology of its characters and their unstable emotional states”

Ventibus Ventibus is a Latin for the chase.

This suits our media product as our antagonist knows who she is chasing to kill and chasing for her love life. Whilst the person she loves is a policeman on the chase trying to find out who is causing so much casualties, being completely unware it’s his date.

Camera Shots Camera shots are important in psychological thrillers as the right shots create enough tension to play with the minds and physical presence of the audience.

A most used camera shot in psychological thrillers are point of view “POV” shots and this is a shot where it is shows what the character is viewing.

Our media product shares the same POV shot with another psychological thriller called “maniac”.

Camera Angles Our thriller matches a camera angle shot of another well known psychological thriller called “Fight club”.

The screen shot bellow shows a high angled shot of a man holding a gun to his victim. This shot portrays his level of power and we as viewers know that he is clearly more superior.

Beside that screen shot is a screen shot of a scene within our film, where our antagonist is holding a gun towards our victim, again portraying their level of power.

Sound Sound is important in all types of films but the type of sound you use is important to create an impact to the right type of genre of films.

As our film is a psychological thriller it is important that the sound used creates tension. Our thriller music sound is similar to another psychological thriller named “Haunt”.

Apart from music sound we used background effects, such as the sound of a gun shot to add more emphasis to the killing scene. This manipulation of background sound is also added in “Haunt”.

Mise-en-scene Mise-en-scene means to set the scene. Ways to set the scene are through:

Costume (what the character is wearing). Props (objects that are used). Sets (location that it takes place). Lighting (amount of light used, either high-key or low-key). Space (how two objects are distanced as well as the relationship to the camera).

We used props to highlight the fact that our male protagonist character is a policeman. Props such as badges, mugshots and guns. Similarly used in another psychological thriller named “Gone”.

Narrative There is a hit woman who is on the loose choosing her targets wisely and executing them. At day she is a typical woman that gets along with her duties and accepts the norms and values of society but at night she is a vigilantly killing her fixed targets.

One night two boys are on their way home after coming from the cinema’s and she is aware of this. She is on a rush to a date, so after killing her target she instantly calls up her date which is a police officer. This police officer is on a chase of killer causing casualties but he is unware that the killer just called him.

Challenges to the Genre Our media product challenges the genre of psychological thrillers in the fact that our dominant figure is a female.

She is the one that is causing all the problems and shows great power because she is good at hiding her identity allowing her to kill her targets and not get caught.

This challenges the genre because males are mostly the most powerful in psychological thrillers as they are seen to be stronger mentally and physically than women.

This challenges the binary structure of Gender, as the female killer is more powerful than the policeman. Going against stereotypes that females depend on men.