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

The sound track that we used for our media product was influenced from the Phone Booth. The sound track used has strong relation to our title ‘Prank Call’. The sound track is played at a fast pace developing dramatic tension that gets the audience mentally aware. From our questionnaire the comments that we received concerning the sound track was positive however one participant said that the constant music of the telephone ringing was boring and did not give and insight, he also mentioned that the sound track did not create awareness instead caused irritation due to the constant phone ringing. Our editing resulted in our film being simple and fast as there cuts that we displayed were simultaneous, this feature is common in thrillers as it keeps the audience alert. Within our opening sequence we did use some conventions of the thriller genre such as innocent and helpless victims which are typically used within thriller genres, we used dark and gloomy sounds that helped to create tension which is also a convention of the thriller as the audience is engaged and afraid of sudden actions, also within our opening sequence we had the typical killer that was anonymous, we did not display the killers face in order to create a sense of mystery. We used some interesting camera techniques to create effect such as the point of view shot of the killer following the victim, this shot creates tension and suspense, however the feedback that we received from the audience helped us understand that we did not vary the shots distances enough, this was due to the overwhelming amount of attention we gave to what was actually in the shot rather than the distance of the shot from the action. We filmed during the day which did not fit in the conventions of the thriller genre as thrillers tend to have a dark & mysterious Mise-en-scene, A typical thriller convention ensures that the action takes place at night. In our opening sequence the ways in which it meets the convention of a typical thriller genre is the music that we used, the victims being helpless and week also helps to relate the film to a thriller genre and finally the environment (mise en scene) being a school helps to the audience to feel connected to the victims creating sympathy and fear as the film is rated for 15+.