Kwame - Q1: In what ways does your media production use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When making our psychological thriller opening and we had to consider some things in order to develop it and make it a successful media product. We had to consider the setting/location, props and costumes, camera angles and editing, title and its font/style, special effects, and how the main/opening characters are introduced in order to make it similar to that of a real psychological thriller.

The use of setting/location was limited, due to school ground facilities, i.e. couldn't get a proper kitchen, bedroom and living room, so in order to make it seem like an ideal setting for a psychological thriller, we used places that would make it similar to our ideal setting of a house. I believe that we did this very well, especially when watching our opening as when you watch it, it seems very "homey". Despite these set backs, we have used this to be able to develop a look that would be ideal for a psychological thriller.

The title and its font/style is another convention that we used in order to make our production successful. We entitled our film, The Skinner, in order to add a sense of tension, even before you actually see the whole film itself. We also created this effect through the editing of the title font by adding special effects which is like as a peeling effect, which is similar to how our killer treats his victims. We also used our enthusiasm and imagination for this "homey" look by providing our own props and costumes like, pyjamas, robe, bowl, cereal, bed etc. For this reason, it was successful, and I believe this because we were able to make use of the equipment that we had to make this a successful psychological thriller.

One strength in developing our media product to be a successful psychological thriller is through the introduction of the main character. We have done this in such a unique way, which is unlike a stereotypical thriller, mostly showing some sort of action before finding out the criminal. In our movie however, we introduce him with his daily routine, which allows the viewer to be open to ideas about what this movie could be about. I think that by doing this, it will get viewers more interested in our movie through this unique opening as it is not something that they expect from a thriller. Famous Thrillers like American Psycho use this type openings to give an insight of how the killer is portrayed at the beginning.