1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

When it comes to my film opening, it did not follow the general conventions filmmakers use while making a film with Mystery and Thriller as the genre. The first convention that I did use was not showing or introducing any character in the film opening in order to create the feeling of being on edge.  This convention is usually used in the similar genre to mine. The second convention was lowering the music in the background to emphasis on the conflict and on the visual which is also a common convention used to increase suspense, making the audience use only one of their senses. The way I see it, my product challenges conventions in almost every sense of the word. The first convention my film opening did not follow is the general aspect ratio used in films, which are most commonly 16:9, but my film opening followed the less used 4:3 ratio. I first saw this convention being used in the film ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel – 2014’ and in the trailer of the upcoming film ‘The French Dispatch – 2021’. I originally did not have them in my mind while making the film, but while editing, this idea somehow was so different to the films I watched that it somehow stuck with me in my unconscious mind. The second convention my film challenged was the unstable camera and tight framing, this is the convention which has symbolism behind the difference, as I wanted to convey the feeling of uneasiness and uncertainness yet again. Combining all of the conventions stated before, it only heightened the state of anxiousness. It could be said that I went out of my comfort zone to create this film opening and for anything that involves a regular film convention, even for a thriller and mystery genre. For instance, the font for the titles used in a Thriller genre and the colour used makes the titles generally dark and dim, a little nervous and tense, but the type of font used in my film opening does not convey the tense feeling, using bright yellow completely throws off the idea of the film being dark and gloomy. The way I see it, the films similar to my genre usually follow the same formula of being set in a dark environment with suspenseful music and the same general blueprint, but the way I challenged the conventions were by changing all of the aspects respectively. By using ‘Killing Me Softly With Her Song by Perry Como’ I heavily relied on symbolism for this factor. Since the film opening does not give much idea as to what is happening in the story, I conveyed this message through the lyrics of the song rather than narration or even suspenseful music, a convention highly overused. The curiousness still being present without the audience being in the dark is what I had in my mind for the film opening, and all the unusual conventions give what I wanted.

As for the representation, my main goal was to shine some light on something which has being so normalized in this society that we do not remember similar incidents for very long. Murder, for whatever reason, assaults and violence have been so frequent that living carelessly or without any fear feels so out of the question. How anyone can break into someone’s home, and just completely destroy the bonds, the dreams, the feelings, the soul existing in the body used as a vessel to hold so much complexity, so many ideas, and so many views. It has been so normalized, how the society’s morals are being demolished right in front of our own eyes that we do not talk about this anymore. What I wanted the audience to get from this is that the murderer is also someone with ideologies, and how a human brain is so messed up yet it is so tremendously contrasting, to the one ending their suffering by giving themselves eternal peace in their own mind to the one who gave suffering to the one’s around them, fulfilling their own messed up ideologies. Insecurity, instability, and weaknesses are the most diffused and painful characteristics of the modern world, and if one does not know how to deal with these aspects, it can lead to a havoc on any undeserving soul. I hope my film opening was at least able to shine some light on the issue that this side of the society exists in masses, and it is time we talk about it and since media helps convey a message to an audience, it was necessary to not use it in an unmoral way. How the audience chooses to consume the media is what the film maker cannot choose for the audience, since it mostly depends on various factors, ranging from the audiences upbringing to their environment and whether the audience chooses to emphasize with the character or not. For this reason, it is important to have a representation of the audience, so the one consuming the media feel and understand the media rather than just watch it and forget it once done. The issue I talked about does not target a specific gender, age group, ethnicity or culture; it is an experience which could’ve been happened to anyone, since no one knows what is going to happen to them next. If my film opening had an end, it would clearly end with justice being served, which gives a sense of hope in this hopeless world. That is why representation matters in media and that is what I tried to do in my film opening.