Evaluation Task 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions from real media products?

When we first began to discuss what our hypothetical films narrative and characters would be, we immediately decided after watching lots of crime thriller trailers that we wanted to challenge a lot of the gender and age stereotypes that usually occur in most films. We noticed that in the majority of crime thriller films that the protagonists are almost always male, and the female characters only have secondary roles as the love interest, victim or at most a final girl. They are often portrayed as being very emotional, weak and dependent on the men, whereas the male characters are portrayed to be strong, fearless, intelligent, violent and the heroes of the story. We also wanted to challenge age stereotypes and we did this by having a varied age range of characters from as young as 17 to mid forties, by significant age differences between characters we could develop a more complex plot and interesting relationships could be established between all the characters, therefore making the narrative more intense as different ages and genders can bring a lot of conflict. So by challenging age and gender conventions we break the social and cinematic norms whilst simultaneously enticing our audiences.

1. One of our protagonists is unconventionally female, usually in films such as SE7EN the two lead roles are both men and typically portrayed as the strong, smart and independent working men dealing with the cruel world of crime. However, we turned this paradigm on its head and had a female lead in charge of the actual case itself dealing with the problems first hand without the assistance of a man. Detective Jones does however, have the assistance of another woman to suggest that women are taking on jobs that were considered more masculine, and by having another woman there this could infer that it's not a rare occurrence to have women working within the field of crime scene investigation.

2. Again at the very beginning of the trailer it features a third female character as one of the secondary roles, it may seem very predictable to have a young blonde girl in a crime thriller film playing the "damsel in distress", but her role is much more important that that. Kayleigh is only 17 years old and is the only survivor of the Phillips family homicide, she witnessed her family being murdered in person and fled the scene away from the killer. The next day she is interviewed by Detective Jones and her assistant and remains silent and motionless whilst she constantly repeats the traumatic memories of the night before, this shows that a young and defenceless girl is very emotionally tough as she is coping with the horrific trauma of her families death. So although she lacks physical strength, she has a tremendous amount of emotional strength which is an overlooked trait to have and is often forgotten or dismissed. Kayleigh technically does challenge female conventions as she is so young and has been through so much and continues to go on without her family which takes a lot of inner strength.

3. Here we have Peter Stone (the young rookie Journalist) and Detective Jones working together on the case that has been reopened. By having both a male and female lead we were able to challenge not just cinematic normalities but social norms; we have established a basic form of equality within this shot as a man and woman are working together and are both equally involved and neither character has established who's superior because of their age and gender when in actual fact their conflict is triggered by their clash in personalities and moral differences rather than who's better based on their gender or their age. Although we have a male lead which is a convention  for most films in general, we wanted to have a man and woman working perfectly alongside each other, talking about more important things rather than having a mostly female cast so we didn't force female superiority upon our diverse audience as that would be hypocritical of the mostly male led films.

 4. As I've previously stated, men in films are shown as aggressive, powerful, independent, work orientated, the hero etc. But we wanted to have a male lead that thinks about more things more logically rather than acting and responding with just impulsiveness with violence or constantly chasing down the killer. We wanted to avoid a character like Brad Pitt's role as, Detective David Mills who is a young rookie detective who hasn't had a lot of experience but likes to be in the playing field so to speak, he wants to be the hero and use violence and be active in the field rather than being sat in an office and doing research for hours on end as he lacks the patience. So we opted for the Morgan Freeman's role of Detective Somerset, the logical patient thinker with more empathy and emotion than most men, who acts more rationally and abides by the law rather than lashing out with his anger and impatience. By having an intelligent, logical and patient character within a young journalist we challenges the conventions of how a man should behave particularly in this environment.


5. This is our "falsely" accused prisoner Mason Carter, imprisoned for the series of family murders from ten years ago, kept away from his wife and children. From this shot here, the body language, the facial expressions and the size of himself compared to his environment clearly shows that he does not conform to the male stereotype; he looks emotional, vulnerable and small. So Mason doesn't follow the masculine societal and cinematic norms because he is showing emotion which could be perceived as a sign of weakness, he looks defenceless whereas men are "supposed" to be fearless and strong and yet he is so small and helpless mainly due to the framing done on purpose to create this affect and for the audience to connote this for themselves. However this is contrasted with some other clips throughout the trailer with him being quite aggressive and shouting angrily saying that he "didn't do it!" and wants "to see my family now!". His frantic, frustrated and fluctuated emotions are all because he feels that he's been wrongfully convicted of a series of horrific crimes he did not commit and has lost his family in the process.

6. Here we have the journalist again and he's working on the case, doing his own research and patiently collected the evidence and trying to "solve the puzzle". Most of the time the male characters in a crime thriller film are in on all the action, chasing down the suspect, aggressively interrogating, getting into fights, saving lives being caught up in shoot outs etc. However, Peter -is patiently working on the case independently, spending hours on end trying to find some sort of lead or any other connection that hasn't been made before. Peter Is using his intelligence and logical rather than his physical strength or violence to find the killer, so this shot reinstates that although he is a young rookie journalist like how David Mills is a young rookie detective, but personality wise he is much more like Detective Somerset because he's empathetic, educated, patient, and logical.

7. In this screen grab we can see Detective Jones and Peter Stone discussing the case when they initially meet and try to compromise and make a deal, although the male character is taller you can see by looking at the female Detective's facial expressions and stern body language that she is in charge and not intimidated by a man even if he's bigger than her. Women aren't normally shown as being aggressive and stern, especially towards a man so Detective Jones challenges the female stereotype by having male traits that are typically associated with men; she's educated, stubborn, career driven, dominant, independent and feels far more superior to other colleagues especially the male colleagues. However, Detective Jones is quite isolated which isn't very conventional for a woman generally as they are expected to be very family orientated or at least married and there's no mention or anything to suggest that she has anyone particularly important in her life except to look after herself and focus on her long career as a Detective.

8. This shot relates to the stereotypical 'Final girl' as she escapes danger and flees to safety without the cliché of very little clothing for sex appeal, or screaming as she runs away and trips over nothing only to be caught by the killer as you would expect in a teen slasher horror film. Although she is blonde she is not a typical 'dumb blonde' she's just cast as a very lucky survivor of a family homicide that she witnessed for herself at the age of 17 years old. She does however conform to the young female stereotype of being very emotional, vulnerable and basically the victim as she is left to deal with the loss and the trauma of her family's tragic murder. This show when she is sat in shock with a single tear falling down her face and when she says "I don't think I can live without my family any longer". So the character Kayleigh Phillips is both a combination of two contrasting archetypes, the 'Final girl' and 'The victim' or 'Damsel in distress'.

9. In this final frame we have a different angle of the same scene which reveals the Journalists face as he speaks and offers to make a deal in order for him to get a good story to better his early career, and to also help Detective Jones on the reopened case and to help her maintain her reputation in her job. You can see in his face that he is very intrigued, sincere and respectful as he says "I'm Peter Stone, I'm a Journalist and I just wanted to ask some questions about the family murder". Also in this frame you cans still see that Detective Jones is very much still in charge, disinterested and quite rude, whereas normally the man is quite dismissive of the woman and has no time to listen to what they have to say as they would consider it unimportant as they are extremely busy with their job. So here there is a role reversal generally in the frames that have Detective Jones and Peter Stone all suggest that they have almost swapped roles; Peter is empathetic, patient and uses his logic and intelligence rather than his strength and aggression and Detective Jones is independent, rude, acts superior and lacks a lot of emotion towards others and especially lacks empathy when it comes to the crimes she deals with on a daily basis.