Question 1) In what ways does your media product us, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Location: 

Location is very important when establishing the genre of a film. Our group decided that in order to establish the genre of 'Transit' and to connote to the characters, the use of a gritty, dirty, unglamorous location would be most suitable. We wanted a similar gritty feel to 'Kidulthood' and TV drama 'Top Boy', the majority of times both of these media products are set in London council estates. We felt like Anglia Square car park gave a similar feel and look to a council estate becuase it is a very dull building, like a council estate found in London, these tend be dull, gritty looking buildings. It is an open setting which has many claustrophobic areas within it, it is also isolated and empty adding to that dullness.

Adding to this, using an empty car park had a lot of advantages. One of them being that the emptiness within the car park connotes Johns emptiness within the world, the location creates a feeling of it being detached from the world which is like the mysterious character in our thriller 'Transit', John. The main influence with our decision to use a car park was influenced by the music video for 'Angel ' by Massive Attack. In the music video we see many great examples of chiaroscuro lighting. These are two examples of how our thriller develops conventions of real media products.

In Danish TV crime thriller drama 'The Killing' the use of a car park shows suspicious events and actions. Car parks may be popular among crime thrillers because they are usually well covered, secure places which always have a sense of detachment from the environment.

(6 minutes in with this clip from 'The Killing' showing suspicious events) 





Costume 

A screenshot from 'Ill manors' showing a few youths wearing black clothing

Because of us going for a 'Kidulthood' and 'Top Boy' gritty approach to the opening, we knew straight away to base John's costume on Sam's from 'Kidulthood'. We also took into consideration the apparel worn by many youths around urban areas like London so that we could add more to that gritty atmosphere which is found in these real media products. Johns costume includes him wearing full black, a hoodie with his hood up as well as a hat underneath to represent those attempting to conceal their identities in films such as 'Ill manors' and again 'Kidulthood'. Johns costume attempts to challenge the costume in real media products because Johns costume has slim fitting black jeans, whereas in the image from 'Ill Manors' they all seem to be wearing blue very loose fitting jeans, this is a way in which our media product challenges real media products.

An image of John which shows his black slim fitting jeans

Camera angles and shot types

A wide variety of camera angles and shot types were used in 'Transit'. This is because we wanted to engage the audience as well as show the isolation of the location from several angles. The opening shot of John at the very beginning of 'Transit' had influences from the tracking shot of Josh towards the beginning of Australian crime thriller 'Animal Kingdom'. This shot is important because it shows that our thriller opening is not just influenced from films about troubled youths like 'Kidulthood'. Josh from 'Animal Kingdom' is walking up into a dangerous and wild world like that of John who is walking up into a detached, gritty and dangerous location.

Title

The name of our thriller opening is 'Transit', we decided to use this name because it directly relates to the action. The word transit is defined as the carrying of people, goods, or materials from one place to another. Firstly there is the transportation of Bill who is in the white van, and secondly the transportation of a black bag with unknown content inside it which is being delivered to Hanna by John. there are 2 actions of transportations which is why we found the title 'Transit' suitable. Another influence upon the name would be the white van, the most popular and well known van is the Ford Transit.

Soundtrack

The choice of soundtrack was inspired by crime thriller 'Drive', when 'Tick of the clock' - Chromatics is played over the opening getaway scene. We decided to choose a soundtrack similar to this because we wanted to slowly increase the suspense and tension; within 'Tick of the clock' the music is lowered, dying down which represents the tension at a climatic point.