Convention blog #2

For this blog, the assignment was to watch three movies and digress the similar conventions and stereotypes that I stated in the conventions blog #1. Once again the genre that was chosen was suspense/thriller. The three movies that I chose to watch were Hush, Bird box, and You get me. For Hush, it did indeed follow the common stereotype of having a female protagonist who was in distress. She was deaf and she lived alone in her house but was greeted by a male in a creepy mask who tried breaking into her house. At first the lighting in the movie was bright, until the antagonist was introduced. After that the movie was filmed in the dark with little to no lighting and during the night. She fought hard to keep him out so he didn’t kill her. The diegetic sound was her screaming frantically every time he attempted to get in whereas the non-diegetic sound was the suspenseful music that they played whenever the antagonist thought of a new way to get in. The next movie that I watched was Bird Box. This movie didn’t quite follow the stereotypes that I set up in the previous blog. The was a female protagonist, however she did not need some strong hero to help her, she did well on her own. There was also no physical antagonist it was more of a weakness where if you looked at it you would try and commit self harm. Although it could take over people and try and persuade her to take off her blindfold or try and kill her. There was still no specific ‘look’ that the antagonist took so it could be identified. The diegetic sounds of the movies were the dialogue and sounds of horror every time someone was corrupted. Non diegetic sounds would include the sound that the ‘antagonist’ made whenever it was made present or the sounds of explosions and other sound effects that were used. As for the lighting, it varied. There wasn’t just only darkness, it switched between day and night. There were some scenes that were filmed in a dimly lit area but I can’t say they all occurred at night or in the dark. Lastly the final movie I watched was You Get Me. In this film the roles were reversed, the guy was the protagonist and the girl was the antagonist which doesn’t fit the common stereotype for this particular genre either. The antagonist doesn’t necessarily wear masks or ruined clothes so that also doesn’t fit the common stereotype. The lighting often varied as well but the darker scenes were filmed in reddish, dim lighting. As for the diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, the diegetic sounds would include the music that they were dancing to at the club or the dialogue. The non diegetic sounds would be the eerie music that was played during creepy scenes. The things that I would like to add to the conventions is that it’s very common for the murderer’s or antagonist’s weapon to be a knife, it’s not really common to find an antagonist to have a gun or easier weapons to kill with. Two things I would like to subtract from my list of conventions is that the protagonist is not always saved by a big strong hero nor do they necessarily have messy clothes.