Portfolio Project Genre #2

 Genre: Thriller

Target Audience:

The typical target audience for the thriller genre are represented by those in the age group of 15-40. The genre targets people in this age group by creating a complex plot that leaves the audience in constant anticipation of what will come next. The age group for the thriller genre is generally older then other genres since the plot may be harder to follow for some; that being said, this appeals to the thriller audience who are typically looking for something with more layers then your typical action film.

Genre Conventions:

Content - Things usually seen in thriller films are high stakes situations, mysteries, and danger. These concepts usually follow the protagonist of the film as they navigate around the challenge while leaving the viewers on the edge of their seats throughout the film. The characters in the film are usually shrouded in secrets and mystery in their respective world. The film is usually darker and more serious then other genres, which is why it has more traction with older audiences.

Techniques - Thriller films usually use close ups and other camera techniques that are effective at capturing characters emotion at any given time. They also use the handheld camera technique; however, not in the same way as an action film, for example. They use them to build up tension and fear in a way that keeps the audience glued to the screen. Thriller films also utilize dark colors like blue, black or purple to create a serious feeling in the audience as well.

Institutional Conventions:

In the media world, marketing a thriller film heavily relies on its trailer to attract its audiences. The trailer should leave audiences wanting more, with questions unanswered. It should be very dark, and introduce our protagonist and their obstacles. The trailer should also develop the films narrative image, meaning it should explain the brief context of the story and narrative world.

The Matrix

Bullet Train

Sources:

Thriller (genre). (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved January 25, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre)

Camera angles used in thrillers. (2015, September 23). Windsorgirls Weebly (Gemini Productions). Retrieved January 25, 2026, from https://windsorgirls.weebly.com/gemini-productions/camera-angles-types-in-thriller-films

Portfolio Project Genre #1

 Genre: Action

Target Audiences:

The typical target audience for the action genre are represented by those in the age group of 12-35. The genre targets young adults with fast pacing excitement to keep them on the edge of their seats as they watch their favorite films. This style would not resonate with those in older age groups since they typically prefer calmer films that they can enjoy at their own pace. Viewers younger than 12 also may not enjoy the film since it may be too complex for them to understand since it does not spend much time spiraling over the plot.

Genre Conventions:

Content - The typical content seen in action movies is good vs. evil and life vs. death. These are depicted surrounding a protagonist, usually one who has to overcome many obstacles and develop as a character. Characters aside, they may also include subplots which develop alongside the main plot with the protagonist. These are used to maintain constant activity within the piece.

Techniques - There are many film techniques that have become almost an industry standard in the action world. One of these are the use of quick cuts and shots to create a feeling of intensity and urgency in the audience. In an action film, even the way the camera is held follows the norms for said genre. A handheld camera is usually seen in most films to capture things like fight scenes or intense chases. This is because it creates a scene that is more realistic and immersive in the film world.

Institutional Conventions:

Looking at action films from a bigger picture, institutions mainly want to convey action films in a certain manner to attract the audience previously mentioned above. Expanding on this concept, many institutions use visual elements like posters and trailers to instantly attract viewers since they typically contain things like explosions or other thrilling elements. 

Alien

Watcher

Sources:

Action film. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved January 25, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_film

Wolfe, A. (2019, May 29). Classified: Action cinematography. Film Comment. Retrieved January 25, 2026, from https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/classified-action-cinematography/

Music Marketing Public Blog

 https://1drv.ms/v/c/ef58d755ad0b4e9c/IQC6CWvk-msySJvltFo4EyDPARG_3VhRgc80b-7YeiT7g7w?e=bNVFfe

Music Marketing

 In our music marketing project, we were given a genre of music where we had to research 2 artists/groups within said genre. The genre I got was the "sub genres of rock" genre. Once given the genre, i began by researching 1 company and providing a brief summary of said company. After, I found at least one artist or group from the company and made a deeper case study about them. I organized my research in columns, totaling in 5 columns of information. In total, I had two summaries of companies and two case studies on Arctic Monkeys and Coldplay.

In phase 2, we were told we had to market a song where we had to present ourselves as the developer of the song. We planned this by picking a song out of a group of 3 that represented the genre we were previously given. We then began to story board the events of our music video, which took about 20 slides. Also, we assigned a role to each member of the group.

Mise En Scene Blog Post

 The goals of our Mise En Scene project was to create various elements from a character description and bring it to life.We were primarily tasked to focus on three main elements: physical representation, setting, and audio. For the physical representation category, we had to design our characters appearance, costuming, and makeup. The setting had to compose of our characters bedroom or most utilized space, while the audio had to be music or stings that could be tied to the character. Once we created all our elements, we were tasked with creating 4 stations to represent them. Each should depict a different aspect of her life and include various types of representations like tactile, visual, and auditory.

Our characters name was Ivy Carrington, a college student who fought for what she believed in: saving her planet. Ivy was a young earth activist who studied environmental science in her college, the university of California. In her day to day life, she is very committed to her activism about her climate. She often organizes various rallies, leading in most, at her school. Her home life was also very social since she lived in an apartment with her 3 best friends 5 minutes away from her campus. Overall, Ivy is a very outgoing and social girl.

For our physical representation, we used a Canva board to illustrate her main physical features like her hair, favorite color, and typical clothing. This was apart of our visual representation of Ivy, and was one of the main stations we incorporated. The slide also had a lengthy textual description of our character, providing context and necessary information to our readers. To help illustrate her setting, we utilized a 3D software called Planner5D. Essentially, we built a room for Ivy and displayed it as an interactive station in our project. Our auditory components consisted of songs that represented Ivy. This included things like: songs she would study to, songs to empower herself, and her favorite songs in general. We embedded these directly into a Canva slide, where the audience could click to play their songs. This was also displayed on a separate station for people to engage with. Our tactile representation was a poster, which represented one of the posters that Ivy would bring to a rally. Combining all of these elements, we were able to properly convey Ivy's personality traits.

When developing these components, my group first started to come up with Ivy's main features. This included coming up with her setting and its related elements, and putting it into writing. We also made all her physical features on the same document as well. Through this, it became much easier for us to divide up the work amongst ourselves. After we divided it, each member knew what they had to include in their representation and had a general idea of how to do it. Overall, I am very happy with how the project turned out. Personally I think each of the 4 stations ended up perfectly and accurately represented my character, Ivy Carrington.

Character Description Page: 

Link To Project: 

Ivy Carrington

Genre Research Activity

 Genre: Suspense

Conventions: Suspense consists of many dramatic elements which are portrayed through careful cinematic choices. It aims to build uncertainty, tension, and anxiety in the viewers. It allows the audience to know that something will happen, but not know what it is. Suspense usually creates a conflict or a threat, which creates that "edge of your seat" feeling in it's audience. It then follows up on this by building on events that lead up to the climax, where the suspense is broken. Once that tension releases, the viewers get a thrilling feeling; this is one of the main points of suspense.

Genre Conventions: Given the information on what suspense is, there are careful techniques used to build suspense and give the audience the thrill they are hunting for. One of the main techniques utilized is the lighting. Suspense films use darker themes and lower lighting to create that anxious feeling in it's viewers. While it is similar to horror, it is very different in it's goal. The lighting aims to create these feelings through mystery, not fear. Additionally, a vast multitude of camera techniques are also employed in suspense pieces. Things like low angle shots, POV shots, and the use of handheld shots are all commonly utilized in these films. Low angle shots are used to make characters or situations feel more threatening. POV shots are used to put the audience directly in the characters situation as a way of emersion. Handheld shots are used for realism, which are an excellent technique to build these anxious feelings in audiences since it is the most impactful

The Blair Witch Project utilizes handheld shots throughout to create a sense of realism and emersion in the audience

Institutional Conventions: Marketing a suspense film has various core elements that define the genre. The goal is to tease, not reveal. This technique creates that sense of mystery just through viewing something like a poster, or a trailer. They aim to build anticipation in the audience since creating that anxious feeling in the audience directly correlates to more views on the film. Adding on to this, they also aim to create questions in the audience, which would draw more attention to the film.

Without spoiling, one could easily argue the film "Get Out" is a prime example of a suspense movie. From the first scene, it creates a sense of wrongness in the audience and builds on this scene throughout. This gives us the anxious feeling that things are not what they seem, which is a prime example of a suspense. It also uses darker colors throughout the film, as well as dramatic sounds, and stings. It also uses close ups and tight close ups to highlight the emotion of the characters, while directly transmitting it to the audience. The producers also carefully use sound as a tool to build suspense throughout the film. Specifically, they use silence to create an awkward feeling which also builds tension in the audience.

Also without spoiling, many would agree that the series "You" uses various techniques to efficiently create a suspenseful piece. The series revolves around a stalker, someone who lurks in the shadows, quietly watching and waiting. Consequently, the series follows the stalker as he maneuvers around his life, hiding his identity, and his existence as a whole. This creates suspense as the audience is constantly on the edge of their seat, anxiously waiting to see if the stalker will be caught or not. 

Some Other Suspense Pieces:

Ozark

Dexter

Prison Break

Breaking Bad

The Platform

Sound

 During our sound lesson, we were taught various different techniques pertaining to how to tell a story through our soundscapes. We learned about multiple sound related vocabulary as well. This included: synchronous sound, sounds that are synchronized with what the viewer is seeing; asynchronous sound, sounds that are not present on the screen; diegetic sound, sound that is in the narrative world with no relation to being on screen or off screen; and non-diegetic sound, sound that does not belong in the characters world or story. These provided guidelines for the following projects we would be assigned to do. 

In the first project, Sound Project #1, our objective was to tell a story using only sound. Our story had to be something that could take place naturally in a 1–2-minute span; however, we were given full creative freedom over the actual plot. We were provided with online databases to gather our audio from and used Microsoft’s ClipChamp to put it all together. Using the knowledge and experience we gained from Sound Project #1, in our second project, we were tasked with adding an entire soundscape to our previous project, the One Word Film Project. In both projects, we were tasked with the creation of multiple Foley sounds. These sounds had to be made by us using real world objects to create sound effects that we captured in Clipchamp. 

To begin both projects, me and my partners made a brainstorming sheet to plan out what "scenes" we would be including in our sound project. During brainstorming, we made a list of sounds that would be expected in our soundscape, as well as the order they would come in. This helped us to find our sounds by just looking at the list of sounds and crossing them out. We used clip champ for both projects since it had many helpful features like detaching audio, splitting audio, etc. In the future, I would like to add more layers of sound to create a more realistic soundscape. However, I still do think we represented our scenes quite accurately given we could not use any visuals.

Links to both:

Sound Project #1: DixitBroderick_soundscape_per5.m4a  Sound Project #2: OWFSound_Broderick