Similar media texts

There are a lot of already existing media texts that relate to our film, some more than others. I will be evaluating the similarities and differences between each media text and my Thriller.

Similarities: Our Thriller is similar to The Bourne Supremacy as our protagonist suffers from post traumatic stress disorder after being a sniper in Afghanistan, Jason Bourne, the protagonist of the Bourne series suffers from a similar defect after committing acts of murder and extreme violence when he was a trained assassin. He has undergone significant traumas in his life and his girlfriend in the Bourne Supremacy is assassinated which gives him the drive to exact revenge on the killer. Our Protagonists are equally driven to right wrongs, and are both psychologically unstable. Also both protagonists have unusual aptitudes for hand to hand combat and operating firearms. As these conventions are shared between my Thriller and The Bourne Supremacy, our target audiences will be of a similar age. Both protagonists are on the run from law enforcement, or are at least evading capture.

Differences: Jason Bourne is an ex- trained assassin, our protagonist used to be in the military, they have different backgrounds. Also Jason Bourne may be driven to take down the enemies of his girlfriend, but he is avenging her death in this film, where as in our Thriller the Sniper is protecting his daughter from being killed in the first place. The Bourne Supremacy is set in multiple countries and the protagonist has been dragged back into his old life of which he wanted to escape, our Sniper couldn't let the combat zone go and made it his duty to protect his daughter, one protagonist is being pulled back into  life he wanted to leave, the other couldn't help but to carry on his life as a soldier. Also TBS is not orientated around the sniper aspect of the film, but around the chase and the Thrill of seeing if Bourne gets captured or not.

Similarities: Again, the protagonist of two minute warning is a trained killer. However instead of suffering from mental discomfort from his past, he is just plain psychopathic, with no prior reasons such as fighting in a war or coming from a background of being an agent for a government organisation. Our main character is arguably psychopathic as he takes out innocent people whom he thinks are threats to his daughter. The sniper shows no remorse for killing innocent people in my Thriller and TMW.

Differences: The sniper in TMW is hired by a group of armed robbers as a distraction for the police to deal with whilst they pull of a heist, our sniper kills on his own accord. Again the sniper's backgrounds differ, our sniper is of a military background, and TMW's sniper is a hit-man for hire. A lot of TMW is filmed in first person in the perspective of the sniper, this is greatly different to our thriller.



                                
Similarities: Mark Wahlberg plays a military sniper that has finished his time in the army, the film is high intensity chase to capture him for the murder of a president. In my Thriller our protagonist has left the army and is also being hunted down for the suspicious murders related to his daughter. 

Differences: The Sniper in shooter assassinates a president as is then on the run from authorities and agencies, In my thriller there is a chain of murders that are being investigated and then our sniper is on the run..or at least outsmarting the lead detective on the case.

Similarities: The protagonist in Leon is a father figure of sorts, he protects a small girl that becomes like a daughter to him. Our sniper strives to protect his daughter, there is a sniper scene that is very similar to ours in terms of shots and narrative as Leon and his daughter figure Matilda are on a roof looking for innocent people to pick off in a park below, they choose to follow a runner. Although in our Thriller the girl isn't involved with the killing of the male runner in or Thriller, the connection between the father and the daughter is strong and that is a big similarity between the two films.
Differences: The differences between my Thriller and Leon are that AGAIN Leon is an assassin...my protagonist is ex-military. Our sniper is driven by his protective instinct, yet in Leon, the protagonist is driven by revenge, but also a fatherly protective instinct kind of thing.  



Similarities: Jarhead is a war film essentially, despite the severe lack of combat. As a concept it is based around the sanity and mental state of the soldiers fighting in the war, which would be similar to our thriller, only set in the homely surrey hills, not in a war zone. There are a variety of sniper scenes in jarhead which are shot in a similar way to how we intend to shoot our thriller. The protagonist shows signs of serious stress and his mental state is clearly affected by the environment of the modern warzone, again similar to our protagonist.
A film I would reference in regards to being similar to our film in the same way as Jarhead is The Hurt Locker. This film also questions a soldier's mental state and dwells upon moments of outbursts and demonstrations of the detrimental effects of war on the brain of a soldier.

Differences: Jarhead is set almost entirely in the middle eastern war zone, the story focuses on the soldiers relationships with each other, themselves, their environment and the U.S government. There are almost no action scenes whatsoever. Our Thriller will also be orientated around relationships and the mental state of the protagonist, but there will be little reference to politics and governmental issues. Also there will be plenty of action sequences in our Thriller to appeal to the younger, male target audience who will be attracted to the film due ti the action conventions.

Similarities: Jack Reacher is arguably an Action Thriller, our thriller will have some action conventions to draw in a younger target audience. The sniper in Jack reacher picks off innocent people walking along the riverside. He shoots them from an elevated sniper's nest. The killer has no connection to the victims whatsoever, and again the sniper sequence is very similarly shot to how we intend to shoot our Thriller. The sniper is scared from his experiences in a middle eastern war zone where he was a sniper, he was kicked out of the military for committing war crimes, similarly to our sniper who was kicked out of the military for killing innocent civilians.

Differences: The sniper in Jack reacher is not the protagonist of the film, he is simply a narrative device that allows there to be a reason for Jack Reacher to be the main character and to give him a credible storyline. Where as in my thriller the sniper is the primary focus. Yet again the two snipers' motives for the murders differ completely, ours is driven by fatherly overprotective psychopathic instinct, and in Jack Reacher the sniper is simply driven by loathing for the public (as far as I can remember!)


Similarities: With American Sniper the similarities between it and my thriller are more to do with the shot style. We intend to shoot a lot of our Sniper sequences where we focus on our sniper setting up the rifle in a fairly similar way to how American Sniper was shot. For example lots of close ups of the sniper's eyes and fingers and also lots of abnormal shots of the rifle itself. Another similarity between my Thriller and American Sniper is the military aspect, the same similarity that our thriller shares with Jarhead, Shooter and The Hurt Locker.

Differences: The key difference between our thriller and American Sniper apart from the difference in genre is the fact that the protagonist in American Sniper is a national hero, where as ours is a villain, a cold blooded murderer and nobody knows who he is, there is no notoriety.