EVALUATION: Question 1

"In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"

- Logo of Production/ Distribution companies.

- Production title.

- Film name.

- Film title.

- Casting.

- Music.

- Costume.

- Editor.

- Production design.

- Executive producer.

- Producer.

- Director.

The purpose of a film opening is solely to entice an audience into the opening to which they should continue to watch the rest of the film. A film opening should also establish the main characters and genre. 

Protagonist 'Sarah-Louise'

 'Robert Greene'

There are very clear codes and conventions linked with a psychological/romantic thriller film. These being:




      ·      Create a sense of suspense throughout the opening

·      Build up the tension throughout

·      Some fast-pace editing

·      Protagonist has some sort of illness

·      Mind games are played – seen through cross cutting

·      Isolation 

After research into film openings and title sequences and its conventions I discovered that there needed to be some essential things within our opening, these include:

·      Information about the distribution and production companies – including logos.

These logos are commonly used before a film opening to inform the audience of who made the film. It gives the audience an idea of who created it thus letting films be categorised into bundles by who the distribution label is. Common distribution companies are very well known so people may be familiar with their previous work.

      ·      Include information about actors/actresses involved within the film.

Actors/Actresses names come after the distribution logo because they’re the main selling point to the film. Famous actors who have a good reputation will attract an audience they have previously received. Not so common actors may have to rely substantially on the plot of the film for the audience to be obtained.

·      The title of the film the audience will be going to see.

The title usually appears within the middle of the ‘Title Sequence’ as this is the fundamental information to the thriller opening. The title usually gives people an insight into the storyline within the thriller. This sometimes doesn’t occur as filmmakers sometimes add a shock twist within their thriller which opposes the title.

My thriller title does have a flicker effect on it, I did this to show
i slight insight into the woman's madness.

·      Soon after, music composers, casting directors, costume designers and editors.

These follow the distribution and actors names because they have less relevance to enticing the audience.

    Include a comprehendible narrative - my thriller was a narrative opening.

This involves the storyline of the opening flowing sophisticatedly and continuity is precise.



There is clear continuity
between both these shots. Match cuts to show a clear sophisticated flow.

    


·  Mood/tone of the film – established by sound/camera/editing/mise en scene.

This is usually established by establishing shots. Sound sets the atmosphere of the thriller so this adds a lot of importance to the opening of thrillers. Mise en scene adds to the perspective of the thriller – giving the audience a good idea of the sort of thriller it will be. The mise en scene within my thriller adds a contemporary touch to my thriller opening.  Narration was used in Trainspotting which set the characters perspective. This was used for inspiration in my thriller as I wanted my protagonist to set her storyline for the rest of the thriller.

·      Titles include: fonts, pace and colour.

The titles of thrillers can sometimes have an edgy font. Like in ‘Seven’ the titles flicker which add a frightening atmosphere to the opening. Seven gives a gory, frightening atmosphere to the opening as it has a ‘horror’ theme. However in ‘Panic Room’ the titles are clear and normal and the pace is quite slow. This resembles my opening as my titles do not signify any type of thriller theme and have a simple, sophisticated look to them. Generally, titles should look clean and precise unless the filmmaker has specifically put an effect. Usually black or white titles are generically used.




This title from 'Se7en' shoes an edgy font, gives a lot away about the film and it adds to the subgenre of 'horror' to that film.

This is a title from 'Panic Room' as you can see their font is simple, not giving too much away about the film.                                          

This is my own title from my thriller opening 'The Diary of Sarah-Louise', I've used a similar font to 'Panic Room' as I wanted to keep them plain, simple and sophisticated.

              

In my thriller opening I started off with the distribution and production of ‘Candi Studios’ and ‘Skyline Productions’ which set the thriller as a conventional opening. Then I moved on with establishing shots of the park where the action of the opening would take place, with protagonist ‘Sarah-Louise’ walking through. The establishment shots are a key element of a thriller opening as they give an indication of the location of the thriller. I thought the use of a park as the set location gave us a wide variety of space to gain perfect shots. Also the size of the park gave a diverse scene to which we could film the man and women at different places at the same time.

Another code and convention I have followed in my thriller opening is the identification of the lead characters within my thriller opening. The protagonist is the first image we see in the opening, and the long shots at the beginning of both characters gives a sense of following and stalking. The transition to close-up shots in the middle of the opening, give the sense of suspiciousness. The identification of lead characters in the thriller is a common convention that I have stuck by in the making of my thriller.

Another convention I followed during my thriller opening was the idea of fast-paced edits that relate to the film Seven. Seven heavily intertextualised my ending scene with the diary as I got the idea of cutting up pictures and putting them into a book/photo album from this film and it definitely showed the audience there was a case of obsession and stalking occurring within my film. However, I put this part at the end of my opening which let the audience relate the earlier footage seen, to the bedroom scene at the end. Also the use of a voice-narration by the girl allowed the audience to hear a sense of mental-impairment within her.

For intertextuality, we also got aspects from He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not where it is about a woman who is interested in a man and buys him a rose, however, although the film does not show a man in the clip the audience get an idea that the woman is in love with someone through the mise en scene. Another film we gained intertextuality from was Mezine where a woman is walking her dog. However we used a dog in our production but with ‘Robert Greene’ – the use of a ‘hard-looking’ dog gave the impression that the man is the stalker within this storyline however he isn’t which adds a twist.

The closing convention I have incorporated within my opening is the fonts and style of the titles. I stuck to the normality of the look of the titles. Using this idea let me build up the suspense of the actual film and not give any of the sub-genre away within the font of the title. Keeping the titles black let them look sophisticated and prestige.