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

These are my nine screen grabs from our final opening piece that I have chosen to evaluate and write about in order to answer the following question “In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?”.

Frame 1 – Title/Name of Film: This screen grab is of our title of the film it is quite similar to other horror and thriller films I have looked at and analysed over the last few months. Most other horror/thriller films have a title that makes the audience attracted to the film; they will keep the font consistent throughout the whole film and print media (posters, trailers, titles etc.). It is simple but very bold and it stands out as the background is red and the name is in a darker blood red. It is a typical horror/thriller title as quite often the titles to this particular genre film roll on letter by letter which is what we have done so I think we have done this quite well. The music plays over the top of the title this is to start making the viewer suspicious about something as we have chosen quite fast eerie music.

Frame 2 - Title Font and Style: I chose this screen shot to show what font/colours etc we have used for our titles, as you can see we have used a deep blood red colour and quite a plain font. Our titles also have a hint of white in the top right hand corned, this is due to the connotation of red being blood and the white being skin colour. I think this works well in our opening sequence. Also as you can see we have chosen not to have our titles too large as so they don’t dominate the whole screen however they are still visible and clearly readable.

Frame 3 - How characters are introduced: This screenshot is of our two characters as you can see we can only see the main character (Paul) full and the ‘unknown’ character is not visible as it is an over the shoulder POV shot. We used this shot to show that Paul was actually being watched by someone. The main reason we chose an over the shoulder shot was so you could see the ‘unknown’ was wearing dark clothing and was also wearing a hooded black top this was to hide the identity of the character. This is quite a common feature in horror/thriller films whereby the identity of one character is hidden and not shown until after the death of the main character. I believe our characters are quite similar to other films within our chosen genre. In our opening you do not find out the main characters name this is mainly due to the lack of dialogue from this character.

Frame 4 - Camera Work and Editing: I have chosen this shot from our opening sequence because in this shot we can clearly see both characters in shot, however due to the editing of the clip and the camera work we are not able to see the ‘unknown’ characters face. It is one of my favourite shots within the opening and I like it because we are still unable to find out the identity of our character and we will not do so until the end of the film. I have also used match on action in frame 5, this is when Paul walks up the drive to his door then we switch to be inside the house, this matches up well. In our opening we used a variety of shots and camera movements, we used handheld and tripod shots to show the characters from a mix of different angles. As other horror/thriller films we used a mixture of shots ranging from high and low angle, pan and zoom. I think the camera work and editing of our opening sequence was key to making all our shots successful and similar to other films in the horror/thriller genre. We used the camera effectively and the editing was quick and in time with everything else.

Frame 5 - Setting/Location: This screenshot is of Paul our main character walking into his house, before this shot we see Paul walking home from college. Know we see him in his own familiar surrounding, I chose this screenshot because it shows that the setting has changed from being outside to someone’s house. In the horror genre it is common for films to be based around one of the main characters home, for example in Scream where the young lady is being harassed and phoned. I think we have used a typical setting/location for a film in the horror/thriller genre.

Frame 6 - Costumes and Props: I have used this image as it shows one of the props being used, this being the Apple Laptop it is key to the film because it shows the message that provokes the main character (Paul) to phone for the police and then look outside into his garden and then he realises that there is actually someone there playing with a knife. If we did not have the laptop showing this message the storyline would not work this is why it was such a big part to the opening. As you would not know what would have provoked him to call for help. At first we where going to have it appear on screen halfway through a piece of work he was doing, however due to time constraints we were unable to do this. Again in the text on the screen we chose to use the colour red which as you can see has become increasingly popular throughout our opening, the main reason we have done this is due to the fact the colour connotates blood.

Frame 7 – Genre and how the opening suggests it: I chose this picture because it shows the phone and the numbers ‘999’ being dialled. This is a good representation of horror/thriller as something bad is going on and the person is obviously scared and thinks it is a risky situation so he phones for the police. To suggest the horror and thriller genre in the opening sequence we included a typical scenario whereby someone is being followed by a mysterious person. This consisting of a ‘good’ character (Paul) and a ‘bad’ character (the ‘unknown’). The genre is shown straight away and you can also tell because of the music we have used is typical of a horror/thriller film.

Frame 8 – Story and how the opening sets it up: I chose this picture/screen grab because it shows our main character (Paul) whom which the opening sequence is based upon. The plot in the opening sequence is quite straight forward, Paul who is a college student is on his way home from college and he starts to be followed by someone. He does not realise this as yet. He is followed all the way home. Paul goes into his house to start his homework; he is interrupted by a message that appears on his laptop. It says “I’m watching you!” he is freaked out and goes to grab the phone; he dials ‘999’ and calls the police. You then see him put the phone to his face and as this happens his facial expression changes to become very alert and aware. He has noticed someone standing in his garden, it switches to a POV shot and he sees the ‘unknown’ character just standing there next to a bin, playing with a large kitchen knife which is unidentifiable until he starts turning it round and playing with it. This brief opening sets up the plot for the whole film which is based around Paul and there will also be another story running alongside this one, based on the same scenario.

Frame 9 - Special Effects: We didn’t have many special effects in our opening, however at the end we blurred the shot slightly this was to keep the characters identity under wraps and also this was a good POV shot from Paul, as he has just found out someone is following him/watching him he may well be slightly hazed or have blurred vision due to the shock so I think this works well.

Overall, I believe we have used a variety of media forms very well in our opening which adds up to make our opening sequence similar to one of the horror and thriller genre.