Evaluation Question 1

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMAS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

There are many conventions of film openings that are used almost universally whatever style or genre the film may be. These include, the film title, crew (director, producer etc.), cast, production logo, establishing shots (to introduce the location and event to the audience.), and dark music to increase tension in the audience, such as the music used in the opening of 'Psycho'.

In our film opening we payed close attention to other film titles,  such as ‘Alien’ putting our credits in the following order:

Production Logo, Director, Producer, Camera,/Sound, Main Character 1, Main Character 2, Film Title.

(we did this so that the text would fit in with the scenes and transitions involved in the video as well as the various appearances of certain characters.)

The genre that we used for our film opening was horror/thriller. This genre contains many conventions that we not only used, but also developed, but in some cases, even challenged. Some of the conventions of the horror/thriller genre are adrenaline, fear, darkness, tension etc. In our film opening, we included eerie music to raise tension and fear within the audience, which then builds to a huge climax with the appearance of the film title, as was used in ‘Jaws’. We also filmed the opening in darkness in order to create a sense of tension and to create an enigma that makes the audience wonder ‘what will happen next?’

We put most of the text in the same ‘blood red’ colour as the main title for both effect and continuity, as such colours invoke a feeling of dread in audiences of this genre of film. We also used a great amount of close up and tracking shots so as to make the audience feel as though they are there with the main character.

In addition to using many conventions of the horror/thriller genre, we have also challenged some. In our original storyboard, we had decided that the main character should be killed in a forest, but we changed this as we thought that a character being killed in a dark forest was too stereotypical of films of this genre. Instead we decided that the character should be killed on a street. I think that this has worked in our favour.

Overall, I think that our media product has worked well in both using/developing and challenging a lot of the conventions often seen in the horror/thriller genre. We wanted our opening to be unique and to create a strong enigma that would make our audience want to watch the whole film, and I think through the various mediums of sound and mise-en-scene (specifically lighting), I think that we have achieved this.