Evaluation Question 1

Before beginning to produce my opening sequence I ensured I had researched enough film openings

with the same genre of my own; which in this case was Thriller. I conducted this research in order to discover the typical forms and conventions of real media products. I mainly looked at the films Se7en, Shutter Island and Black Swan in detail. To conclude my research I noted that most Thriller films follow these particular conventions. Non-diegetic sound track (Equilibrium), second non-diegetic sound track added, creating more suspense and tension (Disruption of Equilibrium), introduction of main characters stating their age, gender, ethnicity and sexuality in some cases and introduction of the narrative. 

When filming our opening sequence we used a wide range of camera shots, these included variegated ones such: the zoom shot, handheld shot, and over the shoulder shot. Many thrillers concentrate on using panning and tracking shots as they follow the subject of the scene; however these particular shots weren’t our main focus when filming our production. A shot we found worked powerfully was the handheld shot, we felt this shot emphasised the idea that the videos shown were home videos as when you film footage at home the filming normally appears as ‘rough’ as the use of the tripod is not present. These shots don’t tend to appear in Thrillers; however they can be used in particular scenes e.g. a chase. Therefore in this case I feel this a convention in which we challenged as this shot doesn’t appear frequently.  We also focused on long shots, we these filmed from different angles and edited them together so they created continuity. I feel these shots were our main focus as they clearly established the relationship between the two brothers. Recurrently Thrillers tend to use close up shots to capture the intricate detail, which can be a key part to the film. A powerful convention we followed was the use of low key lighting; this is commonly used in opening sequences such as ‘Black Swan’ and ‘Se7en.’ This creates an uncomfortable atmosphere as in some cases not all of the scenery is highlighted so you may not be aware of the complete Mise En Scene.

One convention I feel we successfully developed was focusing our opening sequence on the main characters of the film. Many films chose to do this to indicate to the viewer that they are the main features of the film, this also gives the viewers an opportunity to maybe discover information about the character for example their location, relationships etc. Although however I feel we presented our characters in a different way to the norm, due to the fact that many characters that appear in Thrillers typically appear as dysfunctional or psychotic for example Teddy from Shutter Island.

A common convention which many thriller films follow in the opening sequence is the use of non-diegetic sound, which is played over the footage being presented creating a sound bridge. Throughout the duration of our opening sequence there is no diegetic sound or ambient sound featured we done this to create an eerie tense atmosphere. The use of various soundtracks and voiceovers give the viewer an insight of the genre of the film and what’s happening. When editing our footage we adapted particular footage so it appeared to be shot using a home video camera, we did this by placing a camera overlay over the top of our footage. There are a number of horror/thriller films that use this method as well including ‘Paranormal Activity’ and ‘Sinister’ which is a film which inspired us greatly when producing our production. Both of these films use a different technique however both appear as successfully as you are able to immediately distinguish that it is filmed off of a home video camera, this can also be identified phonetically as well as visually through the use of sound effects e.g. rolling of the camera, or quality of dialogue.

I feel our titles we used both develop and challenge the conventions of a thriller film. The titles which appear include who the film is ‘featuring, produced and directed by’ which appears in every single film opening. The font we used was similar to psychological thriller ‘Se7en’ which is a successful thriller. I also feel our main film title ‘Progeny’ is successful as it appears in the colour red which has a colour connotation of danger therefore this why we chose this. We presented it against a plain black background so it appears as bold and stands out clearly. However in ways I feel as if we challenged the conventions, due the fact we featured a slide which says ‘Based on a true story.’ Titles like this normally appear in the advertisement sequence of the film however we thought it worked well there due to the fact it broke the continuity between shots, distinguishing the different time periods e.g. past (flashbacks) and present day (Alfie drawing a picture)