1) In what ways does your film opening use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?WERONIKA POMIECHOWSKA

1) In what ways does your film opening use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Im going to break this question up into deperate areas that I will individually evaluate.

The title of the film In many films the text on screen allows the reader to familiarise himself with the

genre of the film for example ‘Nightmare on elm street uses Red Text which look like blood and allows us to see that the genre of this film is horror.

The title of my film reinforces the conventions of most ‘Horror’ films as I would say its quite simple yet effective, as it uses the critical and effective red colour which connotes danger and fear, I also chose this text as I wanted the audience to have all their attention on the text and the title as its important to lnow what the rest of the film is about. My title screen also reinforces the conventions as the background picture is of two gravestones which symbolises death. In my opening sequence the text is jumping out at you and there is non diagetic sound of a heart beating, connoting that its tense, again at the end of the title screen we can hear a ‘last breath’ this foreshadows that someone has died and has taken their last breath.

Mise en scene- Settings

There are two important scenes linking to settings as one of them is on a dark street where ‘Parker’ is returning home after a long days work, this reinforces the conventions as low key lighting connotes danger and fear. Another key scene in my opening sequence is the kitchen scene where ‘Michelle’ and ‘Parker’ are having a conversation this challenges the conventions of horror films as usually you see some sort of ghost or creature.

Linking this to a real media product similarly a film called ‘Silent Hill’ uses parents talking to eachother and also looking for their daughter.

The high key lighting portrays maybe the fact that the mother doesn’t know anything and is oblivious to everything going in her house so that fact that it challenges the conventions as high key lightning should show and connote innocence whereas here we can gather this is not the case.

Overall I think this went well as it created a bond with the character as Is looks like a normall conversation that any parents would have.

Mise en scene- Costumes and Props Within my film I decided to use quite casual fair looking clothes. For example for

Parker (Husband) he is wearing a suit as it connotes that he is a hard working person working in the Centre of London, whereas as we see for ‘Michelle’ she is wearing casual jeans and a top connoting that she doesn’t care about her appearance. This reinforces conventions for horror films as people and actors in horror films are usually acting as nothing is going on and trying to dress as suited to their role.

The props on the other hand were in my opinion quite helpful to distinguish the fact that for example as we can see ‘Michelle’ is opening a bottle of vodka and then drinking it connoting the fact that she either has an alcohol problem or likes to drink which would challenge the convention and stereotype of women.

For parker the prop that could be helpful for audience to distinguish a fact later on in the film is the Mobile phone when he talks on the phone during his journey home. This reinforces the conventions of horror films in real media products as practically in every horror movie there is a mystery phone call from a stranger threatening the actor in the film.

Camera Work & Editing I developed the idea seen in many of the horror films I analysed that at first they

show the location they used a pan shot, which commonly used and also very important to show the audience the location being used.

One of the conventions of horror films is quite fast paced cuts between each shot. This is done to build tension within the scene and to foreshadow that something bad will happen later on. We have sort of followed the way that paranormal activity uses its opening sequence where It all seems normal and later something will happen.

In some parts of our sequence we challenged the convention slightly by having some quite long paced edits, for example when Parker is coming home here we have about a 20 second cut which is very long and oculd bore an audience.

We decided to use cross fade between shots, to let the sequence have a continuity flow, also for the credits we used fades to let the text enter and exit more interestingly rather than have it on the screen and disappear.

Sound

Our group in my opinion used sound well, as we used things like; Foley, non- diagetic sound and at the end diagetic when the husband is talking to the wife. The non diagetic sound that we have used is a heartbeat sound that flows throughout the opening sequence. The heartbeat is used to build tension throughout the sequence. Also we recorded one of our group members whispering ‘hope’ which is the daughters name yet we don’t see her in the sequence, this is effective as its very tense and eerie. We challenged the convention as normally in horror opening sequences there is minimal dialogue which we have used quite a lot of. Our audience found the sound very effective.

Text

Our credits followed the conventions of text on screen as there is all of the names which are expected to be on an opening sequence, we had a template that we could used and it was our decision whether to challenge or reinforce it .

Codes and Conventions Of An Opening Title Sequence

A title sequence is the method by which cinematic films or television programs present their title, key production and cast members, or both, utilizing conceptual visuals and sound. The opening credits in a motion picture, television program, or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There may or may not be accompanying music.

Text Name of production company/companies you always have to respect the people with the money e.g. "A Big Name Production"

Director this is optional but if the director has a well established name they can be used as an USP e.g. "A Steven Spielberg film"

Producer

Executive Producer

Top Billing Actors, listed in order based upon their personal fame and prominence in the movie

The Movie Title

Key Cast below the Title Billing; "Introducing..." for an actor's first appearance on screen; "And..." is reserved at the end to showcase a big name actor with a small role, or "With..." is used to showcase multiple names.

Director; e.g. "Directed by..."

Screenplay Writer Additionally you can also have heads of department, most notably:

Film Editor

Original Score Composer

Production Designer

Costume Designer

Special Effects/Visual Effects Supervisor

Non-key cast and everything else can be left to the closing credits.

Conclusion

In conlusion our opening title sequence reinforces and follows the conventions of our chosen genre, but challenged a few conventions to let the audience think and figure out what genre the film is in.