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

of film openings)

Font and styleFor our font colour and style it is prettymuch the same throughout theopening, the colour of the font is whiteso it stands out on the black and whitebackground (footage). We did this tomake out opening look as professionalas possible. It is a vintage bold fontwhich is what you'd expect in afantasy/horror. The font helped uscreate the mysterious/suspensefulatmosphere that goes along with ourfilm.

Genre and how the opening shot shows thisThis is our opening shot for of our film opening.As it is horror/fantasy, we decided to introduce asuspenseful mystery as soon as possible, hencewhy we opened with a letter from the victim'smother. In this scene, we see the pendant on topof letters left to the daughter, the audience findsout that this victim is left with the necklacesignifying its importance throughout theopening. The killer and the victim are notestablished yet which leaves the audiencewondering who they are. We tried to make ouropening close to a horror/fantasy by showingabstract (objects) in the first scene rather thanthe characters.

PropsThe most important prop in our film opening is thependant/locket which the protagonist holds at thebeginning of the film opening. The use of this propallows us to add a convention of fantasy to our horrorfilm opening. As this is a locket with a charm ofprotection which is common in the horror genre as itcreates mystery, it is also something abstract andsupernatural, which horror films would use to create atense atmosphere. Also, later on we see props like whiteroses, and even an old book which the negative characteris holding, while reading slowly almost as if enchanting aspell. This again, reinforces the conventions of horror asit includes an idea of supernatural powers such aswitchcraft.

Camerawork and editingFor this scene, we used a tilt and pan movement. Wedecided to use pan and tilt at the same time because itgave the scene a much smoother flow, rather thanfilming it in two separate shots. When filming weused a tripod to make sure that the footage was filmedat an equal level throughout, and to make sure it didn'tshake or move whilst this scene was being filmed. Toshow suspense throughout our opening, we sped upsome shots and longed out others that allowed us tocreate a mysterious like state. Also this was done tomake certain shots seem like they are in slow motion,to show importance of that specific scene.

Costumes and how characters are introducedThe victim is introduced sitting by the window which shows her purity and innocence as she seems occupied withviewing the scenery outside. This is a mid shot which shows most of her costume. She wears a light pink and whitelong dress which makes the audience know shes the good character. Shes introduced as a young likeable girl. Themurderer is introduced with a mid shot of her back, not showing her face keeping the anticipation and the mystery.She is wearing black attire which includes a black vintage dress with shows she's the bad character, and the black andwhite colour adds to the dark atmosphere.

Setting locationWe used one location the Swan hotel, we used the sitting room, staircase and the corridor, the main location was the sitting room where the victim gets killed, the room holds most significance. The location is Victorian looking, and has quite a gloomy atmosphere which is what we were looking for as it is a murder scene, and by putting the shots into black and white it adds a olden more vintage feel to the opening.

The title of the filmWe have chosen the title 'Lost Shadows' asstraight away the audience feel the mysterybehind the title. The word shadows adds amystery feel of horror not really knowingwho the murderer truly is. The title isshown at the beginning of the opening toset the dark mood. The title appears withthe with the two growing plants at the sidewhich adds a vintage feel to it.