1. Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products? By Daly Farrington Our opening title sequence conforms to the Thriller genre as we have put in many characteristics to do so, for example a build in tension. I believe our opening title sequence conforms to the familiar thriller conventions; however there are some areas in the short film in which I have challenged the normal conventions of a thriller. There are many films that our opening title sequence relate to, and have given us inspiration which gave us the end product of the title sequence. For instance, watching films like Insidious, it inspired us to use eerie music in our title sequence to create more mystery and tension. Click on the pictures below to look at the different conventions of the opening title sequence

2. In this scene we used the sign on the road the film is about, this also becomes clear later on it’s the title of the film. “Windmill View” is a very normal name, but this adds more mystery to the opening title sequence because the audience questions what the relevance of the street is. We used this as it makes the audience wondering what is unusual about what seems a normal street, creating an eerie effect. There are many other films that have a very typical name such as “Arlington Road”. This shows how the name of the opening title sequence fits with the normal convention to a thriller, as hardly any have very scary names like a horror genre convention. I believe films like “Arlington Road” have chosen very basic street names to create mystery for the film which is another typical thriller convention and this is why I believe we chose a very simple name instead of something more obvious to create more audience emphasis on the opening title sequence, similar to other thriller conventions. However to a certain extent having the title at the start of the play before the credits of the actors does go against the normal convention of a Thriller as the title of the film normally comes last, however we do have the title in a different font at the end of the title sequence to emphasise the films name which is a convention of a Thriller. Therefore using Arlington Road as an example the title of the film fits the normal convention of a Thriller. The Title of The Film Home

3. Setting/ Location In our opening title sequence we spent a lot of time thinking about the correct setting location for our piece, this was because if they didn’t go with the narrative then the whole mise-en-scene would be ruined. Furthermore when looking at the locations we had to think about the risks and safety of where we filmed. After being stuck on what you use we looked at two films for inspiration, firstly Blue Velvet showed us how we could use a normal suburban street but make it very eerie. Secondly, we used dark and bright contrast to give more information about a certain character for example bad and good, we were inspired by Collateral an action Thriller movie. To a certain extent our certain locations go with the normal conventions of Thrillers, especially for the mysterious bad man. This is because the setting for a antagonist is normally dark and gloomy to show that they are mysterious and often evil, this is same with have the good guy in bright lighting to show he has nothing to hide. This is an normal convention to thriller films as it is a good way for audiences to differentiate between good and bad, therefore the setting is a normal convention of the Thriller genre. However you could also argue how the use of a road in broad daylight doesn’t fit with the normal Thriller convention of creating suspense and mystery although we took the idea from a well known Thriller film “Blue Velvet”. The setting does go against a normal thriller convention of a dark mysterious room, or a busy area. Home

4. One of the main props we used to describe the narrative was the clothing or costumes we used to for the two different characters. We used the costumes to tell the audience a lot of the two characters narratives from looking at what they are wearing. This is very similar to Collateral where you have one of the characters in a posh suit and the other in scruffy clothes and this could tell you about how presentable one character is to the other, this is where we got the inspiration for this. We tried to stick to the normal thriller convention for our media product by using similar costumes you would find in a normal thriller film by using the conventional gloves which symbolise the character is trying to hide something or it could suggest he is about to commit a crime. Also our character used dark clothes and this conforms to the thriller convention as it portrays him as mysterious and that he is trying to hide something by lurking in the shadows. Although if you look at these conventions for the man in the suit you could suggest the opening title sequence costume challenges the normal stereotypes for a thriller character. However in many thrillers, the character in a suit is used quite a lot like in films such as Phone Booth, Sixth Sense and Collateral to show the man has a lot of power, making our costumes conform to thriller conventions. Costumes and Props

5. Home Camera work & Editing The camera work we used is similar to a normal thriller film convention as we tried to hide the actors face from view on both people. To do this but to make the shots still exciting we added lots of low and high shots to make the walking scene interesting to the audience. This is a normal convention in Thriller films as the director doesn’t want to show all the character to create suspense and mystery for the character they are filming. A good example of this is drive where they don’t actually show the main features of the character to create a sense of mystery. As well as this we used tracking and panning shots to show the man walking, which is similar to the film Phone Booth to show the mans importance. Both of these well known thriller films, show how our camera work fits in with the normal conventions of a movie in the thriller genre. For editing we used the thriller convention of using darkness between some shots to create a sense of mystery and eeriness which is a thriller convention. However we went against thriller conventions by grading the outdoor scenes very bright, to make it look for realistic, although many thriller films do the opposite by making the picture darker. Finally we added “Addictive Cross fade” to make the picture seem a lot more ghostly as the shots changed, this was much more of a thriller convention as made the audience question if the characters are a live like the film Shutter Island.

6. Title Font & Style Home The title font and style of the opening title sequence matches thriller convention, as many thriller films use only the colours black and white to display the title of the film. I believe this is because having very bold colours makes the title stand out but also suggests the different between good and bad. Also using a colourful title wouldn’t give the same scary impression as the rest of the opening title sequence may. Although many well known thriller films do this, a good example is Bullet Boy, where all the titles are in black and white and fade in and out of each other. Although we have had some titles as the man is walking, we have the title in black and white and all the titles throughout fading into each other. This proves how our title style fits in with the normal thriller film conventions, which inspired us such as Bullet Boy to go for the simple but effective style. Personally, I believe our font doesn’t fit the normal thriller connotations as many films in the genre go for bold letters to make the film stand out more like, Se7en. However although we realised most films went for simple bold fonts, as a group we decided to go for something more dangerous and scary. I felt the actual font of the titles were more of a Horror genre convention than Thriller, which was the genre of our title sequence.

7. Home Story & How the OTS sets it up The thriller genre film Se7en inspired us to use the opening title sequence to show as much narrative about the two contrasting characters as possible in the short piece of film. As well as Se7en, many thriller films have done a similar thing to introduce the rest of there film, for example Sixth Sense also introduces the characters narrative through the setting and props used. These films inspired us to fit the forms and conventions of a thriller, by introducing narrative and background information for the two characters. For example the use of the beer can could infer he is an alcoholic and this might be a big thing in the rest of the story line of the film. This is similar to Sixth Sense when the man goes into his wine cellar, you could infer the same but also that the man is sophisticated and rich as he has a cellar. I am glad we conformed to this convention and didn’t challenge it because it meant we could create a more in depth view of the film through the opening title sequence which I believed looked very realistic to a professional film and also we stuck to the conforms of a thriller genre film. However apart from the costumes we did challenge the convention of introducing clues to the narrative for the man walking outside in the opening title sequence. As there is nothing to describe the characters narrative in the opening title sequence. However the reason we chose not to conform to this is because it creates more of a sense of mystery about the character, similar to the death in Blue Velvet as we knew nothing about the character.

8. How characters are introduced Home After taking inspiration from the thriller genre film Drive, we attempted to introduce the characters through more of a deceptive way then just showing their faces from the start, this creates a lot more suspense and mystery to the characters and opening title sequence. Although mid way through the title sequence the man in the suits face is revealed, the other characters full identity is never revealed in the opening title sequence. Although most thriller films hide the identity of their characters for a bit like in Sixth Sense, we are breaking convention of most thriller films by having a character hidden throughout the opening title sequence. We chose to break convention of the normal media product we would make by not showing the identity of the character, we decided to do this to create mystery and make the audience question who the guy is more. However to make up for this we do manage to give plenty of narrative through the use of soundtrack and costumes to make up for the lack of characters shown identity, which does conform with the conventions of the thriller genre as films like Sixth Sense and Se7en use the same kind of patter which is seen in many thriller films making it a genre convention.

9. Special Effects Home For our opening title sequence we used special effects to fit the normal conventions of our opening title sequence. The main special effect we used was “Ghosting” where you make the character move a lot more slower and create more of a shadow making the character seem ghostly as he moves around. We did this so the character moved in time with the soundtrack and also create a more ghostly appeal to the character. We were inspired to make the character more ghostly and mysterious from the film Sixth Sense as there are many similarities in how the two characters act. Finally I believe the special effects we used go with the normal conforms of a thriller and haven’t challenge the normal conventions of a thriller by using large amounts of effects which would make it seem to unrealistic.

10. Home Genre & how the OTS suggests it The opening title sequence overall suggests the genre in how throughout the short film, the soundtrack and effects manage to build up the tension till the end of the media product. We did this to make it seem more like a thriller genre movie as this is the main connotation to a thriller, that the audience are in suspense and are constantly guessing what will happen next. We were inspired to do this by the films Insidious and Don’t look now as they both heavily build the tension in the film to create a more of a emotion by the audience when the film concludes. However you could argue that our opening title sequence does challenge some of the conventions to the thriller genre, for example the title sequence is filmed in the day time making it seem less mysterious which challenges the normal convention of thriller films being filmed at night as this is much more mysterious and can create to death and crime a lot easier. Finally the opening title sequence doesn’t relate to the genre as it challenges conventions in how there is no dialogue between characters in the piece just the use of sound effects which is unusual for a thriller film.