Evaluation: Question One In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products? By Emma Thomas The genre our title sequence most closely conforms to is Thriller. It has all the important factors of Thriller from the eerie music to the camera shots that leave the audience confused and thrilled to watch on. We got a lot of our inspiration from the film ‘One Hour Photo’, using the mantelpiece shot of the photos that is used in the opening titles. The film was a good inspiration for the use of photographs because we felt it portrayed the Thriller aspect well.

The title of the film appears white text on a black background. This makes the text bolder and allows the title to stand out so that it is easily noticed and also so you know it’s important. The title appears right at the end of the movie so that the audience is left full of anticipation to watch on. We chose the title ‘Damaged’ because it reflects the storyline of a girl who is left literally damaged by the experiences she encounters. The font is serif and has curls in it to connote the flowing nature of life and that it goes on. The contrast between the angelic font with the bold colours and style of it demonstrates the emotions of the characters and hopefully the audience through the harsh colours being like harsh reality. The Title of the Film

We used various settings and locations to film our opening title sequence but one of the most frequently used ones were the scenes in the park. We filmed around trees because we wanted to create a chilling and spooky environment, especially near one in particular that had no leaves in shot which gave it the old, dead characteristic which highlighted that of the storyline. This still shows a wide shot. We thought it was important to use this shot during this scene because it shows the environment around the character and highlights why the characters emotions are present. It would have been a good idea to involve more camera shots between the braches and leaves because it’s a very typical Thriller aspect. Setting / Location

Costumes & Props As our storyline features an alcoholic father, we knew we had to feature some form of alcohol in the shot. We thought that we’d represent our characters as quite upper class so we came to the conclusion that wine signifies class quite well. The photos scattered around the wine bottles and glass are there to show that he has a family, but it hopefully creates a mystery as to who those children are. The clothes he is wearing are plain and simple so that the audience doesn’t realise that he is actually younger than he is supposed to be.

Camerawork & Editing We wanted to show a lot of the two female characters together so that when one of them disappears, the impact is more dramatic. We liked the shot of their feet swinging because it doesn’t show their whole bodies, it only shows the bottom half and that hides their identities for a shot to leave the audience linking the shot of their faces with this one. When we edited our title sequence, we made sure that this shot was after the shot of the characters faces because we wanted to confuse the audience without spelling out the title sequence – we wanted people to watch on.

Title Font & Style We wanted to keep the font and colours similar to the production name in the fact that each ‘O’ is red. This shows distinction because it individualises itself to anything else but the production company. We chose the font because it was very simple and sophisticated. The white against black makes it bolder and stands out better which demonstrates that its an important factor and tells the audience that they should pay attention to what’s on the screen.

Story & how the OTS sets it up The story involves a father who, unbeknownst to the remaining child, murdered her sister and mother. He then turns to alcohol and spirals downwards until the lonesome child has enough and takes it on herself to kill him. The OTS sets this up because it features all the factors of the storyline; the sister disappears in two places; on the swings and in the trees. There is also a mid-shot of the child lifting the wine bottle to smash it over the fathers head, and a mid-shot of the father pouring alcohol. The close up shot of him scribbling out the images of the mother and the child were supposed to show that he has disregarded them as family anymore but this was still supposed to be a mystery to the audience.

Genre & how the OTS suggests it The genre is Thriller. This is shown through the various lighting in scenes and the actions that the characters portray. In one scene, the father is scribbling out images of a mother and a daughter. This was based on ‘The Ring’ when images are scribbled out, and shows the Thriller genre because it is mysterious and a little bit scary because it is a weird thing to see or imagine someone doing.

How characters are introduced To introduce the characters, we showed a short scene of the character demonstrating their role in the OTS then the shot faded to black and the corresponding titles appeared. We decided to use ‘Introducing’ on the first actor because it gives a feel that they are new and you will not have seen them before, almost like they themselves are the character. It also sounded more sophisticated than, say, ‘Starring’ which connotes ‘Disney’ and children's movies which is far away from our movie.

Special Effects Before edit After edit We used a special effect on the glass of wine to make the colouring a lot deeper. Initially, the ‘wine’ is just strawberry juice, but with the ‘brightness and contrast’ tool, we were able to make the colouring look a lot deeper so it resembled wine a little more closely than the juice did.