Monday 28 February 2011

1.) In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1.) Title of film over clip
This is a screen grab from the film Memento, this shows the convention of the title of the film over a clip in the opening sequence. The shot used is also an extreme close up of his hand holding the photo.





We then incorporate this convention into our own work and make sure we had the title of the film over an extreme close-up shot.








2.) Close-up of face
The screen grab we took of Butterfly effect is of a close-up of the main characters face, showing he is stressed and frightened. It is also the first character you see in the opening sequence giving the audience an idea who the main character is.






Yet again we used this in our work to make sure we made our opening sequence seem like a real film opening. The close-up of our main character is also the first character that you see. This creates tension knowing that the main character is in distress and is in a difficult situation.






3.) Blood
This is a screen grab from the film Memento, showing the convention of blood and how it is key in thriller films. It not only shows death but it can show the blood from where someone has been beaten up.






This is our interpretation of blood in our film opening sequence. We used a bit of blood underneath his nose to link up the flash back of him being punched around the face, therefore his nose started to bleed because of the punch.







4.) Shows a death
This screen grab of the film Seven, which shows a person dead on the floor, yet it only just a clip of it. The clip gives the audience brief information that someone has been killed, resulting in an investigation with police.






We then used the convention of death in our opening sequence, we also made sure it was just a clip to make sure the audience could assume that someone has died. We also done it has a flash back to show that the death happened before the main character got tied up.






5.) Weapon
In Memento one of the characters also has a weapon. Then weapon he has was a gun and he uses it on the character that is the person that dies, and from where it is in reverse we no that that man is dead before he gets killed. Altogether it shows that in thrillers some sort of weapon is used.




In our opening sequence we had one of the characters have a baseball bat, which is classed as a weapon, and then uses it on the other character.








6.) Unknown Location
In this screen of Gothika show two women talking, but you are unable to see the background so the audience are uninformed about where about's the characters are.







We incorporated this into our opening sequence and put on of our main characters, who is then joined by another character, in a room with just dim lightening on his face so that the audience do not no where about's the scene is set.







7.) Dark lighting
This is a  screen gab from the film Gothika, which shows dark lighting. The dark lighting creates an eery atmosphere also adding tension making the audience wonder what will happen.






We then used this in our opening sequence and used a dim spot light on our main character, this makes the audience uneasy and also wondering what will happen.










8.) White or baby blue colour text
In Butterfly Effect they also used white text, this shows that we have stuck to the conventions of thriller films because a real thriller product used it.







We used white text through out our opening sequence, and shown in the screen grab of our opening sequence is some of the white we used.









9.) Creepy Music
In the opening sequence of Silence Of The Lambs creepy music is played, creating tension and adds to the atmosphere of what the film will be like. We then also used creepy music, which we made ourselves, in our opening sequence making sure that we stuck to the convention of having creepy music.

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Group 5 Update: How well we stuck to the Conventions 15.02.11

10 Conventions Of A Thriller

1. Battle of justice vs injustice
2. Price to be paid for the conclusion of the story
3. Growing sense of threat of danger
4. Normally two main characters
5. Characters appear smartly dressed
6. Essential in building up suspense
7. Urban setting
8. Dim lighting
9. Normally point of view and close up shots
10. Fast pace editing


With the 10 conventions of a thriller that me an my group agreed on, we will now go thought it and see if we have stuck to the conventions.
The first convention is battle between justice and injustice and that is clearly seen in the first part of our opening sequence when Fredrick is tied to the chair and Damon comes out from the darkness. Then there was the price to be paid for the conclusion of the story, this is not clearly shown in the opening sequence but from Damon's voice over it shows that he is jealous that Jane always talks to Fredrick when he is about. The third convention was a growing threat of danger, and that is show at the beginning and towards the ending when Damon walks away really angry. Then there are normally two main characters, and this is kind of shown when the beginning of the open sequence when the story is based on Fredrick and then towards the end the story is based on Damon. The fifth is one character appears smartly dressed, but this is the convention that we challenged but it isn't very clear if people didn't no that one character is usually smartly dressed. Then and essential build up in suspense, which we did towards then end when Damon seems like he is turning evil when he walks off and angry music starts playing and it make the audience wonder what he is going to do next. Then it should be set in an urban setting and in the first part you cant see the surrounding so the audience are unable to tell, but then in the cafe it doesn't really look urban. The eighth convention is dim lighting which we use at the beginning when Fredrick is tied in the chair. Then the camera shots used are normally point of view and close ups, which we also use at the beginning when fredrick is tied up in the chair. finally its fast pace editing, which we use towards the end when Fredrick is walking into the cafe.
All together we did stick to the conventions, but conventions seven is hard for the audience to tell and convention five is the one we challenged. Therefore apart from two conventions we did successfully sick to them.

Group 5 Update: From Feedback 15.02.11 (screen grab)

After listening through our feedback about our opening sequence we decided to put in a voice over to let the audience no why the character Damon is walking off. The reason for this is because some of our classmates were confused to why he walked off and a voice over was a good way of letting the audience no without filming another clip. Then because the person who played Damon left our group we had to use Daniel but he used a deeper voice so that it didn't sound the same as the character Fredrick that he plays. Then because we slowed the clip down to orginal speed we were able to have a longer voice over, therefore making our opening sequence exactly 2 minutes.

Group 5 Update: Feedback from questions about opening sequence 14.02.11

Monday 14 February 2011

Questions to ask class about opening sequence

1) Do you like it?
2) What genre do you think it is?
3) How does it make you feel?
4) What works well?
5) Does the titles work well?
6) Does the music work well?
7) What type of character is Daniel playing? (e.g evil, good)
8) What could we do to improve?

Self-Assessment Worksheet: Year 12 Film Opening Sequence Production

Self Assessment Worksheet Feb 2011

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Group 5 Blog Update: 08.02.11 (screen grab)

Here is  screen grab of our opening sequence. This lesson we added some music and SFX to create atmosphere and tension, we done this by adding in a backing track's and water drops. After we finish adding in music and SFX we decided to trim down some clips to make sure we had either 2 minutes or a bit less. Then we started polishing up the opening sequence to make sure everything flowed and it didn't jump. We also slowed down the title in the some of the clips so that the titles stay up longer so people are able to read them, and we also changed what on of the titles said which was 'created by' to 'a film by'. Finally we realised that having a red filter on some of the ending clips did portray anger bit it didn't go well with the rest of the clips, so instead we added some angry music and it has a much better effect.

Group 5 Blog Update: 01.02.11