Evaluation Question 1 (Josh Bowden)

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

In our final media opening sequence we have used various conventional elements which includes titles, credits, sound (music), Mise En Scene and narrative enigma. I created our film title in LiveType which allowed me to reflect what the genre of the film opening sequence is. For example, our film opening sequence is based on horror and I used a dark background and various tones of red on the text that often represents blood, danger and violence. In addition we also used this effect for our credits but instead had the credit names show up over different clips rather than having a background. We chose to do this mainly because of the genre of our opening sequence which meant that if we added a background that would pop up randomly whilst the clip is playing it would break the tension that it builds up towards the end.

Another conventional element that we have included in our opening sequence is sound. We used this because it builds up tension for the audience as the dark and eery sounds lead you to believe that something bad is going to happen. An example of non-diegetic sound is a sound effect we used in our opening sequence which is the sound of a loud heartbeat that raises as the villain gets closer and closer towards the victim. In contrast we have used diegetic sound as we wrote up a radio report script and recorded someone reading it like a real news report. We included this because it reveals what the current situation is within our clip and hints to the audience what is going to happen. We also used a radio station sound behind the voice of the news report to make it sound more convincing.

We used various types of mise-en-scene within our film opening sequence. This includes clothing, body language, location and lighting. The location of our opening sequence is firstly set in Wallington Highstreet which is very busy and full of transport and many people. Throughout the opening sequence the location changes and becomes more and more isolated and quiet. We did this to build up the tension and to make the victim look vulnerable, meaning that the villain is soon likely to attack. This leads the audience to believe that something shocking is about to happen and this is where we pause our opening sequence as it makes the audience want to see what happens to the victim. We didn't use any lighting techniques apart from some effects which we applied on final cut express. These effects make the scenes look more suitable for the genre (horror) as the colour is slightly duller and blue/greyish. The sky in our opening sequence also gradually gets darker and darker to make it look as though the villain is waiting for the right moment to attack. As many of the shots are from the villains perspective you can see that the camera is slightly shaky which is to show that chaos is happening as a murderer is on the loose. In addition we used generic conventions such as clothing as the villain is wearing a dark hoody to disguise his face from other people seeing it. This makes the villain seem much more mysterious and creepy.

Towards the end of our opening sequence we have used narrative enigma by leaving some unanswered questions. For example we show the villain becoming extremely close towards the victim but don't reveal what actually happens. We did this because it makes the audience want to see what happens in the scene and creates more excitement. The fact that the news report within our clip qoutes that four teenagers are missing also leads the audience to believe that there could be many more victims who go missing or are murdered later on in the film.

In our opening sequence we also used some unconventional elements such as the weather and time of day. For example, we filmed our clip in broad daylight rather than the night time. This contrasts with many horror films as the sky is normally dark to create an unsafe and creepy atmosphere.