Copy of Question 1

QUESTION ONE

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of existing thriller film openings?

Before we started coming up with ideas for a thriller we had to do some research around the genre thriller. We watched films and carried out research. We looked at codes and conventions of thriller films and other typical Mise-en-scene related to thriller films. The interviews, questionnaires and the research work we had completed helped us accomplish the aim of deciding on what our title sequence should involve. Our interviews and questionnaires were all aimed at our target audience which teenagers of both gender of the age 15 to about 25 years old. Our main target would be female teenagers from the age 15 to 25 years old. We had deep discussions among our group to help find ideas. We were lucky to have a member who was already experienced in the making of short films although we didn’t have a chance to work with him at the end. We talked to our target audience to get ideas.

Why the research was important

From the information we gained in our research we decided to come up with a psychological thriller with a female character as our main character. We wanted the sequence to be about a teenage girl. After we decided the storyline and our character, we contacted our target audience again to see whether they liked it or not. To our luck everybody agreed and thought it would be a good idea to do what we had come up with. The research was a very important part of creating the title sequence as it sets out a plan of what needs to be done.

The outcome of no research done

These 9 shots are typical to thiller films

2

Straight after the production title we see this shot. This is the first real footage in the sequence. The footage was in colour when recording it but as a group we decided that black and white in the final outcome would be the best way to make the production title and the footage match. We see our main character’s back walking on a long path all by herself. This shot symbolises the fact that she is lonely. We are not yet aware of what the character look like and we slowly build suspense by this unusual way of introducing a character. The audience is already at suspense as they look forward for something to happen. We get an idea of her being a young female (teenager) maybe a school or college student.

We have decided to use non-diegetic sound track that we downloaded. These soundtracks are combined with strange noises and sound very disturbing. This was a comment from one of our audiences.

3

The third frame: Here we see the character for the first time. We see the character from a point of view shot, so that it looks like someone is watching her. The part of the sequence was shot using free hand camera so that it looked more realistic. The using of a free hand camera makes it look like someone is watching and spying on her. When using the handheld held camera it gave a shaky effect which helps add to the effect. Considering Mise-en-scene we now clearly see what the character look like. The way the character has dressed is very similar to what our target audience would wear (female teenagers).

We are able to see what the character looks like in more detail. We can see the location that she is walking in.

4

5

We have included cutaways in the 4th shot. The shot focuses on our main character walking and then there is a cutaway to a shot that is supposed to establish some one running out of the graveyard. We added 3D and a desaturated effect to that particular shot to make it standout. This shot appears 3 times while our character is in the graveyard.

6

This is the title of our film. Wraith is a word related to ghost and spirits, so we thought it would be essential to use this as our name of the film. In this shot we have white writing on a black background. The background is black like in most thriller films, it the black background makes the logo or the title of the company much clearer. It also makes the audience focus on the title or logo better. We used this cracked font with blur effects added to it. This made it look distorted.

7

In the seventh frame we decided to show our main character on the bus. We used the upper deck as it was less crowded. We wanted to show that she was a lonely girl. During the bus journey she can hear voiceovers saying “I’m real you know”and “can you hear me now”. We used a hand held camera in order to make it look like someone was watching her. We wanted to create a point of view shot. This sequence is then suddenly reversed to give the audience a shock. From the feedback we gained lots of people thought the idea was brilliant.

8

If we hadn’t completed any research, we would simply not have created a title sequence to the best of our ability but most importantly we would not known what the target audience was after, which is after all the main aim of this project.

The first frame: This is how the film begins. It begins with the title sequence Lucid Dreams [Paris]. I created this using software called After Effects CS4. The background is black like in most thriller films, it the black background makes the logo or the title of the company much clearer. It also makes the audience focus on the title or logo better. The font we used makes the writing look old and more ancient; this simple font is very good for vintage style writing. The smoking effect that runs over the title makes it look “creepy” and make it more thrilling. The sound in the background is also very unusual as it sounds much distorted. The sound was downloaded from a website that allows music files to be downloaded.

1

9

The ninth frame: for this shot we decided to use a high angle view that focused on the note pad she was writing on. The audience are now able to see what she is writing. In the first couple of seconds we see her writing something. We’re not supposed to see what she what she is writing. Suddenly she starts scribbling all over it and tearing the sheet off. When she tears it off, there is a message on the other page trying to communicate with her. As she tears each page more messages appear on the sheets. She suddenly gets frustrated and throws the notepad away. The sound changes towards the end. It changes to the sound that was playing the first shot. This establishes that the sequence is about to end.

The fourth frame: we have our main character opening the gate that leads into the grave yard. The character looks very paranoid. We made her look paranoid as we had planned to use voiceovers. There are voices that talks to her as she walks in the grave yard. We used an establishing shot to make sure that the audience were aware of where she was going. The sound changes from slow paced to fast pace. This makes the audience aware of something that’s about to happen. The voice over continue until the end of the sequence, we decided do this so that it seemed like she was being followed.

Clips downloaded

from Youtube

The eighth frame: In this shot we see the films’ title once again, but then this time it’s more jumpy and it looks more distorted. This shot is a interior shot as it is filmed inside the main character’s home. The character is sitting on the sofa writing something on a notepad. This scene is particularly interesting because form the feedback we gained after showing it, people were really curious about what she was writing about. The girl has pills and a glass of water next to her. These props make us think that she is about to commit suicide, but we have to watch the rest of the film to make sure. She is in a very comfortable environment but the background sound and the voiceovers still make it seem like she is in an uncomfortable place. The lamp next to her is on; this shows its night time.