Evaluation Question 1

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

My media product used, developed and challenged forms and conventions of real media product. For instance we used title sequence and various camera shots.

Often, films would open with an establishing shot. This is effective as it straight away set the scene for the audience and also sets the atmosphere for the movie. For action thrillers, having an establishing of the city would be ideal. This can create a sense of urgency and alerts the audience know that the following will be action packed and fast paced. An example of this is Enemy of the state we see an establishing shot of the city of Washington DC.

Similar in my movie opening, I have used an establishing shot as well. In my movie opening it is a shot of an ancient chapel. This symbolises death which is good and what we wanted as our movie is sub-genre to crime. Also using the transition of dissolving out, it creates a gloomy and creepy atmosphere. 

Titles are also conventions of film opening. Title sequence is important as it tells us the people involved in this movie. It gives the audience a rough insight of how good the movie will be. By this I mean if by time producers and directors worked on this movie or which famous actors/actress stars in it. Depending on what genre the movie is, titles will look different. Some can be in white over a blank screen, same can be written in a special font with animation. Below is a good example:

Buried by Rodrigo Cortes has always captivated me. This is because it is very visual and the colour is bright. It grabs my attention. Also the title sequence is a stylised sequence. I like title sequence that are stylised as it gives the opening more ambiance. It makes the movie have a more exciting atmosphere and therefore keeps the audience interested. Sometimes titles that are squashed altogether at the beginning over a black screen. These are really bland and boring. Personally I would probably lose interest in a movie if it was like that. An example of this is the famous Psycho. Its’ titles are all at the beginning over a black screen.

Although I don’t think this is an effective method for title sequence, it works well with the non-digetic sound in the background. It works well to create tension and set a live atmosphere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woTiNZnAglg

This particular title sequence is very simple and straight forward. When we planned what our title should be, at first we thought about making a title over black screen sequence, but as i’ve said, that is really bland. So we thought of mixing it up. We thought about having a narrative opening sequence with titles over a black screen in between. The titles however would be in a different font which looked creepy.

 Below is the order of various different shot in order they appear ont he screen. As you can see to challenge real media products, I have use the idea of having titles over a black screen combined with a narrative opening sequence. The reason for not doing it like Momento (having them during the narrative bit) is because we have various shots, whereas Momento has very few. We attempted to do that but some of the titles overlapped when the shot changed. So we decided to do it this way.

To make my movie opening more like a real media product, I have made the titles appear in the order they normally appear in actual movies. This is what is most like to come up in order in real movies:

-       Production companies

-       Distribution companies

-       Directed by

-       Movie title

-       Actors

-       Featuring actors

-       Castings by

-       Music by

-       Production designer (make up, costume...etc)

-       Edited by

-       Director of photography

-       Written by

-       Directed by

The Executioner’s titles went as followed:

-       Production company

-       Distribution company

-       Directed by

-       Movie title

-       Actors (main ones)

-       Other actors (smaller part)

-       Castings by

-       Music by

-       Edited by

-       Director of photography

-       Produced by

-       Co-produced by

-       Written by

-       Directed by

Our shots dissolves in and out to change scene, we used this to create a slow paced tempo. Also being in the sub-genre of crime and mystery it suited more. It flowed more with the story line. If our movie was an action thriller then having quick transitions with flashes would be better. Since the opening is set in a chapel, we thought about making the titles white, grey and black with also a shiny beam going from right to left. This was created using Sony Vegas home Studio.

The colour grey gives the title a metallic effect which is cold. This works well with the idea of crime and death. The letters are not all filled in which makes it look dirty. Another good thing we I considered when making the title. The font size is quite big, this was important as it would be the only thing on the screen. Also I placed it in the middle because I wanted it to grabbed the audience’s attention and keep them interested in the movie.