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

The conventions of an opening sequence

An opening sequence have a variety of conventions. It must make to audience ask questions; must give hints and clues; must reveal the setting; it has got to obscure information and withhold it; it should set the tone/mood and atmosphere. Moreover an opening/title sequence should have titles; the audience should be able to establish the genre; may introduce some characters and must have production/distribution companies.

In the opening sequence of zombie land the audience are able to establish the genre with the use of make up, blood and destruction going on, therefore this opening sequence reveals that it is a horror/thriller. The opening sequence enables the audience to ask many questions such as why are the people changing? Why is there so much destruction and so on. This opening sequence has titles showing us who is casting in the film and what the film is called. Furthermore it sets quite a gruesome, violent atmosphere. Also in The Ring the audience are able to establish that the film is some form of a horror genre as there are very spooky occurrences that are quite frightening. The sequence also sets quite a frightening atmosphere and builds fear in the audience.In this opening sequence it shows the production and distribution in the titles. It shows us the setting and it suggests that it is quite a calm, peaceful environment as the feather falls down from the sky. It obscures information as it doesn't reveal to us where the character is going or who he is waiting for. We as an audience asks questions such as why he is there? Where is he heading? Why is he dressed quite smartly? As the opening sequence is mainly focused on this character on the bench it must reveal that he is the protagonist in the film. This opening sequence reveals the cast in the title and shows us the ditribution and production company. It shows us the setting and area that it is in which is New York. We get the idea that this may be a thriller as we judge New York as quite a rough place where it is crowded and are many robberies.
In Saw it shows us most of the conventions for an opening sequence. It shows us the distribution company and production company. The audience are also able to establish the as there is a dead person on the floor a guy chained up and it is in quite an isolated place. This also leads to the audience asks questions as to why these people are here and why is the guy dead on the floor. This also obscures the information as we do not know why these people are here or how they got here. Moreover, it introduces the character's in the film and we can get an insight of what they are like.

In Brick it uses most of the conventions firstly it shows the distribution company. The audience are able to establish the genre as there is a female who is lying dead on the floor and the audience assume that she is dead. It obscures information as we do not know relationship between the two characters in the sequence. It introduces a character who we assume is the protagonist in the film. There are many questions that could be asked by the audience for example why are they in such an isolated location? Did this character kill the woman?


Conventions of a thriller opening sequence

More specifically their are many conventions of a thriller opening sequence. There are going to be some examples of  conventions that make an effective opening sequence of a thriller.

There should be the use of eyeline matches in thrillers to show that they are looking at something traumatic and they are left stunned, shocked or regretting. This is used in Brick where the teenager looks at this dead woman in an isolated location and it cuts back to his facial expressions and it shows that he is shocked of what has happened. It makes the audience ask questions about the relationship between the two and they do not know whether he murdered this person.

Moreover, in The Silence of the Lambs it uses eyeline matches to show the horrific cases on the board and it tracks towards the character's face showing that she is left stunned and shocked of what she is seeing and reading. It introduces information about the antagonist revealing that he is a very violent man shown in the pictures on the board. When it cuts to the character's face it could imply that she could be quite scared about these cases. The audience would be disgusted of what the antagonist is done and would ask why he did what he did.

 Another convention of an opneing thriller is to have low key lighting. This is effective in The Inside Man as it implies that the character has an evil personality; shows that he is twisted and is set out to cause trouble. Low key lighting is usually used to reveal the antagonist in the film.

Low angle shots are conventions of thrillers as it gives the idea that the character is either the protagonist or the antagonist. It gives us an idea about the character for instance in Momento we get the idea that this character is quite dominant and powerful in the opening sequence.

Also another convention of a thriller in an opening sequence is the use of close ups effictively. For example in Se7en there are a range of close ups of the character's hands and the actions that he is doing. It is used throughout the opening sequence so it constanly doesn't reveal the character's identity, making the audience wanting to know who this person is and what he is set out to do. Furthermore, the sound in opening sequences for thrillers doesn't seem to be friendly and sounds unconventional, this is used in Se7en as well, revealing that there could be some twisted characters in the film.

The use of dis-equiibrium in the The Silence of the Lambs shows that there is some sort of psycopath on the loose and he is going around skinning victims creating fear in the audience making them feel that someone should stop this from happening. It also makes the audience ask questions such as why he is doing this.

Also dis-equilibrium is used in The Sixth Sense showing a character that is mentally challenged or mentally depressed who has lost the plot and shoots the protagonist and then shoots himself. This leaves the audience in shock as it was so unexpected and leaves the audience in suspense. The audience would most likely want to know what was wrong with the suicidal character and why did he go to the conclusion of shooting the protagonist, then shooting himself?

Also in these thriller opening sequences their is sound which is used to suggest something about the scene or sets the atmosphere of the scene.


Our opening sequence


Just like any general opening sequence we used a distribution company and created our own production company and relates to what the genre is of the film which is a thriller.





We also introduced the titles which is another general convention of an opening sequence.


Just like the conventions of a thriller we used sound to create the atmosphere. From this it is likely to establish the genre of the film which is another general convention of a thriller.

 Similarly to the opening sequence of Se7en we used a screeching noise to disturb the viewers. This implies that the character in the scene is considered to be quite abnormal through the use of the sound.
In the opening sequences of silence of the lambs and in Brick there are uses of eyeline matches. In our opening sequence we show an eyeline match of the protagonist looking out of the window of a person walking by. This obscures information as we don't know anything about these two character's and we don't know the relationship between the two. This is a use of a convention of an opening sequence. Also a few of the other opening sequences go against the social norm such as Silence of the Lambs. This is because it is usually expected to be a male protagonist and not a woman and in our opening sequence we follow the social norm by having a male protagonist.

Information is also obscured here as it does not reveal the identity of this character and we have no idea of what he looks like which follows the general convention of an opening sequence.

The above shows a variety of close ups which makes the audience ask questions and also obscures the character's identity when writing the notes. The audience may wonder why the character is writing these notes? Why are there so many notes on a board? The audience would most likely be eager to keep watching the film to find out why he is doing this. This follows the convention of obscuring information, wanting the viewer to watch more and making the audience ask questions.

This also follows the convention of making the audience ask questions and withhold information. It may make them ask are these people trespassing? How is the protagonist going to react? Is the protagonist expecting them? Making the audience eager to watch the rest of the film. Also we have no idea why these two people are here on what we assume is the protagonist's property and we have no idea of the relationship between the three of them.