EVALUATION QUESTION ONE… IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE THE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS? By Phoebe Farrington

QUESTION ONE… INTRODUCTION My opening title sequence conforms to the thriller genre. I wanted it to conform to the genre to ensure that it fitted the criteria that we were given. Even though I wanted our opening title sequence to conform to the thriller genre, I also wanted it to be a different subgenre to the rest of the class (the majority made crime-thrillers), so we made a psychological thriller. To make sure that our psychological thriller imitated the thriller genre, I looked at several different thriller opening title sequences. For example I looked particularly at ‘Seven’ and ‘Silence of the Lambs’. However, I did also look at other opening title sequences like ‘Brick’, ‘Clockwork Orange’ and ‘Psycho’, so I was able to gather ideas about the wider thriller genre, as opposed to just psychological thrillers.

FRAME ONE – TITLE OF THE FILM Our title of our film is called ‘The Enduring’. Enduring means “continuing or long-lasting”, which suggests the film is about survival. We chose this title because it gave hints at survival and the long struggle the protagonist will be faced with. It gives clues to the narrative without giving the whole plot away and without giving away the twists in the rest of the film. It leaves a lot to the imagination, making it interesting and raises questions to the viewer. We chose to put the title on a black background, and the title itself was white writing to really make the title stand out to the audience. It also shows that our opening title sequence isn’t a crime thriller which would typically be associated with the colour red. Therefore deciding to have plain colours, just made the title more representative of our opening title sequence and the subgenre of our sequence more obvious. Also the black and white colours show a contrast of good and bad. White has connotations of purity and innocence, and black has contrasting connotations of evil and darkness. This again hints at our narrative (the power struggle between good and bad). We also put the title of the film at the end of our opening title sequence because we felt it was a more effective and dramatic ending to the opening title sequence. Also by showing the series of shots which may begin to give the viewer an idea to what the films narrative is about, the title adds more information about the narrative.

FRAME TWO – SETTING/LOCATION Frame two shows our location, which remains the same throughout the whole OTS. We chose to film in the woods as it is typical of the thriller genre. An example of this would be the ‘Blair Witch Project’. It is more common in thriller films that shots in woods are filmed at night time, however ours is filmed during the day. This is unconventional as normally day time is associated with safety, however this is slightly distorted as he is being watched in an ordinary place, which in theory could happen to anyone, making the audience slightly question and become quite paranoid about the ordinary area. We did this purposely to again hint heavily at the narrative and raises questions like ‘why is he in a woods?’ and ‘why is he living in the woods?’ The location really reflects how the protagonist is isolated and in a very remote area. Again, we show slight hints such as within the woods, there are constructed beds out of twigs, branches and basic items. This makes it obvious that he is living there and therefore raises a list of questions as to why is he living there. This is conforming to the thriller genre as it keeps the audience interested without giving away too much. The muddy and dirty woods adds to the survival theme, which matches the costume and represents the whole narrative.

FRAME THREE – COSTUMES AND PROPS In frame three, it shows the main characters costume and clothes. He is wearing very plain and basic clothing, in very simple colours. We did this because we wanted to show that his situation is very abnormal and that he is just living off necessities. We wanted the focus to be more on character himself and the acting as opposed to the costume, therefore keeping it simple was the most effective option. This conforms to the thriller genre as it clearly represents that his ordinary clothes, imply he is an ordinary person. This really reflects the ordinary person and ordinary places theory within the thriller genre. In our opening title sequence, CCTV cameras are our main prop. The point of the CCTV cameras is to really get across the idea of surveillance and being watched. This hints at the narrative and makes the viewer question the CCTV effect and makes them think about the relevance of the CCTV cameras. This is our only prop, which is quite unconventional of the thriller genre which normally has quite a lot of significant props, that are very important to the narrative of their film. However, we felt that keeping it simple and having one main prop, made the whole opening title sequence more questionable and therefore more psychological.

FRAME FOUR – CAMERAWORK AND EDITING In frame four of our opening title sequence, we decided that because of our CCTV theme running throughout, we needed to film surveillance type shots such as high and low angle shots, as well as ones purposely positioned in order to create shots which looked like they were secretly filming. Additionally to our surveillance shots, we also wanted some shots that were typical of the thriller genre such as close-ups and extreme close-ups. We wanted the protagonists face within the shots, so the character was clear and the audience could begin to understand his character and persona. To further build on the CCTV effect, we decided to edit in CCTV sounds and add on CCTV information such as dates, times and locations. Again we really wanted to further convey an atmosphere of surveillance and being watched. Furthermore we wanted to get the viewers wondering why the camera’s are focussing so much on this one particular character in such immense detail. Additionally, we also added in effects such as sound effects which were camera zooms and camera noises that sounded like they were taking pictures. We did this to add to the surveillance affect. We didn’t use many transitions (occasionally using fades) because we wanted our sequence to look like a continuous sequence of footage, like a CCTV camera who have.

FRAME FIVE – TITLE FONT AND STYLE Because of the surveillance theme, we wanted to keep the fonts relatively normal and also in a ‘digital’ style, meaning we wanted a sort of pixelated and serious font. We decided to download a font called ‘Blacklisted’ that was a plain bold font. We chose to have the titles, as white font against a black background to really convey the comparison between good and bad. We also chose a simple/serious font because we didn’t want it too look like an animation title which may be quite bubble-like (comic sans) nor did we want it too look romantic. The digital font also seemed to possibly represent the F.B.I/military theme, which gave hints at the narrative to the film. We had a different font called ‘Hacked’ for our main title of our film. We did this so it stood out compared to the other titles. It also made the film name more prominent and different.

FRAME SIX – STORY AND HOW THE OTS SETS IT UP The main aspect of the storyline is that the protagonist is part of a social experiment ran by the government. Because of this being the main storyline, the CCTV cameras as well as the protagonist are the main feature of the opening title sequence and this is how the OTS sets up the storyline. This is typical of the thriller genre because it gives away enough hints that the viewer is interested in the storyline, however that is doesn’t give it all away and therefore make the film pointless to watch. The CCTV cameras are used so often that it shows it is going to be a prominent and important part of the storyline.

FRAME SEVEN – GENRE AND HOW THE OTS SUGGESTS IT The way our opening title sequence begins, is with dark backgrounds and an eerie soundtrack. This instantly implies that the genre is thriller. Also because we carefully chose not to include red and sinister screams, it clearly shows how it is not a horror, as we decided sometimes it can be hard to distinguish a thriller from a horror. Also the shots throughout show someone very isolated and fearful indicating something is/has happened to that person, which also suggests the genre is thriller. I also didn’t want people to assume it was a crime thriller, as so I wanted to make the opening title sequence quite confusing and vague, thus implying a psychological thriller as opposed to a crime thriller, which would typically include more blood and sinister scenes.

FRAME EIGHT – HOW THE CHARACTERS ARE INTRODUCED The first shot is of our main protagonist. This instantly introduces the audience to the main character. We decided to only show our main protagonist as we wanted it to be obvious he was the subject of the entire film, and stands out amongst the rest of the characters later in the film. Even though the protagonist is the only person shown, he mentions another character called Lucy. Lucy is important in the opening title sequence because as a viewer it is hard to work out who Lucy is and why he is so distressed about her disappearance. Through the opening title sequence, Lucy’s voice is being replayed asking for his help. We have added her voice to show the protagonists noticeable distress, whilst he is obviously being purposely confused and psychologically tested.

FRAME NINE – SPECIAL EFFECTS Our opening title sequence was based on a low budget, so we did not have any special effects, apart from the ones that we were able to download for free, or use from Adobe Premier. We used grey tints to add to the CCTV effect over shots, as well as CCTV sound effects that we also added on the same shots. We also added loads of titles over shots, to make it look like it was actual CCTV information. Lastly, in our titles such as director, actors and cameramen etc. we cut up the title several times to give it a flickering effect, like an old CCTV camera, again to add to the CCTV effect.