Hannah Jolley - Evaluation: Question 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

1) Story and how the opening sets it up

Shot of the newspaper pushed through the letterbox,
shortly after the girl dreams of the murder

We mostly relied on props to show the audience what the storyline will involve but we also used the dream that the girl has to set the storyline up with the idea of premintion. We involved a main part of the girl's persona and character in the opening as we thought it was vital for the film's storyline and the audience needed to be able to understand the problems with the girl's mental state.

The dark shots used of a knife under the bright shots of
the girl implies something hidden behind the
girl's life that is about to happen.


Similarly, in 'The Caller', the 5 second shot of the telephone opens the storyline up as the film title implies, a telephone will play an important role in the storyline.

2) How character's are introduced

Mysterious figure, in the opening of Cape Fear

We chose to introduce the protagonist subtley without revealing their full appearance in the first shot to add ambiguity and to intrigue the audience. We used a panning shot of the bedroom at a low level and the music at this point is quiet, only with a atmospheric drone, suggesting depth to the character. A similar technique is used in Cape Fear in the opening, where we only see the character's figure. This is a convention often used and seen in mainstream Thriller films, especially in the opening as it continues the suspense and ambiguity of who will be involved and what might happen.

3) Genre and how the opening suggests it

We used hints to suggest the genre of our Thriller with props, adding them into certain shots such as this one so the audience could recognise the genre. In our product research, we noticed what conventions of a Thriller are used to imply a certain theme, i.e. red wine = violence, bright light = clinical. The pill box used in our opening is a typical prop used to suggest to the audience a type of psychological or mental instability which is what we wanted to make clear. Also, the lighting in this shot shows the medication being a vital component in the character's life as the clock is in darkness and a lot of light is shining on the pill box. 

Similarly, in this scene from The Exorcist (1973), the religious Thriller
genre is expressed through the use of props, the cross and bible
on the bedside table.

4) Title font and style

"ALPACA54"

We spent time researching and taking note of certain title fonts that we thought were well suited to our themes. We found that the font "ALPACA54" which we downloaded from Dafont.com was well suited to our title as Precarious means instability or something that's likely to fall and collapse, the font corresponded with the title because it isn't in a straight format and the lettering has jagged edges. The vase gets pushed over and hits the title as it falls, I used the shatter effect on After Effects to make the title smash with the vase and become displaced, which foreshadows the plot involving our main character.

The font "Zapfino" was one which came with the iMac.

Another example of where we used the font, "Zapfino"

We decided that the font used for the titles would be in a handwritten style as we originally liked the idea of them appearing on the doctor's note as if they were signing it. Although we wouldn't be able to make the font realistic enough for it to look exactly like the doctor was signing the note, we were pleased with the outcome.

Similarly, in 'Psycho', the font used reflects the film including
 the theme of there being faults in someone's
mental health. 

5) Setting/location

The scene from Inception, with similar lighting to
some scenes of our opening. 

We set our opening at a house with three locations, the bedroom, the bathroom and the hallway/dining room. We decided to use these locations as when we wrote the treatment, we thought that using rooms in an actual house would make it realistic and would give the audience a better insight into the main character's day to day routine, which was important to show as the character relies on medication. The bathroom was especially important as it is completely white tiling and the continuous white objects/surroundings was a key feature to suggest the medical/clinical situation. The lighting in the bedroom scenes was hard to get right as when we were filming during the daylight, there would often be graininess created, to fix this and to create a realistic nighttime scene, we used a bedside lamp to give a glow to the shots but not one which was too bright.
In the opening of Inception, a similar lighting is used which gave a sense of forthcoming danger and a suspenseful atmosphere.

6) Costumes and Props


An example of where the character is wearing plain clothing.

We used props carefully in our opening as we wanted them to represent a certain theme or narrative in the film. The use of white objects from the beginning is to run the continuous theme of medical issues throughout and to portray this to the audience, the doctors note is on white paper, the bedside table is white, the pill box is white, the bathroom is white etc. The clothing worn by the girl is plain and not very bright or interestingly patterned which we wanted to do so it wouldn't draw attention to it and so the audience would take more notice to the extensive use of white. The shot just before the girl knocks the vase over is important in the props department as the vase in the background is transparent, with white roses and a surrounding white area, this was used to contrast with the dark shadow on her hair and around her figure.

Screenshot from 'Se7en' opening.

Similarly in 'Se7en', props are used to imply themes such as obsession as there is a use of several shots including photos and film strips.







7) Special Effects

We used the cutaway effect on the dream to make it
clear that it's a dream and to show the contrast
of happiness/murder.

We used the effect 'cutaway' on iMovie 11 in this shot to create the effect of a flashback whilst the girl is reading the paper. This effect also foreshadowed the idea of the character being psychologically disturbed and unstable. We used jump cuts in the dream scene to disorientate the audience and to highlight that the girl is having a bad dream.

The cutaway effect being used in the opening
of 'Se7en'. 

8) Camerawork and Editing

The jump cut used in the dream suggests that
there will be an interruption or problem involving her
and makes it quite disconcerting for the audience.

We wanted to show continuity to the girls daily routine in the opening and so we used a pan in the first shot and a slow zoom. To bring attention to the props on the bedside table, we used a tracking shot which is effective when trying to make sure that the audience pay attention to significant symbolism. We used a variety of shots but not many long shots as we wanted to show the intensity of the girls dream and the paranoia she feels. The close ups used of the pill box show the importance of them and the way that the character relies on them heavily in her life. We also used the cutaway effect to make the shots less tedious and repetitive to watch and we changed the effect on the dream shots in post production, to add a glowing and dreamlike feel so the audience could differentiate between the girl dreaming and the actual dream.

Screenshot from Hitchcocks, 'Vertigo'. 

In Hitchocks, 'Vertigo', this aerial shot of the view from the top of a building is used to establish the main character's fear of heights, drawing attention to the main themes of the film, as the film's name 'Vertigo', is the name given to the feeling of dizziness when looking down from a great height.   Similarly, we used certain close up shots and jump cut editing to highlight the main themes of the film.

We used a close up to emphasise the contrast of the blood
against the white clean floor. We also edited this in post
production to make the blood redder.

   We used some transitions such as fade to black in  between shots to add a smooth flow from shot to shot, we did this at the end of the opening but then decided to remove it as it added a sense of finality to the overall sequence which isn't what we wanted because an opening would then flow to the next sequence and it made it seem like this was the end of the film instead of an opening.


We used a tilt/tracking shot when revealing the
Doctors note to make the audience intrigued to what
it says.

In the shot where the vase is on the floor, surrounded by water/blood, we used short cuts from it being blood to water and back again to show the paranoia and distorted vision/mind of the girl.






9) Title of the film

We chose to have the title of the film at the end of the sequence as during post production we realised that it fitted really well with the shatter effect when the vase falls onto the floor. Before the vase gets knocked over, the black text against the white floor suggests the heavy contrast of the themes in our film, dreams/reality, sanity/insanity etc so it gave a sense of conflicting themes and stood out nicely. These contrasting colours are often seen in Thrillers, to symbolise different themes within the storyline. The fact that we used black text over the white floor also suggests the idea of some sort of darkness overriding the girls sanity and wellbeing. We wanted to include the title onto our shots instead of having a seperate slide for it as it was a nice composition for the title to be placed and appeared at the climax of the opening, emphasising the importance of the definition of the title to the film overall.

 
An example from a real product, the title is well embedded into the opening scene of 'Taxi Driver' (1976).