Question 1 of our evaluation.

1. EVALUATION
QUESTION 1
In what ways
does your film
opening use,
develop or
challenge
forms and
conventions of
real media
products?

2. SOUND
We have used music in our
opening sequence that
follows the conventions based
on thriller films. The non-
diegetic sound is slow but
then gets intense to create
tension.
We have also used various
sound effects to make the
opening more realistic (e.g.
phone sound effects) and
create more suspense (e.g.
the clash sound effect at the
end).

3. Psychological thrillers usually use
quite loud music, which keeps the
audience on edge so they are
expecting something to happen.
Therefore we wanted to have the
effect of shocking the audience
also. We ended up choosing a
soundtrack which is subtle in the
beginning but then turns very
dark and brooding.
The music is somewhat
simplistic in the beginning,
whereas normal psychological
thrillers would usually start
straight away with loud music so
the audience is suspicious and
waiting for what will happen
next. However, our music was
still effective in creating a creepy
atmosphere.

4. COLOUR
Thriller’s as a whole genre will typically
include low key lighting and some other
colour effects. This will connote danger
or the idea that something bad is about
to happen. This is because the overall
image of the film will appear to be
darker.
Many thriller films use this to make them
more effective. For example, ‘The Purge’
uses a lot of low key lighting, as a lot of it
takes place at night. We have used this film
for inspiration whilst creating our opening
sequence.

5. Our opening sequence uses colours as codes.
For example. The protagonist wears a red
and black shirt and doesn’t wear any bright
colours. This connotes that she is going to be
in danger because red symbolised blood and
the audience can therefore imply that there
will be a threat. The red can act as a warning
sign to symbolise that there will be a hazard.
Colours are used as codes in many opening
sequences to represent danger and other
reactions.
‘The Purge’ uses colour codes in the opening
sequence. For example, the montage that is
shown is very dark and the colours included
are quite dark. They are visible but you can
tell that it was filmed with low key lighting.
Fire is also seen in the opening sequence,
which connotes danger because the fire is
wild and uncontrolled. As well as this, the
fire contrasts the other dark tones because it
is very bright.
The idea of using a
mixture of dark
and light colours is
a big convention
of the thriller
genre. We have
implemented this
in our opening
sequence by
including dark
tones but also
making the
opening quite
bright as well.

6. EDITING
A convention of editing for thriller movies is a mixture
of slow and fast-paced editing. The slow editing can
help in the build up to the fast editing, which can
make the audience feel anxiety towards the film.
This convention is useful because if all of the editing
was either slow or fast paced, the audience may get
bored quickly. This means that creating a production
with a mixture of editing speed has a better and less
repetitive effect.

7. This is the reason why we chose to use slower editing towards the
beginning of our opening sequence and then sped it up towards
the end to create a build up of tension. It is overall a great
technique because the slower paced editing creates suspense
because everything is taking a longer time to happen; when the
pace speeds up, the audience is caught off guard and feels anxiety
and confusion towards the film. This can make them more
interested in what more is to come.
Cuts are also used a lot in editing in order to make the film have a
good flow and show continuity. We have included a few fades but
the majority of our sequence is cuts. This means that our film
opening has good continuity because the clips are following one
another, making the film more realistic for the audience. The fades
we used were for our title and production logos. This created a
variety for our editing so we could capture the audience’s interest.

8. TEXT
Our opening credits don’t follow the normal style of opening
credits. We have included much less credits than those that are
usually seen in thriller films. We have previously researched typical
film credits that are seen, however since our opening sequence is
quite short, we didn’t want to overflow the sequence with credits.
This is why we chose to focus on the mise-en-scene and what was
actually going on in the sequence, rather than the credits. However,
I believe that our credits were still effective because the main
people involved were presented. We did not have to add any extra
credits such as ‘hairdresser’ or ‘makeup artist’ because we did not
actually use these things and we wanted to make our opening
sequence as realistic as possible, including everyone that was
actually involved in it.

9. An opening sequence must credit some people however. For
example, some managers of actors will pay to have their name
presented first to boost their fame. Or the director is a role that
must be established within an opening sequence. The directors
name must show at least once (usually at the end). We chose to
add the directors’ name twice in our sequence, which is common.
In many films, the text on the screen will represent the genre of the
film. For example, in horror movies, such as ‘Scream’, the title will
often appear in red to connote danger and to symbolise blood.
We have also done this. Our title ‘Schizo’ appears to in a font which
makes it look like it has been scribbled or drawn. This connotes
young people because of the drawing element. However, because
the font looks quite wild, we used it to symbolise a person who has
schizophrenia.

10. Thriller films often use quite minimal titles and credits for
their film openings. This is not to give away too much
information because the plots of this genre are usually quite
intense.
An example of this would be ‘Psycho’. This film uses a simple
font in the middle of a black screen for the film title. We have
done something similar by using plain black on white. We
would have done white on black, but we wanted the title
screen to be bright to highlight the font. However, our font is
bigger because we wanted it to be easily visible just in case
the font wasn’t that clear.

11. LIGHTING
One convention of thriller films is low key
lighting. This is to create a dark setting for
the audience so that they are on edge. High
key lighting could also be used but not as
often.
We filmed in high key lighting and so we
had to edit our sequence to that it used low
key lighting. This made our sequence
improve because it initially did not
resemble a thriller film. However, once we
changed the lighting, the film became more
dark and brooding to create a troubling
setting for the audience.

12. MISE-EN-SCENE
An important convention of the thriller genre is props, which can be used to make some of
the plot known and make it more effective. For example in ‘Psycho’ it is made known that
the antagonist is about to kill the character in the knife scene because they are holding a
knife. This makes the audience aware of the intentions of the film and where it is going to go.
We have used props in our opening sequence, such as the keys and the phone. The keys
show the intent of the protagonist trying to get into the house. This made the audience
aware of the fact that she would try to enter the house. As well as this, when she drops the
keys, the audience can guess that she will be in more danger. However, we did not include
‘dangerous’ props that are normally seen within thriller films such as knives and guns. That
being said, the props we used were effective for our opening sequence.

13. The costumes of the characters are also used to represent the
nature of the characters. We followed this idea with our
characters.
Lauren’s character (the protagonist) is seen wearing red, which
shows that she is in danger during the opening sequence.
Tinika’s character is wearing a mask, which hides her identity and
makes her a threat to Lauren so we can assume that she is a
dangerous character. However, she wears a dress and a cardigan
that are both light colours. So other than the mask, she does not
seem very dangerous, and instead seems quite child-like. This
represents her character well, as she is not dangerous and is
supposed to be an illusion of Lauren’s mind. These help follow the
conventions of a thriller because they create confusion and
tension.

14. The setting of the film is also a big part of
the thriller genre. There aren’t set places
where they usually take place, but they are
usually in locations that can be unsettling
and create anxiety for the audience.
This is why we chose to use a pathway and a
field. This setting help to make the film
opening look more like a thriller because it
is empty and no one else is seen except
from the characters. A big empty space with
only two people is quite a dark image, which
helps startle the audience.

15. CONCLUSION
Our opening sequence uses
many of the conventions of a
typical thriller film. We have
done previous research on the
conventions and so we knew
what we should include to make
it effective. However, we have
challenged a few of the
conventions in order to make
our film opening more original
and stand out against other
thriller films.