How does my piece challenge or develop forms and

conventions of real media products?

Media Production Evaluation: Question 1

Frequent Title Sequence Conventions

Films of any genre tend to have a set list of conventions or “tropes” that are frequently featured within that genre, and horrors and thrillers are no exception.

• Contemporary music - to relate to the usual Horror/Thriller audience (adolescent males).

• Showing ordinary images in an unusual/unsettling way (Heim/Unheim contrast).• Distinct and recognisable theme music (either original or one that is unattached to

another media product) that is easily identified and linked to the product.• Artistic style representative of the style of the film, ie. Se7en’s sinister dark imagery

in the Title Sequence representative of the dark and sinister themes and tone of the film.

• Film name displayed alone (no other credits in the image at the time).• Title montage – series of images from the media product displayed along to theme

music.• Cutting images to the rhythm of the music.• Image and Music tempo contrast.

In our piece a horror/thriller convention we followed was the creation of tension through the combination of heim concepts with unheim concepts. For example:

The closing of a garage door

Combined with

Blurred image, jump cuts andUnnatural direct lighting.

As seen in…

Arlington Road: The heavy blur and intense lighting create a mysterious unease around the walking character.

Se7en: The solid foreground focus, heavy close up and intense background lighting gives the page turning a sinister edge.

Conventionally horror and thriller title sequences are associated with the use of stylistic font that is both unusual and fitting with the theme of the film.

We decided to challenge this convention with our use of a plain Arial font. We found that the font contrasted well with the jittery unusual images, and that the theme of investigation and data logging that is present in our film works well with this basic, sober and practical font, frequently used on all forms of formal documentation.

British horror film Creep is a prime example for the conventional use of stylised fonts. It uses a font similar to those found on London tube maps, fitting with the film’s theme. At certain points the font also includes the circular London Tube symbol.

The Descent is another example of stylised font, it uses a font that is partially lit by a single light, fitting with the films themes of darkness and the unseen.

Our titles were in a conventional order, which we designated after researching the order in which titles are usually presented. We decided that we would develop the convention, though, by having the titles edited to the beat. The arrangement of the titles on screen varies throughout the sequence, as it was fitting with the mystery theme that runs through our piece. The titles were assigned to different areas depending on the light/dark areas of the screen and on the colour of the font itself. We felt as though the unpredictability of the title sequence in terms of title positioning and the varying image effects built around the core themes of mystery and confusion; conventionally title sequences manipulate signifiers within the image to convey the central themes of the film to the audience.

Title Sequence Research

After we did some research into the conventional title sequence credit order, we discovered that the most important credits were always placed either at the very beginning or the very end of the sequence, considering they are the most memorable slots. We also discovered the rough traditional order of credits, which is as follows:

1. Studio.

2. Production Company.

3. Producer and/or Director.

4. Starring.

5. Casting.

6. Music.

7. Production Design.

8. Edited By.

9. DoP ( Director of Photography ).

10. Director.

Information sourced from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opening_credits#Recent_trends

http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/video/articles/10920.aspxhttp://www.listal.com/list/great-opening-credits

The music we created and used was a heavy, droning, distorted piece. This style of music is one conventionally used for films of the horror/thriller genre, though to improve on this we added an extra layer of ambient sound, as it gave the piece a raw feel. We also had the volume of the beat slightly louder than the rest of the music in the piece, to allow for easier on-the-beat cutting.

The film Se7en is a prime example of the use of conventional horror/thriller title sequence music

Music of the Title Sequence

The music we used in our opening credit sequence was an original piece of a contemporary style, this follows the frequent convention used in the development of title sequences, whether opening or closing: Having a recognisable, contemporary piece of music (original or not) that is not associated with another media product so that it can be easily identified and linked to your media product.

Examples of this are:

Fight Club’s closing theme – Where Is My Mind by The Pixies.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-PguAOhGnY

Bourne Identity’s main theme – Extreme Ways by Mobyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyuL4cB7RyU

The highly reconisable theme songs of franchise films such as Harry Potter and Pirates of The Caribbean also reinforce this genre-spanning convention.