Evaluation activity 1

Evaluation Activity 1

These are screen grabs from my film opening, I will comment on whether the screen grabs are typical or not typical for the genre of film I have produced. I am going to show the ways my media product uses, develops or challenges forms and conventions of real media products.

This is our film logo, that I produced with my partner, Sarah. This is very typical for a film, as it shows the company that has produced the media product. We included this in the film to make the product more realistic.

Opening credits are an important feature in a film, which is why it is typical that we involved them in our media product. We purposely put the actors/actresses names before the film title, as it hints that they are big film stars – if a film star is an A list star they can demand that they’re name comes before the film title. This was the vibe we were going for when we put the credits of the actor names before the film title.

This scene of dialogue between two characters from the media product, is not typical for the thriller/crime genre of our film. This is because it is set in a school library (which is shown through the books on table) the setting of this scene emphasises that the characters are still in school therefore being around the age of 16-18. Even though this scene does not fit with the genre, the actual dialogue helps explain the plot and creates more tension which is why we wanted it in the film opening. We also included this because it meant that we could involve a two-shot, shot reverse shot which made our camera shots more varied, and also introducing the second girl, which explains the rest of the opening as it is based on her.

This screen grab is typical for the genre of thriller/crime, this is because it is very obvious that it is someone looking/following the girl, because of the leaves on the right of the picture. This gives the impression that the person is hiding from the girl, which emphasises that she is being stalked, as the person does not want to be seen. On this scene we put on an effect for the lighting/colouring of it to an effect called ‘Hard Light’ we thought it made the scene more dramatic and more typical of the thriller/crime to have edited lighting to make the colouring more harsh.

This scene is of hands shuffling through a collection of photographs of girls, this is suggesting that the person is stalking the girls, this is then proved correct when he stops on this picture and points at it, hinting that he is going to do something to her. The fact that the picture gets pointed at introduces that she is going to be the main suspect of his actions, having this in the opening sequence explains the plot of the next scene of the same girl walking.

This screen grab isn’t very clear what the shot actually is, because it is at the beginning of the scene. But it is a hand held camera following the girl through the inside of a coffee shop, Costa, this is meant to look like the stalker is following her wherever she goes and the dark lighting (which we edited in by an effect of ‘Vignette’) suggests that there is something dark going to happen. This shot is typical of the thriller/crime genre because of the hand held camera hiding inside looking through a window.

This shot is very typical but also not typical of a thriller/crime genre film, this is because there is a posh, clean car in the mise-en-scene, which shows class and status of the area, being quite high/working class. This goes against the typicality of the film genre, because people do not expect things like this to happen in high/working class places. This shot also shows the clothes of the girl, which shows she is not in provocative clothing, meaning that she could be quite an innocent girl. Also having a dress shop in the mise-en-scene shows that the place is a working class environment.

This screen grab shows the silhouette of the girl with dark lighting and street lamps for the lighting, all of these makes the scene more mysterious and therefore fitting the typicality of the genre. This ending scene is filmed in a graveyard, which is a typical setting for a thriller/crime genre film, which is why we chose to film it here.

Generally the film title comes after the film opening, this is why this is typical as we put it at the end of our media product. The title in most thriller/crime films tend to be bold, sharp and simple, which is why we chose to do our film title in this way. We chose to name the film ‘Obsession’ because it hints that the stalker is obsessed with girls, which is then later explained in the film.