TITLE SEQUENCE EVALUATION(FOREVER)

By Tiffany Leung

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHANGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

I have created a film noir thriller, I have used, developed and challenged forms of real media products. We have incorporated generic conventions in our media products we have chosen to change conventions slightly to create and excitement and variation. I watched numerous thrillers to make sure I fully understood the predominant conventions. I ensured that I analysed them in detail; camera, sound, mise-en-scene and editing. Our titles were in white with a black background which is conventional for political thrillers. Black and white contrast well with each other, when analysing thrillers, colours black, white and red were in it the most.

Black represents dark and evil, white represents pure and innocence and red represents blood and love, all of these characteristics are in thrillers. The first thriller which gave me ideas was Sin City, this is because as a group we based our thriller on a film noir, Sin City is also a film Noir.

Additionally, we really liked the idea of a film noir, Sin City gave us numerous ideas as the film was in black and white however except for the women in the red dress, it connotes that she is in danger. In our title sequence the male protagonist’s tie is in red, red represents love but also danger, this gave us the idea that red can mean a numerous of things.

Sin City’s title sequence is quite different to others I have seen. The title sequence is an animation in black and white except for the red dress. Also, majority of thriller title sequences the main focus is short clips of what is going on in the storyline however in Sin City the main focus is more on the actors names, the animated storyline in the background fades before introducing the actors names. The names are also in red with a large bold font size, Sin City didn't want to show too much information. Another way in which we used and developed conventions of

political thrillers in the storyline is the crime and love conventions used in Sin City and our storyline. The girl in the red dress is to be thought to be in love with the man, however he shoots her, similarly to our storyline where Roy is to be at the theatre with Connie, she is in love with Roy however Roy loves someone else so he kills Connie.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHANGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHANGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

Camera:One main shot we used recurring is the medium shot. We did this because we wanted to make it clear to our audience how our protagonist was feeling which was presented as in love and happy for Connie but represented frustration and unloving for Roy. We also used a few close ups to create tension and suspense which is an aspect we have followed.

Mise-en-Scene:We wanted to set our thriller in the 1950’s we made sure our actors were wearing the right clothing. Our actors jack wore a suit and Shauna wore a floral long dress this represented her as pure and innocent, whereas out our actor Simran wore a black fur coat which represented her as evil. To ensure out thriller was in black and white, we had to ensure lighting look darker than usual. This meant that I had to adjust and change the contrast and brightness. Making the titles sequence in black and white makes it look more evil and sinister this is what we wanted in our titles sequence.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHANGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

Sound:To build suspense we also added a backing track of me paying on the piano, the music piece sounds sinister, this fits in perfect with the title sequence, when the title sequence shows the death of Connie the music gradually gets louder. At the start of the sequence the music starts of slow and quiet, it gradually gets louder and louder till the end.

Editing:We have centralised our protagonists thought the sequence so that our audience is introduced to the main characters. To give the sequence suspense, clips like playing on the piano were edited back and forth in the title sequence, this created tension.

HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

As a group we put a lot of thought into constructing the representation of the character in our media product in terms of gender, age, race and class. The male protagonist is a British middle aged man, represented as very smart and neat, the suit he wears also connotes his wealth. This is unconventional as he kills a woman who is to be thought he is in love with.

The female protagonist is a British middle aged Women played by Shauna, she is represented as neat and innocent, this is represented by what she is wearing, she wears a white fur coat with a floral dress. This is conventional as she talks sweetly to her partner and is always looking elegant.

Our other female protagonist was played by Simran, she is a British Asian Women. She plays an evil and sly character. This is represented by what she wears and what she says, Simran is only shown near the end of the title sequence this is because she is sly, she wants her relationship with the male protagonist discreet.In terms of her race we decided not to include of the racial stereotypes, as they weren’t needed in our title sequence.

WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

Personally I think that if it was to be made into a film it could be distributed worldwide, institutions like the BBC and into large Hollywood studio films. This is because I think we have included Hollywood style characteristics, such as a couple in love, an evil and innocent character, also it could also be seen as a film which is only shown on television. However the best way our film will be distributed is on TV programmes such as film 4, this is because film noir has a niche audience meaning not many people will watch it

The mise-en-scene, camera, sound and editing is another reason why our film should be distributed by film 4. We have followed the basic film noir conventions. Mise-en-scene we ensured lighting was darker than usual, this made a gloomy and dark atmosphere, for camera, we used many different angles and shots the shots that we used recurring was medium and close up shot, this is because it is clear to the audience how the character is feeling. For sound I played in a evil and sinister tone, this fitted into the film noir thriller genre, for editing we used a lot of cross-cutting shots this is because it brings tension to the title sequence.

Film 4 is the best way to distribute our film this is because I found a presentation on channel 4 website about film 4’s sales and distribution, they said that majority of their audience are men, this suits them as our crime and violence aspects of our film relate and appeal to them.

WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?

We think the most appropriate age range for our target audience is 15+. This is because teenagers like thrillers that are engaging and films that create suspense. Before making our title sequence we researched what was allowed and not allowed in a 15+, therefore we knew what conventions we could and couldn’t add in. I was in full agreement with this decision as I would be counted among this audience and would be able to realise what made it the suit the rating as well being able to relate at a personal level.

HOW DID YOU ATTRACT AND ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?In our media product, the two minute opening to our thriller film ‘Forever’ we tried to appeal to our target audience which was 15+, this is important to do in the very opening of the film that we made. To attract the audience, we had to make sure our key features were met. With a rating of 15 the audience age is not too restricted, we had to think of different aspects that would attract this audience and how these aspects would hep to maintain the interest of our target audience.

Sound was a major part to attracting the audience, the use of piano music sets up the atmosphere, it comes across as creepy and sinister. Before we see a shot of Shauna dead there is silence with darkness, silence is seen as one of the most effective tools, we used silence in the form of having no dialogue, this not only didn’t give to much away but it also shows the disturbing atmosphere of the sequence.

AUDIENCE SURVEY AND RESULTSWe made an audience survey so that we could get feedback to weather the audience liked it or not. Everyone who watched our title sequence was over the age of 15.

As you can see on the graph out of 26 people only one person didn’t enjoy our title sequence. 96.15% said yes which is good as it means majority of people answered our survey liked it.

Our title sequence is based on a film noir thriller we asked the audience what genre they thought it was, 80.77% said that they think it’s a thriller, this tells me that out title sequence is successful, closely behind, the audience thought it was a under the genres romance and horror, romance could have been mistaken as Roy killed Connie just to be with Rose, also the audience might of mistaken it as a horror as blood was involved.

AUDIENCE SURVEY AND RESULTS

Out of 28 people, 26 people would want to watch the rest of the film, this is good as nearly everyone who has watched it enjoyed it, this meant that if it was to be made as film the film could be very successful.

We asked the audience to rate the title sequence out of 10, 1 being terrible and 10 being excellent, majority of people gave it an 8, and 10 being closely second with 7. This meant that the audience thought it was better than average, majority of people found it good.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THE PRODUCT?

We used a few pieces of technical equipment when filming our title sequence, such as a regular stills camera, recorder and a tripod. In my past experience of using a camera, I have only used them for general uses, which only required for me to be still. There are many different angles and shots we had to film, it was more difficult than I imagined. There were different angles and shots which were harder than some, such as the pan shot was hard to film, keeping the camera still whilst moving it to left to right proved difficulty.The tripod allowed us to take smooth footage and gave the camera work a more professional feel. It also allowed us to position the camera correctly when shooting the different angles.The recorder was used to collect audio when Shauna was screaming in the title sequence, it picked up what they were saying and gave a clear sound to our sequence.The piece of editing software we used was Adobe Premier Pro CS6. the software allowed us to edit all the footage we had captured. We were allowed to cut our footage and move the footage to the correct places, also audio and music was added to the footage as well. Because our thriller is a film noir it was very difficult to find out how we could change it to black and white, eventually we got the hang out it and was very easy to change. Footage can be moved around, sped up or slowed down, we were also about to add graphics to the image, such as the actors names and who it was filmed by.

LOOKING BACK TO THE PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU HAVE LEARNT FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

During the research stage, each member of the group spent time researching different thrillers and there conventions , there was more to the research than I expected, we had to research the costumes, different conventions, camera angles and shots, lighting and more, these were all major characteristics to a thriller film.Planning the whole title sequence was hard as we all had to agree on what we wanted the storyline to be, after changing it numerous times even the storyboard, we came to a conclusion we all really liked the storyline we made. We started doing spider diagrams and a shot list, after we all agreed to it we drew our storyboard out, the storyboard made it easier for us to film as there were many different camera angles and shots we wrote on so we wouldn’t forget to film it.Throughout the course I have managed to improve a lot, such as my camera skills, I have improved holding the camera steady and the pan shots had some difficulty also when editing out footage, it took all of us a while to get use to Adobe Premier Pro however after a period of time we all finally got the hang of it.Overall I would say that during the process of production there were some difficulties that were very challenging and we did have our faults as a group however overall we managed to do a good job and we are all very pleased with our title sequence and I believe that is done very professionally as I thought that it turned out better than I thought it would.