Tuesday 27 March 2012

Bryn Walden-Jones Self Evaluation

1.   
Challenging, Using and Developing Conventions of
Thrillers and Opening Sequences


A main convention of Thriller films is to conceal identities. In our opening sequence, we have tried to make sure that the antagonist is always partially hidden. The screen shot above shows how we have purposefully positioned the antagonist facing away from the camera and in other shots the character's face is either covered by hair or a hood, or by his dark clothing (another thriller convention). Using this technique forces the viewer to question the status of the character and helps to build an enigma.


Here is a shot used in many thriller films, an extreme close-up. We have used it here as our initial introduction to the protagonist. I think the shot works well in giving an insight into the characters feelings, but also does not give away to much information and therefore sustains the viewers confusion.


Our thriller opening contains a third character. This challenges conventions of most thriller films because, to begin with, the audience does not realise that the protagonist is in danger. However I think that this is able to create more of a shock for the audience when they begin to understand where the problem lies.


In our thriller opening, we have used an opening sequence convention by integrating the credits between shots. This works well because the credits slow down the feel of the opening and work as thinking spaces for the audience. It helps the audience concentrate on the opening and involve themselves with the speed and rhythm of the opening. Having these gaps between shots also helps build tension.
Behind our text, we displayed images that relate to the forthcoming story.


Like other film opening sequences, our title is displayed at the end. We developed this by using editing to make the text flicker. This reflects how the protagonists mind is not functioning properly either.

2.
Representation of a Particular Social Group
In our thriller opening, we have tried to represent people suffering from mental illnesses through the protagonist. The protagonist is suffering from some sort of Schizophrenia or hallucinations and the antagonist is just a figure of his imagination. Therefore, to show this, we used editing to create flashing shots of the antagonist.

Similarly in some of the opening scenes of the film Fight Club (where the protagonist also has hallucinations of the antagonist) the "flashes" are used to show the protagonists imagination as they are only used when the camera angle is in his point of view. All of the flashes are shown in this Youtube clip below.


Below is an image of a brain scan with the illness schizophrenia. We used this in our opening to describe the illness more and also show that the story line of our film is realistic because we have proof of the represented group. 


3.
Here is an IMDb page for our film.

4.
5.
Voiceover - How Did We Attract/Address Our Audience


6.
To edit our opening, we used final cut express.  We had to learn how to add in transitions and credits. Final cut was easy to use because our work was previewed all the time.
We used Garage band to create our soundtrack. It took a while but we eventually learnt how to use it. We were able to match up our soundtrack precisely to our film because garageband also previewed our work.




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