Friday 24 May 2013
Monday 18 March 2013
Question 1 Sharina Jade Smith
In what ways does your media product use, devolop or chalenge forms and conventions of real media products?
There are 4 different types of film opening:
- Narrative opening (the most common and traditional type of film opening and is therefore, the mostly used type.)
- Discrete opening (use of, what can be described as, a short mini-film within the actual film.)
- Titles of blank screen (literately uses credits over a blank screen)
- Stylised opening. (uses rapid, fast editing with graphics.)
These are the main conventions of film opeings , and each has their own set of rules in order to differentiate their opening from the rest.
The convention of a Discrete opening is the introduction of a sequence which is seporate to the actual film. (For e.g. a mini film within the film.) Discrete openings tend not to give a lot of information away to the audience and usually includes fast jump cuts and might appear blurred in the viewers mind. The film, Se7en has a perfect example of this.
The conventions of an Opening with titles over a blank screen is giving information of the film to the audience through text and and sound choices. This is used mainly in thrillers as, because the screen is usually black, however simple it may seem it can be used to great effect. The film Dead Calm uses an example of this.
Finally, the conventions of a Stylised opening is the use of rapid editing, whilst incorporating the use of graphics. This type of opening usually sees the images and pictures specially edited to make it fit in with the theme of the movie. This can be used to create immense effect of action. an example of a film where this type of opening is used is Peltham 123.
For our film opening we decided to use a Narrative opening, as we felt this would give the best effect for our film.
The conventions of title sequences are as follows:
- Movie Title and Appropriate Music
Our Thriller used minimal music, and really made use of the massive, significant impact that silence can make. The movie title was placed inside the movie, in big, bold writing in order to capture the audiences attention.
- Cast and Crew
- Characters and Setting
- Mise en Scene and Editing
The costume selected within the opening was relevant and connected to the thriller itself as we wanted to portray the character as an average, young teenage girl so her costume had to be selected in order to reflect this image to the audience. The setting was selected in order to reflect the thriller element of the opening to the audience: we chose an isolated, location of a graveyard as they are spooky, and is usually associated with horror/death. unexpectedly but helpfully, during the filming the weather was a grim, dark, day that was pouring with rain which helped a lot in creating the atmosphere for the film.
- Cinematography/Camera work
Question 2 Sharina Jade Smith
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our thriller opening represents particular specific social groups such as Age, Gender and Ethnicity, it does this in a number of different ways.
As the media industry is generally controlled by white middle class men, therefore the generally have control of what and who is represented within films.
Our thriller challenges the stereotypes connected with these social groups in a variety of ways.
Age for example, is represented in our thriller opening as a challenge as our main protagonist is a young, teenager/young adult which is unique as within the industry in most films the main protagonist is somebody of either a considerably younger age group, or a considerably older age. Teenagers seem to mainly just star in firms rather than be the central character in them.
Gender is also represented and challenged within our thriller opening, as our main character, our lead protagonist, is a young female rather than a middle aged, older male. This challenges the typical stereotype that the male is the leading man in films which is what is usually seen. Also when females appear in films with a leading role they are usually dressed in provocative, suggestive or revealing clothing.
Lara Croft, is an example of this as she is shown below, wearing very suggestive clothing in comparison to the leading female from our film opening, also pictured below:
Ethnicity is another social group that is challenged within our thriller opening. The main protagonist in our opening is a woman of colour with African origin. As the media industry is predominantly controlled by white, middle-class men, the main protagonists of most films are usually of a white origin. By making our protagonist a person of colour, this ethnic stereotype is, therefore, challenged.
Class, additionally, is challenged within our thriller opening as the main protagonist in our thriller opening is of a working class background, however in most films, the main protagonist is of a higher social class.
Questions 5 Sharina Jade Smith
How did you attract/address your audience
Reviews from people of our target audience about what they thought of our opeing.
We also interviewed the protagonist of our film about her busy PR schedule about how she promoted the film and reached her target audience
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