In a 3 sentence summary: The document summarizes the process of creating a 2 minute opening sequence for an action thriller film called "The Brief". It discusses incorporating genre conventions such as overlapping credits and slow pacing to build suspense. Challenges included starting with an unconventional idea that did not follow conventions before developing a more traditional sequence. Technologies like storyboards, shooting with a tripod camera, and editing in Premiere Pro were used to construct the final product within time and budget constraints.

1. By Victoria-Louise

2. • This presentation will evaluate the process myself,
Louise Wilmhurst and Scott Kirchgaesser undertook
while creating a two minute opening sequence of an
action thriller called The Brief.

3. • In our opening sequence of the sub-genre action thriller The Brief we have incorporated many generic conventions.
For example, our titles are in a specific order which is repeated throughout real films such as The Shining at 2
minutes 45 seconds. This order occurs the whole way through because the credits are over lapping the footage :
1. The production name (2 seconds) white font on black background like The Sixth Sense
2. The presenting company name (12 seconds) white font on black background The beginning of the
3. 1 st Actors name (24 seconds) overlapping footage credits in Sixth Sense.
4. 2 nd Actors name (40 seconds) overlapping footage like the Shining
5. Title of the product (53 seconds) on black inter-cut into the film
6. Music producer name(1minute 3 seconds) overlapping footage
7. Editor name (1 minute 16) overlapping footage
8. Producers name (1 minute 27) overlapping footage
9. Writers name (1 minute 40) overlapping footage
10. Directors name (1minute 50) overlapping footage
This order is seen in the thrillers Sixth Sense as well.
All of the credits are edited to fade in for three seconds, stay on the
screen for three seconds and then fade out for three seconds to
create suspense. Like in the film The Sixth Sense because of the
slow pace they arrived on the screen and depart from the screen. In
addition, it gave the audience enough time to read the credits. Also
the font overlapping the narrative; Garamond pro connotes that the
male protagonist is a spy because the digital effect it creates. This
emphasises that it is an action sub genre of a thriller. We also
I think we could have made
increased the shadow of the font to 67% to make the words clearer to
this font smaller to use the
see by the audience, but the small size of 14 to enabled them to
conventions more. As in the
focus on the narrative more like all Hollywood studio films do.
Sixth Sense they make them
small to increase the tension

4. Therefore we developed the forms of real media conventions by combining The Shining that has the credits
overlapping the product with colourful font and The Sixth Sense white on black background. This is because we
didn’t want the credits to scroll up the screen but be subtly in the corner as this is what thrillers do to once again
aim the focus on the product. Additionally, the titles are red instead of white or blue like The sixth sense and The
Shining to challenge the conventions as blue connotes masculinity and white connotes purity, whereas we wanted
to connote danger.
Ending of
the credits 1 minute 16 seconds
scrolling up
over the
narrative in
The Shining
We also looked at another thriller Shutter 52
Island. This influenced our title because we kept seconds
it black and white but developed it further by
putting boxes around it to symbolise a brief
case and emphasize its importance.
Another way we have developed conventions was when we found a film that had a shot that said “A Bouncy
Production Company Presents” an the words came onto the screen as they we edited on to bounce. Therefore,
we used this idea and developed it by naming ours “A Dissolved Production company presents” and edited it so it
would come on to the screen and of this screen in a dissolved transition.
12
seconds

5. • The movie Salt has influenced our plot of The Brief because it is about spy's. This media product is
a hybrid of an action, crime and mystery so we may have over stepped the mark between the
subgenres action thriller and thriller action. Nevertheless, I feel that because we ended the opening
with the train doors closing, (1 minute 53 seconds) tension is increased as the audience wonders
where the male protagonist goes next. It creates two interpretations:
1. Does he go to London to take photos of the location of his mission?
2. Or does he set out on the journey to his mission?
• We have challenged the conventions because usually thrillers start off with the male protagonist or
hero with a peaceful and calm atmosphere. Then it continues into the problem of an antagonist or
villain disrupting the peace. However, we have started the product with a Russian spy that is
stereotypically a villain. I think that we could reveal that the Russian spy is in fact the hero at the
end of the product as he could possibly switch sides. This has been influenced by a series called
Nikita as she went rouge from a corrupt organisation called Division and brought it down. Another
example is Salt as switches sides from the Russian to American. Thus later in The Brief our male
character could turn into a hero becoming the protagonist as hinted from the beginning. This also
develops other products as he is male and the other media uses females to act as Russian spy's.

6. • Our media product represents the social group of stereotypical Russians in the opening sequence because
the mise-en-scene of a prop Russian vodka connotes he has Russian, this is reinforced because of the
Russian Flag in the same shot at 28 seconds. Moreover, when he answers the phone the diegetic dialogue of
“Да, я получил его” which when translated to English means “yes I’ve got it” connotes that he is Russian
because of his dialect and language at 45 seconds. Lastly we have emphasised that he is Russian because of
more mise-en-scene; costume as his hat is Russian at 1 minute 25.
• In the past capitalist countries e.g. England and America have had conflict with the communists views. Russia
had these views, this is the reason the stereotype was formed.
• We chose this hat because another action thriller called Armageddon influenced our movie as the Russian
astronaut wore one at 1 hour 10 minutes 40 seconds so we wanted to follow the conventions of that. However
we also wanted the male protagonist to be able to fit into the London area so asked our actor to ware Jeans
and a white shirt to blend in with the British culture because he is a spy and does not want to be noticed.
• We also chose our actor to be male because it is stereotypical that spy's are of this gender and race. This is
because men are to be shown as more dominant and powerful. In addition we wanted our target audience to
be males aged 15-40 as the guidance rating is a 15 and the results from the survey show more males wanted
to carry on watching the product than females.

7. • To be able to know what kind of media institution my product should be distributed by I researched two action
thrillers from different companies. The two media products I looked into were the action thrillers Salt and Nikita
because Nikita is a series on TV and Salt is a film.
37
1 hour 5 minutes and 7 seconds -Salt seconds
Both protagonists have the mise-en- Both communicate the
scene prop of Russian vodka mission. Our protagonist
representing the stereotype of their uses a prop of a phone. In
ethnicity. Salt plans are discussed.
Both products have the mise-en-
scene of a prop a Map of location
where the mission is going to happen.
However, I feel if we had a close up of
the map it would have been better as
Salt is they cannot tell it is of London, but
this could add to the mystery.
distributed by
Columbia
Pictures

8. 1 hour 5 minutes 3 1 minute 23
seconds seconds
Both protagonists us Mise-en-scene such
as costume to connote the Russian Both protagonists use mise-
ethnicity e.g. hat and shall but female en-scene again as there body
versions. However, we wanted our male The vodka has language and facial
protagonist to fit into the London been used expressions are focused but
atmosphere so told him to wear jeans, again to relaxed because it is as
because although spy's tend to be of a connote though they are in control of
higher class wearing suites he would stand Russian the situation and have been
out. Nevertheless his house in past scenes ethnicity trained to fight
convey his wealth because of its size.
1 hour 1 Angelina Jolie was used in this
minute film as it has a high budget and
12 she is an iconic actress of action
seconds thrillers. This persuades
audiences to watch the film in
advertisements such as the one
above.

9. Also directed at females
because women are
dominant in the TV series
The red connotes danger as it
signifies blood. Similar to our
font.
Targeted to males because of the
sex appeal as red dress can also
connote love but the black heels
connote danger as it signifies
death.
Appropriate for both genders as
females stereotypically care
about looks and males are
stereotypically into killing as
action and masculinity is
emphasised through that.
Both protagonists of the The costume Mise-en-scene is used
scenes use have the mise- through the fur hood which is like the
en-scene, props of guns hat we used at 1 minute 23 seconds
these are symbolic features this signifies that she is Russian
of action thrillers which she is but has switched sides
Warner Brothers distribute Nikita the
to gain revenge on her parents death.
company was founded Jack Warner,
Sam Warner, Albert Warner and
Harry Warner in 1918. They have
distributed many other products e.g.
“Two and a Half Men,” “The Big
Bang Theory,” “Friends,” Harry
Potter saga P.s. I love you and
many more

10. • During our research I realised that our product could be produced by a major Hollywood studio
because it has many similarities with Salt which is distributed by a well known Hollywood studio
Colombia Pictures. Although Warner Brothers is a company that distributes Hollywood studio
movies it is also the distributor of TV programmes like Nikita but this is not our genre as we are
aiming to produce an action thriller whereas Nikita is a hybrid action adventure thriller. I think we
want people to know what to expect when they come to watch our film so they are not disappointed
afterwards. In addition I feel that we would also prefer to have our product to be franchised by
cinemas rather than on TV because we could then maximise our profit by merchandising DVDs
which people are more likely than box-sets of TV series as these are repeated regularly.
• This product wouldn’t be created into an art-house film because they tend to focus on niche
markets whereas we want to globalise the film to a mass market broadening our target audience. It
also wouldn’t be an internet release as they tend to be short films and our film would probably go
on for about 2 hours like Salt.
Harry Cohn, Jack Cohn and Joe Brandt were
founders of Columbia Pictures in 1919. It
distributed many films including groundhog
day, Gladiator, the Spiderman saga, Hitch,
naming but a few

11. • I think the target audience of our film is males aged 15-40, because our product connotes
males are more powerful as the titles show that the two main characters are Callum Welsh
and Harry Brown who are both of male gender. This means that it is a male dominated film
which will hopefully appeal to other males. This is similar to films such as Saving Private
Ryan and some episodes of the TV program Primeval. Also Salt even thought the lead is
Female she is the only female out of a large group of Russian spy's this is why males prefer
these films.
• I think males will also enjoy the style of our film because it is slow paced which creates
suspense so viewers are constantly on the edge of their seats wondering what's going to
happen next. This has been proven in our survey that we carried out as it shows more
males wanted to carry on watching the film than females.
Primeval Saving Private Ryan

12. • The fact that our film has such a broad age range of 15-40 means it can appeal to a wide range of people which is important
as it can maximise our profit in the industry.
• Throughout our opening sequence suspense is created to engage the spectators. Therefore we made sure that the last
action the viewer saw in the clip was a long shot of the train doors closing this leaves them on a cliff hanger and leaves
people inquisitive to where the male protagonist goes.
• Tension is further increased in mid shot of the male protagonist answering the phone as the audience wonders who he is
talking to another spy, his boss or someone that has taken his family hostage. Moreover, he speaks in Russian to the person
on the other side of the phone this emphasises the tension as the viewers do not understand the conversation.
• I think some may be disturbed as the film puts the viewer in the point of view of the Russian spy in a close up of the train
times. This is strange as the Russian spy's stereotypically are the villains. However, the variety of shots also allowed us to
keep the audience interested and engaged
• In the audience feedback section of the evaluation we asked do you want to know what happens next? This is a comment
received back
• 'yes, I found the opening sequence engaging to the viewer and I wanted to know what happens after he gets off the train' we
also asked weather it was the correct representation of the character and why and someone replied:
• 'yes I believed that the character was a Russian spy of some sort going on a mission to London'
• Also after we maked the film we asked people to comment on what they thought on YouTube this is what people said bout
the product:
• “Really good continuity! Makes it look professional.”
• “What is he saying? Intriguing”
• “Want to know what happens next! What a cliff hanger… The suspense is killing me lol”
• “I love the sound affects of the emphasised phone ring tone and when the train doors close it marks the moment! Great
Editing.”
• 1 minute 51 seconds
The comments are generally really positive and we are glad that we managed to engage our audience. However, if we were
1 minute 52process again I think we would have 48 seconds to make sure the audience understood the Russian language.
to do this seconds put sub-titles

13. • We used many technologies in order to construct our product for example we
used the storyboard to create an animatic on a software called premier pro on
the MacBook's laptops. However first we had to take individual photos of each
shot with a still camera and upload them to the computer. At first the pictures
were not clear so we cropped them to automatically making them bigger this
meant when taking the pictures it didn’t matter if we captures the wooden table
around the edges.
• Unfortunately after making the first scene of our product we realised that our
idea didn’t link to our research at all and although it was original and not cliché it
did not follow any codes or conventions of thrillers. Therefore, we had to quickly
come up with a new idea that was more traditional which is shown in our final
cut. The main reason our first idea did not work was because we used a large
amount of hand held shots. Thus, to make our new idea more traditional we had
to use a tripod and ensure of more establishing shots.
• Due to the lack of time we were not able to create another animatic but we
made another storyboard and created shot lists to keep to the two minute limit.
• We used a HD Sony camera on the tri-pod hired for free from the school
because of our low budget. However this work well when we once again used
premier pro to edit our raw videos into the final product. We were taught how to
do this when we did our continuity task, by importing all the footage onto the
computer from the camera and then into iMovie's then into premier pro.
Unfortunately, our computer did not have iMovie's so we imported the raw
materials onto another computer and then used a memory stick to transferee
them over to our computer.

14. • If we didn’t have to start our idea over again and had more time I think we would have been able add look up and
download better effects. Nevertheless, we worked with what we had and used a cross dissolve to connote that time
was passing as he waited for the bus as the train doors closed.
39 1 minute
second 55
s
• Not only did we edit the door by putting a sound found from the internet to make it louder along with the ringing of
the phone. As a result the Foley sound was clearer and easier to hear. However, when
We first thought we found the phone sound it was in fact a ring tone (MP4 format),
so we had to find another one online to fit the format. We also added Non diegetic score
to create suspense
• As explained before we also increased the shadow of the font for the credits to 67% and this to be at the angle of
50.7 degrees to make it clearer to read against the different backgrounds of the scenes because depending on the
light of the setting it was difficult to read as the.
52
58
seconds
seconds
• Lastly we were able to edit the title by putting rectangles in the shape of a brief case to reinforce its importance later
on in the narrative. We then dispersed this through a transition of a cross this could draw the audience in as it adds
variety instead of a lots of dissolves which is quite boring

15. • “The titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.”
• In order to for fill the task above we researched different genres and although we did this we did not always
apply it to the product. However I feel that without these mistakes occurring it would have been difficult to
progress during this process because my research skills have definitely improved as I can now apply the
information found to my work.
• After we came up with our first idea we started the process of storyboarding, with a pencil and piece of A2
paper, we created a grid and in each box we had a shot like we did for our continuity task. We then separated
the shots by cutting them with scissors . Next we placed them on the wall with blue tack, so we could decide
what order would be best, because some films such as the Titanic start with a shot of how the films at the end.
Once we had agreed on the order we decided on how long each shot should be on the screen; on average
this was three seconds. Subsequently, we decided on transitions from one shot to the next for example dip to
white connoting a flash back to the past this is good as it interests the audience more. As explained earlier we
had to change our idea so went back to the drawing board so to speak and sketched out a more traditional
idea an example is below:
At 47
seconds 1 minute
55
• This helped us to create shot lists so we knew exactly what to do when we were at the location as we found
that conditions changed frequently e.g. weather.
1 minute 52
seconds
• Although, I feel a lot more confident with camera work I wish I was given more opportunities to use it.
Nevertheless, I felt we improved the point of view shot the most as it showed the Russian spy's view point. I
also learnt that keeping things simple is a lot easier than complicating things. This is because at the beginning
of this process we were talking about putting in flash-backs to explain the plot more, but we were just
supposed to do the two minute opening and didn’t need to show the imbalance or the middle of the film but