Deadline 15.09.2015

1. OCR AS MEDIA STUDIES: COURSEWORK
G321: Foundation Portfolio on Media
VIDEO BRIEF
Independent research task
Deadline for submission: September 15th 2015
Your first research task involves studying the opening sequence (max 4-5 min) of a
range of different filmgenres. The purpose of this task is to become better familiarised
with how filmmakers use this short sequence to grab the audience’s attention. The
opening sequence plays an important role in how you engaged your audience with
the story you are trying to tell them.
You need to look at THREE different opening sequences. One of the films chosen must
be from the drama genre.
Before you begin, watch the sequence a several times, but remember to only focus
on the first few minutes.
Introduction
 Briefly describe the content of the opening sequence (what happens).
Narrative and form and style (use of technical and symbolic codes)
 Which framing techniques (shots, angles and movement) are used in the
sequence and to which effect? (try to givethree examples fromeach film)
 Are there any examples of match on action, shot/reverse shot or the 180-
degree rule? If so, in which capacity?
 How does the filmmaker engage the audience with the story of the film, i.e.
what makes them want to keep watching?
 How are the credits introduced and in which order?
Issues of Representation
 Which characters are weintroduced to in the sequence and in which way? If
there are no characters present, what do wesee instead and why?
 What are your first impressions of the characters introduced? How do they
speak to the audience?
 Which stereotypeswould you use to try to describe them?
Genre Conventions
 What are the key genre conventions presented in the sequence? Discuss the
choice of setting, dialogue, music, colours, presentation of title, font style of
text credits etc.