The document provides an analysis of the opening sequence of a psychological thriller film titled "Pyro". It describes each shot in detail and how it advances the narrative and builds suspense. Key elements summarized include: - The opening establishes the protagonist's obsession with fire through a close-up of her lighting a match. - Subsequent shots introduce themes of alcoholism, family disputes, and the protagonist resenting her past through a burning photograph. - The title "Pyro" is revealed with fiery font against a black background, reinforcing the film's themes through visual and audio elements.

1. EVALUATION – QUESTION 1. IN WHAT WAYS
DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE,
DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL PRODUCTS?

2. • Here our protagonist has lit a match in a
dark room/location.
• The illumination of her face only and the
fact that the rest of the room/location is not
lit also suggests an atmosphere of
suspense and tension.
• The key focus of having the match in the
centre third of our frame is used to
emphasise the character’s obsession with
fire.
• The close-up of our protagonist’s face
suggests her psychotic intent, also the way
she stares at the flame yet again
foreshadows her obsession with fire.
• The fact that the protagonist has an
obsession with fire, as shown by the match,
suggests that our thriller is going to be a
psychological thriller.
• Here we used silence for the most part of
the scene in order to create suspense and
tension – the use of the striking of the
match sound.

3. • This is a panning shot of a hallway
showing an empty beer bottle and
a pair of male and female shoes.
• This helps to establish the
setting/location of our opening as it
shows a more home like setting as
shown by the skirting of the
hallway.
• The prop of the empty beer bottle
foreshadows alcoholism.
• The way that both pairs of shoes
are arranged, show two completely
different aspects. For example the
male shoes are all messy and
looks like they were taken off in a
hurry – suggests a no care
approach to their life. Whereas the
female’s shoes are nicely placed
next to the male’s shoes – which
shows organisation and calmness .

4. • Here is a long shot of the
antagonist who clearly is feeling
distressed/anxious while having
some alcohol – as emphasised
by the alcohol bottle (prop).
• The use of this prop conforms
to the stereotype that
particularly males are the ones
that are mostly alcoholics and
that women are not as shown
by the male antagonist sitting at
the kitchen top and by showing
that most of the bottle has
already been drunk.
• Throughout the opening the
face of the father is not seen
which adds to the sense of
mystery – just like in ‘Stalag 17’
(Wilder, 1953)

5. • Here is a high angle shot of the
female protagonist looking
through a crack in a doorway,
watching her parents having an
argument.
• The use of the high angle shot
suggests her vulnerability to the
situation.
• The banisters that the camera is
focused through sort of suggests
entrapment – like a prison.
• Also by having herself and her
mum in shot and having both
characters on intersecting points
for the rule of thirds, this helps to
suggest that perhaps the
protagonist favours her mum
more and that this could have
something to do with the main
narrative for the rest of the film.

6. • A mid- shot of the protagonist
looking through the crack in the
doorway.
• This yet again is used to
suggest a sense of entrapment
or isolation as foreshadowed by
the door and the frame only
showing most of the
protagonist’s face and not the
hallway behind.

7. • Here we have a close-up of alcohol
being poured into a whisky glass.
• This is to yet again foreshadow
alcoholism.
• Here as part of Continuity Editing,
Match On Action is used as we have
the shot over the shoulder of the
antagonist pouring the alcohol into the
glass and then it cuts to the close-up
of the glass and the steady stream of
alcohol being poured into the glass
itself.
• Here we did not include any other
sound apart from the background
music/soundtrack in order to help
create a sense of tension and enigma
to why the father is drinking in the first
place.

8. • Here we have a tilt shot and
close-up of a burning photograph
of the protagonist’s parents and
herself when she was younger.
• This shot is poignant in the
narrative for the rest of the
opening/film as this suggests her
resentment to her life now and
that she tries to reject/forget the
more positive events in her life
that have happened in the past
with her parents.
• In this scene we have the sound
of the father knocking on the
bathroom door and as the scene
progresses the sound gets louder
and more intense resulting in an
increase in tension.

9. • Here is the title of our thriller –
‘PYRO’ (Group 7,2017)
• The use of simple text appeals to
audiences as it is easier for people
to read.
• The title is positioned in the centre of
the frame, hooking the attention of
the audience onto the title itself.
• The title is a fiery orange font, in
which it juxtaposes/contrasts with
the black background – this helps to
make the title stand out and the fiery
colour of the title coupled with the
actual title itself helps to hint at the
narrative of our thriller – this is
reinforced with the use of crackling
fire sound effects that we had added
over the top of the audio line to
enhance the fiery aspect of the title.
• Before the title pops up there is a
sound effect of a door opening which
gives the sense of an action that has
happened which we as the audience
do not know about – or that we have
to hint at ourselves.

10. • Here is an establishing shot of the
outside of the house while the
postwoman has delivered some
mail.
• The establishing shot helps to
show the audience the location of
the thriller by showing them the
house that most of the narrative
will take place throughout the film.
• The inclusion of the postwoman
suggests a regular life outside
compared to the events that are
taking place within the house.
• Also this is shown towards the
end of the opening to suggest a
normal life and environment.
• There is the sound effects of birds
chirping in the background which
also helps to create a sense of
normalcy.

11. PROS & CONS OF TITLE
• We shortened down the word ‘pyromaniac’ to ‘Pyro’ because our target audience would now
associate this word with the meaning instead of using the whole phrase. Also it is easier for
people to ‘digest’ quickly especially if they see it on a bus while it is driving past instead of
having to read a lot of text, so it is easy to convey our idea of a psychological thriller.
• The use of having the fire effect in the background, behind the title helps to convey the meaning
of the title and potentially the narrative of the film.
• The colour and font scheme is very simple, so it is not in our audience’s faces in a negative
way, it shows a more subtle approach to our title.
• There is a pause/black screen before the title pops up in our opening as we wanted to create a
suspenseful wait from when there is the sound of the door opening to the instant thud of the title
appearing on screen – this gets the audience to try and guess what is going to happen after the
door has been opened.
• From our audience feedback some people pointed out that if we didn’t have the scene with the
post-woman afterwards the opening would look more like a trailer and that is not we were going
for.

12. OUR TITLE COMPARED TO A SIMILAR THRILLER
TITLE
• Our thriller title can be compared to the title of ‘Shutter Island’ (Scorsese, 2010), because
they both use the same type of colour scheme and that the colours contrast to each other.