Evaluation 1 AS Media

1. Activity One
Trystan Winn-Davies

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real life media products?
We took inspiration from the film ‘Legend’ because we felt the
atmosphere created was similar to the type of atmosphere we
wanted to provide for our audiences. Our film was set in 1960’s
London, as was Legend. We used a long, dark alleyway between
WestHampstead and Finchley Road as the setting for our opening
as there are lots of shots in ‘Legend’ that use a dark closed in
space. We used the same style costumes as in ‘Legend’, dressing
our main character, Rey, in a suit. This is socially accurate for a
gangster of this time period to ware these types of clothes and
to also have a prop gun on him.

3. We used an establishing shot to open our opening
scene as ‘Legend’ used a view of London as their first
scene. We used many head shots to show facial
expressions and reactions as this was commonly used
in ‘Legend’. Not a lot of story was given away in the
opening sequence of this film, so we decided to drop
many unanswered questions for the audiences to
want to carry on watching our film. We also
introduced our main character, Rey, in our film
opening as we were given an introduction to the two
main characters in ‘Legend.

4. Legend

5. Gone Girl
Another film we took inspiration from is ‘Gone Girl’. Although
Gone girl is set in America and has nothing to do with 1960’s
gangsters, we were able to take many ideas from it. For
example, the order in which the job titles and opening credits
came was copied directly from this film. We used a very similar
font (Britanic Bold in 30) and used the same style in the fact
that we had fade in and outs of each cut scene along with the
text fading in and out at the same time. We also liked the
mysterious atmosphere provided and tried our best to copy it by
using similar melancholy music (which I composed) and pace of
each scene.

6. Gone Girl Film Opening

7. Goodfellas
We also used inspiration from the opening
sequence of ‘Goodfellas’ as the dark, gloomy
mood put on screen is quite grabbing as an
audience member. We tried to portray this kind
of mood in our film opening by putting it in
black and white and using a dark alleyway to
film in to achieve the dangerous atmosphere.
We see straight away by looking at the
characters in ‘Goodfellas’ that the genre of the
film is a action/thriller gangster film. We tried
to imitate this by using eerie music, slow wide
shots that fade in and out, and by having very
plain camera shots at all times. The prop guns
used in both my film and ‘Goodfellas’ are very
symbolic of the time period. For example, in
‘Goodfellas’, a Revolver .44 was used where as
we used a modern Gloch.

8. My opening sequence

9. Genre and Style
The genre of our film is gangster/thriller. We try to show this in our
film opening with a combination of slow, dramatic camera shots and
eerie music. The element of violence also provides our audience with a
key factor of every gangster film. I decided to put the film in black and
white as it builds to the atmosphere and adds to the simplistic nature
of the film. Although it is set in 90s, the black and white effect works
and is used in films such as ‘Somers Town’ and ‘Twentyfour Seven’.