3. Whilst we were researching we looked several film andTV
show openings.We noticed that many of them had low
key/chiaroscuro lighting.We decided that we also liked
this look and it felt that it gave tension to the production
which we also wanted in ours.
Photo examples of low key lighting:
1st picture – ‘Se7en’
2nd picture – ‘American Horror Story’
3rd picture – screenshot from our own media production
I decided to include an example of the lighting used in our
media production to show how we tried to achieve the
look we desired.
‘Se7en’
‘American Horror Story’
Our production
4. Also when looking at other
psychological thrillers we
noticed that many of them
had very bold and crisp
shadows.We really liked the
use of shadows and knew
that we wanted to use them
too.
These two pictures are from
our media production to
show examples of how we
included shadows in our
piece.
5. When looking at and listening to the media productions we chose to
research we found that the majority of them had a creepy and disjointed
soundtrack which normally incorporated creepy/eerie sound effects.
We also found that a common convention for psychological thrillers is to
have a non-diegetic soundtrack which means that the music is not part
of the narrative world. Our group also decided to use a non-diegetic
soundtrack.
6. When editing the music we added in extra sound effects to achieve the
disjointed/distorted feel that I had previously mentioned.
We also added video effects too such as a rewind effect and a grainy
effect on some of the shots.To further give a distorted look we also
added quick cuts and jump cuts of other parts in the opening.This then
made the piece not entirely in the correct order which then made the
viewer more confused.
Techniques like these are a common conventions to be used in
psychological thrillers such as Se7en or Memento.
7. For the credits we used white writing on a black background in an
typewriter style font.We chose to use this because when looking at
other media productions we noticed that white font was used in the
majority of the ones that we researched.
OurCredits Prestige’s Credits Se7en’sCredits
8. In our opening we went against many of the codes and conventions that
were in the media productions that we researched. For example none of
the openings we watched apart fromThe Walking Dead actually
featured any weapons. Also inThe Walking Dead the viewer doesn’t see
the weapon (the arrows) being used like they would in ours. Also the
location of where our opening is set is unknown to the viewer as it is
completely black but in all of the other openings we looked at the
location was known or the viewer could at least see something other
than a dark room. However I think the use of the dark room was good
because it presents Barthe’s theory of hermeneutic codes.
