1. Q1: In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real
media products?
Freya Bruce

2. Our film Released follows the basic conventions of the thriller genre, with a
psychological sub genre. To portray this we used low key lighting and dark
shots of Brighton. We used close ups of eyes to suggest a mystery of the
character, again to relate to the thriller genre. Although we followed the
basic conventions, in a sense of characters we challenged the genre as our
main protagonist was female. We felt like this worked well with out
opening title sequence because it was different but effective. Our main
influence throughout the film was seven, This is because we liked the way it
showed a psychological and crime sub genre mixed with thriller. The film
one flu over the cuckoos nest also influenced us because of the mental
hospital as the main setting. I think that Our opening title sequence
conforms to the generic conventions of thriller as we have got an tension
building heavy soundtrack throughout, with a mixture of radio cuts and
echoing of conversations mixed into the sound. The film Mimic was another
one of our influences because of the radio edit. When researching thrillers
one of the main SGJ that appeared in most thrillers was that it was set in an
area with lots of people, for example hotels, schools, hospitals. We felt that
buy using shots of Brighton mixed with the radio gave this effected to make
people feel involved and therefore presenting some of the basic
conventions of the thriller genre.

3. I think that the font we used also stuck to the conventions of the thriller
genre, psychological in particular as it was san-serif giving a bold status to
the titles. The contrast of black and white and different sized letters again
portrays the psychological genre as the confusion represents a confused
mind. We used a range of shots mainly sticking to the conventions of
thriller for example close up of eyes and watching people in public without
them knowing. However we did have a shot of our antagonist walking down
the corridor, this may have challenged the conventions of the thriller genre
as we revealed a character, however we kept it very low key lighting and
faded other images over the top to still give it a scary effect. We didn’t use
a wide range of costumes and props in our opening title sequence,
however the ones we did use again stuck to the basic thriller genre
conventions like keys, files and dark clothing.

4. I chose these screenshots to analyse and to represent our opening title sequence in my
evaluation as I felt they showed the setting, effects and characters.

5. FRAME 1
This is the first shot in our
opening title
sequence, we made it
dark and high contrast on
the colours in the shot as
we wanted to set the
atmosphere of the piece.
This is also where the
radio edit starts, we
wanted the audience to
feel connected so we
used people walking
around town to make it
feel like a highly
populated environment.
FRAME 2
This screenshot shows our
setting and location. We
chose to film under the pier
as we felt it gave a rustic
look. The jumpy and rough
sea gave the effect of being
rushed and noisy which we
wanted to make the
audience fell un eased. We
put a darkish effect to make
the pier seem more
silhouette like, to portray
mystery.
FRAME 3
This screenshot shows a
hint at our storyline, and
relating to our title
‘released’. This is quite and
important shot as it
compliments the audio of
‘so you want me to release
him?’. We filmed this over
the shoulder of the
character, as like seven, we
didn’t want to show the
characters in the opening
title sequence. In our OTS
we didn’t use may
props, apart from these files
and keys.

6. FRAME 4
This is a shot of the female
antagonist walking to
‘release’ the penitent. While
editing we edited over fades
of different clips and didn’t
focus of the face of the
character as we wanted to
create enigma and
atmosphere. In most thrillers
we looked at they use the
idea of laying over different
shots in opening title
sequence, so we used this. In
this walking shot we wanted
to show a match on action,
filming my feet and me
walking and placing it
together.
FRAME 5
This is a close up shot of our
main protagonist, which we
echoed throughout our title
sequence. The way that the eyes
are looking straight on into the
camera gives the effect that the
character is looking straight at
you, creating a feel of a thriller
film. In most of the sequences
that we looked at close ups
were heavily used as it makes
the opening title sequence more
personal. We Made the contrast
higher giving shadows around
the eyes.
FRAME 6
This is a shot looking down
over a path walking down to
the pier. We felt that by having
the camera looking down it
gave the impression that
someone was watching you,
which is used lots in thrillers to
create tension and build
suspense onto the audience.
The lighting is very low because
it was at night and we edited
over a red light as the
connotations of red is blood
and can easily be related to
thriller.

7. FRAME 7
This again is the eye shot, but
with an edit on. During
editing when we felt that we
were missing something and
wanted to incorporate the
eyes around the title
sequence. We felt that to
make this more interesting
we would add different
effects onto the eyes, to
make one of the main focus
points of the opening title
sequence the mystery of the
eyes.
FRAME 8
This shot was an old wall in
Brighton. We felt this was
useful as it looks old and worn
away. We thought this would
work as subconsciously the
audience put together the
rustic settings and create the
sense of the character being
like that too. We liked the
mixture of the white and dark
as white is often thought as
pure and juxtaposition of the
rustic colours around it creates
the psychological thriller that
we wanted.
FRAME 9
This Is our main title
frame for our opening
sequence. We chose to
have our title on a black
background rather than
having it over some
footage as we felt it
looked more effective and
we used the font old press
as we liked the spray on
effect. We started to add
some classical music in
the background of this
shot as we felt it would
ease into our film nicely.