The opening sequence establishes the genre as horror through conventions like a knife and alleyway. It introduces the protagonist and antagonist, with more screen time and empathy given to the protagonist to identify him, and unstable visuals used to portray the antagonist's negative impact. The sequence aims to make the viewer uncomfortable and take the protagonist's side. It is inspired by the visual style and editing of the film Se7en to set expectations for the psychological thriller genre. Shots mimic those in other horror films to further signal the genre to viewers.

1. By Sam Orrell

2. Question 1: In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and conventions
of real media products?
From our research into opening sequences, we understood that
opening sequences should establish these things:
 Genre
 Protagonist/Antagonist
 Setting
 Narrative
And in some cases:
 Ideology
 Visual Style
After looking into various opening sequences we decided that to make
our opening sequence “movie like”, these were the things that have to
be established within our sequence.

3. Genre
Our sequence establishes the genre of the film in many ways. Right from the
start in our title sequence we have used items and locations that are regularly
featured in real horror films. For example:
 The knife shown in this title is a clear convention of the horror genre as it is
mostly associated with murder and death when seen in horror films.
 The Alley way in the title sequence is another clear convention od horror
films as it is seen as a threatening location that makes the viewer expect
something bad to happen.
 The final title in the sequence is inspired by the movie “Se7en” a well known
psychological thriller/horror that I myself love the visual style and the way
the film is edited together. This was the main inspiration of our opening
sequence and as you can see this title is well representative of that. As a
group we decided to create an homage of Se7en’s opening sequence.
When the audience watches this they will easily be able to identify what the
genre is and what they can expect from the film.

4. Protagonist/Antagonist
 In our opening sequence we have made it clear to the audience who the
protagonist is through the amount of screen time that the character gets. As
most shots feature his face or another part of his body, the audience will
assume that this character is the protagonist. The sense of empathy created
towards the protagonist from the audience within our opening sequence
also aids to establish the protagonist as they see him as the ‘good guy’. This
is done through the protagonist having quite an open face to the audience
and you can clearly see his emotions in the shots used. The audience can
also relate to the protagonist through some of the “Mirror Shots” used in our
sequence which almost make the feel as though when they look at the
protagonist it is almost like looking in a mirror.
 The antagonist is also clearly established as the character that flickers onto
the screen in the protagonists mind. The audience can clearly see that the
antagonist is affecting the protagonist and causing him to deteriorate;
therefore the audience assumes that this character is the protagonist as
they are having a negative impact on the protagonist. This is the definition of
an antagonist.

5. Ideology
 In our opening sequence, the ideology we were aiming to create was for the
audience to take the side of Sam who is the protagonist and see the hooded
figure as the antagonist. After asking others to watch our sequence, we
discovered that our aims had become successful as everyone who watched
our opening sequence identified the hooded figure as the antagonist and
identified Sam as the protagonist.
 We have done this by giving a brief monologue about Sam at the very start
of the sequence. Isaac (The Teacher) explains to the viewers that Sam has
deteriorated over the past year and his work rate in school has dropped
considerably. This informs the audience right from the start that this
character has got something wrong with him.
 In our sequence we have created an uncomfortable visual style through the
use of many close up shots, audio and visual effects. These things keep the
viewer’s on edge as they aren’t aware of what's about to happen, making
them anxious to find out what. Due to this, when the antagonist flickers
across the screen, it gives the audience a jump effect, making them
uncomfortable whenever they see this character so they see this as the
antagonist who is the source of the protagonist’s deterioration.

6. Compared To Other Films Within Our Genre
 We wanted our film to match some aspects of other known horror films to aid the
audience in knowing what to expect in our sequence. For example:
 In our title sequence we have created a very similar shot to one seen in “Se7en” a well
known thriller/horror film.
 The establishing shot of the extreme close up on the eye is a regular shot used within
horror films so by using this as our establishing shot it tells the audience straight away
what the genre is and what to expect from the film.
 Here are a few examples of shots used in my production compared to similar shots
from other movies:

7. Visual Style
 Throughout our film we have aimed at creating an uneasy visual style as
this is a regular feature in other films within our genre. We have done this by
using lots of fast paced shots and cutting in the hooded figure disorientates
the audience from what is going on hence creating the uneasy visual style.
 A similar visual style can be seen in Natural Born Killers, in this film the
screen wobbles and moves about as if it was in a heat haze and there are
shots cut in of mickey covered in blood for a matter of frames. Just enough
for the audience to see what the shot is but does not give too much
information away. We have tried to almost replicate this idea within our
opening sequence.

8. Location
 The location for our film is hinted at to the audience from the title sequence:
 This shot instantly lets the audience know that the film is shot in an urban
area due to the underpass and graffiti on the walls which are both
stereotypically found in the city or surrounding suburbs. Neither are usually
found in the countryside.
 The accent of Isaac (Teacher) also indicates to the audience that the
location is set in an urban area as the Teacher does not pronounce his T’s
and right before he hits the desk he shouts “Are Ya?” instead of “Are You?”
indicating to the audience that the teacher is from an area such as London
with public schools and have adopted this dialect. If we wanted to portray
that this was set in the countryside however, we would have Isaac speak
‘proper’ English in almost a posh accent.

9.  For our title sequence we looked towards Kyle Cooper and his workings which
have become very famous and other films have taken ideas from his title
sequences and used them for inspiration ever since. We looked at the title
sequence for the film “Se7en” created by Kyle Cooper which we as a group
instantly fell in love with and knew we wanted to use this as inspiration and
create our title sequence based off this. The film falls into the same genre as our
own and is a globally famous production, based off this information we felt that if
we were able to create a title sequence similar to the visual style of Se7en’s, an
audience would recognize it instantly and then know what to expect from the film
having seen Se7en.
 Comparing this to the shots used in our title sequence it is clear to see we have
tried to create very similar shots without copying so that when an audience see’s
our title sequence they are able to identify the visual style of the title sequence
and relate it to Se7en, instantly setting the expectations for the rest of the film.
Title Sequence