2. The chosen genre for “Abduction” was thriller.
This was popular with our age group, who
mentioned in our audience research they liked
thrillers such as “Taken” and “Hancock”.
A major convention
of the thriller theme
in our media product
is the characters. We
stuck to the theory of
Propp, because our
female character is
not only the
protagonist but the
princess too, which is
made apparent in the
sequence. On the
other hand, the
antagonist is made
very apparent
through his
behaviour, because
through the various
pictures on the car
door we get an
insight into his state
of mind.
Obviously the plot is very conventional to
the thriller theme because it involves a
stalker and an abduction, which is very
apparent and conventional to other
thrillers, eg: Fatal Attraction.
There is an
apparent use of
Strauss’ theory of
binary opposition
in our opening
sequence, for
example: boy vs.
girl and good vs.
evil.
Typical iconography has
been used to display the
genre in “Abduction”. The
lighting used suggests the
sinister side of the male,
because it is very dark,
whereas the lighting on
Heather is very light,
indicating purity and
innocence. However, we
tried to stay loyal to the
context of the film, it is set
in the 21 century so
Heather’s clothing seems
very non feminine.

3. Our film, “Abduction”, is set in the present day and the opening has a fairly
classic narrative structure. However, one of the main narrative techniques
we used was cross cutting, because this would allow the audience to gain
the perception of both the stalker and the female so they are able to
understand from both points of view what is happening, and it also gives the
audience some satisfaction because they are able to use their intelligence to
work out the narrative.
The film would follow a classic narrative structure, using the theory set out
by Todorov, that there is an equilibrium at the beginning, before the
disruption takes place, which is the abduction. This would be followed by a
resolution: the girl is found, and a new equilibrium, the stalker is put into
prison and the girl returns home.

4. • Our opening sequence follows a typical format of an opening
sequence. During the sequence we have introduced both
protagonist and antagonist and the audience have gained
understanding of the primary plot.
• We managed to achieve this understanding through cross cutting
which showed both points of view of both characters.
• We also included the typical format of an opening sequence by
establishing the setting of the house, where the audience will
assume most action will take place.
• In terms of titles and credits, we stuck to a fairly classic
format for the titles by naming the primary information, such as
the title of the film on the title sequence which instead of
putting onto the action in some films, eg: Saturday Night
Fever, we chose the titles to be separate.

5. The style of the our opening sequence sets the scene for a thriller in my
opinion, especially due to the amount of editing we did to make the film look
intellectually appealing to the target audience, such as the CCTV camera
effect we used would make the audience question the extreme lengths that
the stalker has gone to.
Plus, the music we found added a lot of effect to our film, before putting the
soundtrack on we made a group of people watch the film, and whilst they did
like the film, after putting the music on they said how atmospheric the music
made the film. Personally I feel the soundtrack adds a great deal of suspense
to the whole film, especially as the music changes with the cross cutting.
Another way of building suspense was through the lack of dialogue during the
opening sequence, because the audience is unaware of what is going on.