1. TITLE SEQUENCE EVALUATION
(FOREVER)
By Tiffany Leung

2. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR
CHANGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
I have created a film noir
thriller, I have used,
developed and challenged
forms of real media products.
We have incorporated
generic conventions in our
media products we have
chosen to change
conventions slightly to create
and excitement and variation.
I watched numerous thrillers
to make sure I fully
understood the predominant
conventions. I ensured that I
analysed them in detail;
camera, sound, mise-en-
scene and editing. Our titles
were in white with a black
background which is
conventional for political
thrillers. Black and white
contrast well with each other,
when analysing thrillers,
colours black, white and red
were in it the most.
Black represents dark and evil, white represents
pure and innocence and red represents blood
and love, all of these characteristics are in
thrillers. The first thriller which gave me ideas
was Sin City, this is because as a group we
based our thriller on a film noir, Sin City is also a
film Noir.

3. Additionally, we really liked the idea of a
film noir, Sin City gave us numerous ideas
as the film was in black and white
however except for the women in the red
dress, it connotes that she is in danger. In
our title sequence the male protagonist’s
tie is in red, red represents love but also
danger, this gave us the idea that red can
mean a numerous of things.
Sin City’s title sequence is quite different
to others I have seen. The title sequence
is an animation in black and white except
for the red dress. Also, majority of thriller
title sequences the main focus is short
clips of what is going on in the storyline
however in Sin City the main focus is
more on the actors names, the animated
storyline in the background fades before
introducing the actors names. The names
are also in red with a large bold font size,
Sin City didn't want to show too much
information. Another way in which we
used and developed conventions of
political thrillers in the storyline is the crime and
love conventions used in Sin City and our
storyline. The girl in the red dress is to be thought
to be in love with the man, however he shoots her,
similarly to our storyline where Roy is to be at the
theatre with Connie, she is in love with Roy
however Roy loves someone else so he kills
Connie.
IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR
CHANGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

4. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR
CHANGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
Camera:
One main shot we
used recurring is the
medium shot. We did
this because we
wanted to make it
clear to our audience
how our protagonist
was feeling which
was presented as in
love and happy for
Connie but
represented
frustration and
unloving for Roy. We
also used a few
close ups to create
tension and
suspense which is an
aspect we have
followed.
Mise-en-Scene:
We wanted to set our thriller
in the 1950’s we made sure
our actors were wearing the
right clothing. Our actors
jack wore a suit and Shauna
wore a floral long dress this
represented her as pure and
innocent, whereas out our
actor Simran wore a black
fur coat which represented
her as evil. To ensure out
thriller was in black and
white, we had to ensure
lighting look darker than
usual. This meant that I had
to adjust and change the
contrast and brightness.
Making the titles sequence
in black and white makes it
look more evil and sinister
this is what we wanted in
our titles sequence.

5. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR
CHANGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
Sound:
To build suspense we
also added a backing
track of me paying on
the piano, the music
piece sounds sinister,
this fits in perfect with
the title sequence,
when the title
sequence shows the
death of Connie the
music gradually gets
louder. At the start of
the sequence the
music starts of slow
and quiet, it gradually
gets louder and louder
till the end.
Editing:
We have centralised our
protagonists thought the
sequence so that our audience
is introduced to the main
characters. To give the
sequence suspense, clips like
playing on the piano were
edited back and forth in the title
sequence, this created tension.

6. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR
SOCIAL GROUPS?
As a group we put a lot of thought into constructing the
representation of the character in our media product in
terms of gender, age, race and class. The male protagonist
is a British middle aged man, represented as very smart
and neat, the suit he wears also connotes his wealth. This
is unconventional as he kills a woman who is to be thought
he is in love with.
The female protagonist is a British middle aged Women
played by Shauna, she is represented as neat and
innocent, this is represented by what she is wearing, she
wears a white fur coat with a floral dress. This is
conventional as she talks sweetly to her partner and is
always looking elegant.
Our other female protagonist was played by Simran, she is
a British Asian Women. She plays an evil and sly character.
This is represented by what she wears and what she says,
Simran is only shown near the end of the title sequence this
is because she is sly, she wants her relationship with the
male protagonist discreet.
In terms of her race we decided not to include of the racial
stereotypes, as they weren’t needed in our title sequence.

7. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT AND WHY?
Personally I think that if it was to be made into a film it could be distributed worldwide,
institutions like the BBC and into large Hollywood studio films. This is because I think we
have included Hollywood style characteristics, such as a couple in love, an evil and
innocent character, also it could also be seen as a film which is only shown on television.
The mise-en-scene, camera, sound and editing is another reason why our film should be
distributed by a Hollywood company. We have followed the basic film noir conventions.
Mise-en-scene we ensured lighting was darker than usual, this made a gloomy and dark
atmosphere, for camera, we used many different angles and shots the shots that we used
recurring was medium and close up shot, this is because it is clear to the audience how the
character is feeling. For sound I played in a evil and sinister tone, this fitted into the film noir
thriller genre, for editing we used a lot of cross-cutting shots this is because it brings
tension to the title sequence.
After looking at various thrillers where were evidently produced by different companies, I
searched for Sin City’s distributer, it was distributed by dimension films. I have come to a
conclusion that Dimension Films would be the most suitable to distribute my product
‘Forever. A lot of there work are based on thrillers and horror films such as Sin City, Scream
4 and Hellrasier.

8. WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT?
We think the most appropriate age range for our target audience is 15+. This
is because teenagers like thrillers that are engaging and films that create
suspense.
Before making our title sequence we researched what was allowed and not
allowed in a 15+, therefore we knew what conventions we could and couldn’t
add in. I was in full agreement with this decision as I would be counted
among this audience and would be able to realise what made it the suit the
rating as well being able to relate at a personal level.

9. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT AND ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?
In our media product, the two minute opening to our thriller film ‘Forever’ we tried
to appeal to our target audience which was 15+, this is important to do in the very
opening of the film that we made. To attract the audience, we had to make sure
our key features were met. With a rating of 15 the audience age is not too
restricted, we had to think of different aspects that would attract this audience and
how these aspects would hep to maintain the interest of our target audience.
Sound was a major part to attracting the audience, the use of piano music sets
up the atmosphere, it comes across as creepy and sinister. Before we see a
shot of Shauna dead there is silence with darkness, silence is seen as one of
the most effective tools, we used silence in the form of having no dialogue, this
not only didn’t give to much away but it also shows the disturbing atmosphere of
the sequence.

10. AUDIENCE SURVEY AND RESULTS
We made an audience survey so that we could get feedback to weather the audience liked
it or not. Everyone who watched our title sequence was over the age of 15.
As you can see on the
graph out of 26 people
only one person didn’t
enjoy our title
sequence. 96.15% said
yes which is good as it
means majority of
people answered our
survey liked it.
Our title sequence is based on a film noir thriller we
asked the audience what genre they thought it was,
80.77% said that they think it’s a thriller, this tells
me that out title sequence is successful, closely
behind, the audience thought it was a under the
genres romance and horror, romance could have
been mistaken as Roy killed Connie just to be with
Rose, also the audience might of mistaken it as a
horror as blood was involved.

11. AUDIENCE SURVEY AND RESULTS
Out of 28 people, 26 people would want to
watch the rest of the film, this is good as
nearly everyone who has watched it enjoyed
it, this meant that if it was to be made as film
the film could be very successful.
We asked the audience to
rate the title sequence out
of 10, 1 being terrible and
10 being excellent, majority
of people gave it an 8, and
10 being closely second
with 7. This meant that the
audience thought it was
better than average,
majority of people found it
good.

12. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGIES
FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THE PRODUCT?
We used a few pieces of technical equipment when filming our title sequence, such as a
regular stills camera, recorder and a tripod. In my past experience of using a camera, I have
only used them for general uses, which only required for me to be still. There are many
different angles and shots we had to film, it was more difficult than I imagined. There were
different angles and shots which were harder than some, such as the pan shot was hard to
film, keeping the camera still whilst moving it to left to right proved difficulty.
The tripod allowed us to take smooth footage and gave the camera work a more professional
feel. It also allowed us to position the camera correctly when shooting the different angles.
The recorder was used to collect audio when Shauna was screaming in the title sequence, it
picked up what they were saying and gave a clear sound to our sequence.
The piece of editing software we used was Adobe Premier Pro CS6. the software allowed us
to edit all the footage we had captured. We were allowed to cut our footage and move the
footage to the correct places, also audio and music was added to the footage as well.
Because our thriller is a film noir it was very difficult to find out how we could change it to
black and white, eventually we got the hang out it and was very easy to change. Footage
can be moved around, sped up or slowed down, we were also about to add graphics to the
image, such as the actors names and who it was filmed by.

13. LOOKING BACK TO THE PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT
DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU HAVE LEARNT FROM IT TO
THE FULL PRODUCT?
During the research stage, each member of the group spent time researching different thrillers and
there conventions , there was more to the research than I expected, we had to research the
costumes, different conventions, camera angles and shots, lighting and more, these were all
major characteristics to a thriller film.
Planning the whole title sequence was hard as we all had to agree on what we wanted the
storyline to be, after changing it numerous times even the storyboard, we came to a conclusion we
all really liked the storyline we made. We started doing spider diagrams and a shot list, after we all
agreed to it we drew our storyboard out, the storyboard made it easier for us to film as there were
many different camera angles and shots we wrote on so we wouldn’t forget to film it.
Throughout the course I have managed to improve a lot, such as my camera skills, I have
improved holding the camera steady and the pan shots had some difficulty also when editing out
footage, it took all of us a while to get use to Adobe Premier Pro however after a period of time we
all finally got the hang of it.
Overall I would say that during the process of production there were some difficulties that were
very challenging and we did have our faults as a group however overall we managed to do a good
job and we are all very pleased with our title sequence and I believe that is done very
professionally as I thought that it turned out better than I thought it would.