Evaluation 1 - In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media film opening follows Todorov's narrative theory, as we see assume a calm beginning which is soon disrupted by out antagonist as he travels to his victims house. His victim being his very own girlfriend. As we see him murder her he walks away thinking his gotten away with it to his disappointment our protagonist awakens a seeks her revenge restoring order... in her own way. 

The opening of my sequence sets up Todorov's narrative theory as we see our antagonist searching his victims house in the quest for killing and watch our protagonist seek revenge. What we don't see in my film opening is before the murder which would of been a normal everyday life which was disrupted by our frantic mad man. The other part of my opening what we don't see is how our protagonist seeks revenge or in Todorov's theory 'restore order' but we can only guess she made him pay, we also don't see a new equilibrium but this sets up my opening.

I have made use of many of several codes and conventions within my two minute film opening. There codes and conventions consist of:

• How my film looks as a typical opening
• Narrative structure
• Narrative codes
• Genre
• Titles and credits
• Characterisation

How my film looks like a typical opening sequence?

As I conducted research previously before making my film opening even one film not in my genre I discovered that opening sequences should set up the narrative as well as tell the audience what the rest of the film is going to be about. What is should consist of is a introduction to our protagonist and antagonist along with a brief look at their characteristics. A mood and setting should be established immediately as this presents the genre and introduce the agent of change to continue the narrative.

In the first shot of my opening we are immediately introduced to our antagonist as we see a male character stalk the woods and streets in the hunt for his victims house. The next couple of shots we meet our protagonist as she is dragged into her own home to be murdered. Within these shots we find out who our directer is and who our actors is through the use of credits and titles.

Narrative Codes

To research into the horror genre I watch physiological thriller 'Silence of the lambs' where I learnt some key characteristics from the main character and TV series 'American horror story - Hotel' to get a feel for murderous themes. From this film I learnt there are two types of narrative, action and enigma codes. From my research I found out that action codes help moves the narrative and enigma codes forward such as questions like, "Why is he different from the rest of the criminals?" These are used to keep the audience intrigued and engaged as they discover new elements throughout.

Genre

The genre of my film is horror/thriller. To discover more information and conventions of the horror/thriller genre I researched into the film 'Silence of the lambs' in which I found out that killers may look like normal every-day men, as we see the main character clean shaven, very intelligent and well groomed which subverts stereotypes but enforces then at the same time due to the type of killer he is which a physiological one making him stand out from the 'mad and crazy' ones as he is presented as 'insane' due to his appearance and actions. One way in which this film built tension of the main character was that he was the only one standing waiting for the police officer, in which he had a glass segregating him rather than bars like the rest showing us he is a highly dangerous man. A pan was used as it contrasted the other three cells with bars and his glass segregation. One thing I learnt from watching this film was that it can be insane with horrific actions but still has to be realistic so that the equilibrium is believable.

Credits and Titles

The film that I researched into credits and titles was 'Skyfall'. 'Skyfall' used credits which took you away from the actual film footage but entailed and story so that it all came together. The first scene shows us a chase seen which shows Bond fighting a villain. Backing Bond up is Miss Moneypenny as she takes and shot aiming for the villain but end up hitting Bonding resulting in him falling into the water. As he falls into the water non-diagetic sound is used as Adele's 'Skyfall' fades in as he traveling deeper into the ocean then the credits start appearing.

How I decided to integrate my credits into my film was adding them over my footage as we see the actor we see the actors name appear. My film title has been combined into the message in which it is saying on the screen when we see 'She's back and she want REVENGE','Revenge' is the title of my film. Splitting the build up and current day is the company of 'LED productions'.

Characterisation

Characterisation is the way characters are portrayed within a film. It involves:

• The way the character looks
• The way a character acts
• How others act with the character
• How the editing differs with that in-particular character
• What soundtrack the character reviews