The media product that I have created is a two minute film opening in the thriller movie genre. In the opening sequence we see a male character following a female character who is clearly oblivious to that fact that she is being followed. From watching the opening sequences to these professionally made thriller films: The Woman In Black; The Sixth Sense; The Silence of the Lambs and Shutter Island, I was able to note typical conventions of the thriller genre to use and develop these in my own opening sequence.
These are the conventions that I found in most of the above film openings:
- The audience are introduced to/shown either a single or multiple character(s)
- Dark and mysterious scenes/settings - sometimes making use of shadows and natural light
- Non-diegetic music - 'eery' music playing throughout
- Enhanced diegetic sounds - for emphasis of actions made by the characters
- Long/slow edits of scenes
- A good, secretive, plot that makes the audience intrigued to watch the rest of the film.
In my media product the audience were shown male and female characters that were of an age similar to the target audience - something that may attract a wider audience as they can relate to the age of these characters. With these two characters I did not give away much information about them and so this will lead to questions being asked by the audience about the background stories of both of the characters.
I chose to film my media product in the town of Attleborough, at night, so that I could manipulate and make use of any natural light and street lamps to create shadows. When looking at thriller films, I noted that there wasn't a stereotypical location, be it urban (towns and cities) or rural (countryside), in which the opening sequence was set; so I decided to film in a fairly busy town that would be familiar to the audience. Because I was filming late in the evening/at night, it meant that I was able to use shadows created by street lamps and dull lit areas to add the effect of mystery and suspense, stereotypical of thriller films, to my opening sequence.
Throughout my entire media product is a piece of non-diegetic background music. This music gives a scary/creepy vibe to the product, something that helps to keep the attention of the audience and build tension in the scenes. Background music is widely used in professionally made thriller films for a few reasons, some of which being: to attract the audience's attention to vital pieces in the plot or to key characters and their actions. By using this thriller convention I was able to add an 'eery' feeling to my media product that would intrigue the audience towards what was happening in the scene, as well as making it slightly scary and more like a stereotypical thriller.
Although I noticed that some thriller used enhanced diegetic sounds in their openings, I challenged this convention slightly by not using any in my own opening. I decided to do this because it meant that the audience would be able to focus better on the non-diegetic music and the dialogue that is heard from the male character.
To create suspense and show importance of a scene, editing of scenes in thriller films can sometimes be quite slow in places. In my opening sequence I decided to use editing that was not very quick because, although fast-paced editing helps to create tension, I thought that the use of long scenes and slower editing would allow the audience to focus better on the scenes and the action that was happening within them.
And finally, a common component of a good thriller opening sequence is a 'secretive' plot/ storyline, something that I used in my own opening. By not giving much information about the plot and potential story line's away in the first two minutes of any film means that the audience will be intrigued to find out more about the characters and their lives. However, keeping the plot hidden could also potentially mean that the audience become uninterested quickly and so they do not want to watch the rest of the film. I feel that my media product gives a good balance between being secretive to attract the audience and giving out minimal information that deters the audience's interest.
Overall, I think that I was able to successfully use, develop and challenge the stereotypical conventions of good thriller film openings.
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