WE ALL FALL DOWN

Evaluation Alex Foster

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
How have you represented and explored your chosen genre?
For our opening sequence, we researched into our chosen genre, Thriller/Horror, by looking at trailers, reading profiles of films on IMDB, looking at films that were similar to our opening sequence idea e.g. Paranormal Activity (in terms of how it is filmed video camera quality) and Chucky (in terms of narrative), researching popular Thriller/Horror film themes with the use of questionnaires/surveys and looking at cinema releases in the last 10 years. We wanted our opening sequence to be unique, yet still conform to conventional Thriller/Horror films. We have represented our chosen genre of Thriller/Horror by using various components including: music, lighting, props, characters and narrative, editing and camera shot/movement/angle/composition.

What conventions you have used in your opening sequence and how have you challenged them? What examples of other films can you compare to your sequence? How have you applied narrative theory and representation in your response? Connect the conventions to your target audiences expectations.
Music: Our theme tune is a childs voice singing Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses a capella. The use of no instrumental music creates a sense of mystery, suspense and fear in our audience; but also highlights the innocence of a childs voice which makes them all the scarier. The ominous giggle at the end of our theme tune creates a sense of anxiety in our audience for the film to come. Our theme tune conforms to conventional Thriller/ Horror films, for example, Orphan (2009) uses a young girls voice singing The Glory of Love as its theme tune. We used the convention of a nursery rhyme as our theme tune, because Thriller/Horror films commonly use them, as they are seen as spine-chilling by Thriller/Horror film audiences. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWI0HNTxWog

Lighting: The lighting used in our opening sequence varies between the two settings. The first setting is a childs bedroom, where a tea party is being held. The only light is a partially covered window off-screen that is lighting the room dimly, and an off-screen lamp facing the tea party table making the table-set stand out in the mise-en-scene of the entire shot. However, the lamp does not create that much light, meaning that the set is still rather dim which creates a sense of darkness which is in fitting with our opening sequences genre of Thriller/ Horror. The lamp-light creates the convention of shadows from the props in the shot, which creates a desired ominous feel and a feeling of tension in our audience. This can be linked with the 1922 classic Nosferatu which famously used ominous shadows to foreshadow bad events. This lamp-light also creates a surreal element to our piece, as the lit up tea-party set is prominent in our shot and creates a sense of the supernatural with the fact that its lit up. The second setting takes place on a street in the daytime. The natural light of the sky creates a feeling of a false sense-of-security in our audience suggesting that no specific lighting is safe to the scene. This sky-light is almost too bright, as if it is suggesting a perfect setting. This brightness is completely white, too, which could be interpreted as a convention of heaven foreshadowing deaths especially in the dolls point-of-view shot watching the father and daughter walk down the street from inside a bin bag. This lighting effect can be linked with the 2011 release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 scene in Kings Cross Station, which is supposed to be in heaven.

Props: The props in our opening sequence comply to Thriller/Horror films. Our main prop is the plastic doll called Mary, who is the main character and villain of our opening sequence. She is the main Thriller/Horror prop convention for our sequence. At the tea-party, to suggest a real childs bedroom, there are a lot of toys in the background and attending the tea-party including a toy of the character Sid from the Ice Age trilogy and Minnie Mouse to set the present day feel, but also so audience members can relate to the child. Other props include the toys on the shelves during the credits, a tea-party set, an off-screen lamp to light up the tea-party scene, the bin bag at the end of the sequence and one of the most useful props which is not visible in the sequence the hand-held video camera that is filming the whole sequence with a record sign and the date, which is similar to the cameras used in the Paranormal Activity films. Characters and Narrative: The main character of our opening sequence, and what-would-be overall film, is a plastic doll called Mary. She has blonde hair and a little pink dress, which typically is used to suggest innocence in a character which can be scarier than a obviously evil looking character. Also, childrens toys are supposedly innocent and fun , so the appearance of being innocent fits in with this but suggests that she isnt. These characteristics are similar to those of Rhonda from The Bad Seed (1956). Mary would fit into the Villain stereotype in Propps 8 Stock Characters theory. The other main character is a young girl called Molly, who fits into the stereotype of a small, innocent, loveable child who everyone sympathizes with and pities due to the inevitable death she will have due to Mary. Her curly, ginger hair along with her school uniform create an incredible cute look which makes her an even more tragic character. These characteristics are similar to those of Max from Orphan (2009), as she is a loveable character at the hands of an evil character, too. These two characters are typical characters of a Thriller/Horror films storyline, so our characters conform to a Thriller/Horror typical narrative and Levi Strauss binary opposition theory of Good vs. Evil, Innocent vs. Evil, Natural vs. Supernatural and Empowered vs. Victim.

Editing: Our opening sequence was partially edited in iMovie (and the theme tune in GarageBand and iTunes), but mainly Final Cut Pro. In our opening sequence, we edited to make it look like a hand-held video camera was recording it. We added a LiveType layer over our footage with a record sign and the date. We also used LiveType to create our credits and their flashing effect. Other editing included short, sharp crackles between shots, as if the camera was faulty. This creates an atmosphere similar to that of the Paranormal Activity films, which often chops and changes between different security cameras to show the main events in the film. However, since our sequence only uses one hand-held video camera, instead of chopping and changing to different cameras, a fuzzy crackle was added. This also creates suspense, as the number of crackles creates a sense of unease to what the scenes are cutting to. In the scene when the camera has been turned off by Mary, all action is heard but not seen; this was achieved by adding a voiceover over a blacked out screen. Editing is perhaps most effective in our opening sequence during the credits, as three separate shots of the doll on shelves through generations is used, and a green-screen was used to change the wallpaper to make them fit to the time period shown in the date at the bottom. Camera shot/movement/angle/composition: The camera shots/movement/angles/composition are key to making our opening sequence fit into a typical Thriller/Horror genre. Each camera shot used was chosen out of all of our footage because they contained the key elements to explain the film so that our opening sequence would make our audience want to see the rest of the film. The hand-held video camera does not move in our opening sequence apart from when Molly knocks it onto the floor, which makes it more realistic as a video camera. The traditional camera which films the street scene explores many camera movements including panning of the mother walking, lowangles of the mother placing the bin bag down and the young girl picking up the doll, close-up of the doll in the bin bag, two-shot of the father and daughter walking, point-of-view shot (from the dolls perspective) of the father and daughter walking, and the daughter going to picking up the doll, and a long shot of the father and daughter walking away down the street as well as being an establishing shot. The composition change in our sequence is mainly during our credits, where each shot of the doll in different generations becomes better quality as cameras wouldve improved over time. The composition throughout the bedroom scene does not change and is good quality, but when in the street, the composition becomes a lot lighter when there is the point-of-view shot of the father and daughter walking down the street to suggest heaven (see Lighting).