exam questions

1.       In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge for and conventions of real media products.

The conventions of an opening sequence in general are titles, establishing shots, giving the audience clues, equilibrium/ disequilibrium, soundtrack, establishing the mood of the film, product/distributer logos and lastly prompting the audience to ask questions. These conventions are used to make the audience think and begin to create a storyline of their own.

The titles give clues as the font, size, colour and how they appear on the screen are related to the genre, if the titles are pink and in a big swirly font the audience will immediately know the film is girly a fairytale. An example of this is in the film Ella Enchanted where the title of the film is in a very fairy tale font, as is looks gold with vines wrapped around the letters and fairy dust. In my groups opening sequence we have red titles, we chose this colour as we find it relates the most to horror films. It also looked good up against the shots we had so it fitted the best. People who watch films quite often will know or have a slight thought that our film is a horror.

Establishing shots are used so the audience is able to see the scene, from this they would begin to guess what the film will be like or about. If there was an establishing shot of a forest in the evening the audience may begin to think this could be a horror or a thriller, look how scary that looks. The escent is a horror film, here the establishing shot is very gory and immediately the audience will guess this red on her face is blood from the dead bodies behind her.

Furthermore, another convention, giving the audience clues is used so the audience can think about what the film will be based on. However sometimes films may give clues to the audience to get them thinking one thing when actually they are going to shock them and go again the clues.

The 4^th convention is equilibrium/disequilibrium; equilibrium is used to give the film the feeling of normality, this makes it easy for the audience to relate to them and put themselves in their position. Disequilibrium is opposite, so it doesn’t portray the feeling of normality.

Soundtrack is a convention that is used in nearly all films. Without music most films will not be very successful. Music enhances the mood the film is trying to get across. In horror films the music will build tension to slowly scare the audience before something important happens.

Establishing the mood of the film is very important as the aim is for the audience to feel like it too. If the film is realistic people will be able to put themselves in the characters shoes. Things such as the shots used, tiles, soundtracks etc. all take part in creating the mood of the film next. 

2.       How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In my groups opening sequence we have represented the teenage social group. The two girls (me and Megan) are middle class white able-minded and able-bodied girls. The stereotypical typical teenage girl is someone that wears make up, has good fashion sense, and care free, meaning they are prone to danger. Nowadays teenagers are believed to spend lots of time on social networking sites such as Facebook. Having teenagers as the main part of our opening sequence is perfect as they are vulnerable and something could happen to them. In our opening sequence we represented them by using a variety of shots, one shot we used was the camera was behind a tree with thin branches, so we could see the girls walk through the forest and it feels as though we are watching them and they do not know we are there. At the very beginning we had a long shot of the two girls walking down the road, the shot is from behind so it instantly feels as if someone is following them. This causes the audience to worry and think ‘are they being followed?’ ‘By who?’ ‘Why?’

Charlie’s character is the ‘boy’ Demi has been talking to over social networking and text. John is actually a man, and this is all we know about him and that he is white. We decided to not show much of this character as it creates a mystery. We also do not want to give too much away in the opening sequence. We used shots that gave the audience clues such as a shot of him putting on gloves, from this shot we can see he is wearing a black coat, he’s hands are white and he’s putting on gloves. This will make the audience question why he is putting gloves on.