Evaluation of opening sequence

Q1)
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The task for this coursework was to create a two minute opening sequence; however we had to undergo a lot of research into the conventions that make up an opening sequence. An opening sequence contains a lot of things at the start. This includes a production and distribution company, titles, close ups and makes the audience ask themselves ask questions and find clues from the opening sequence. The opening sequence also includes logos to represent the production and distribution company so the audience knows that the film would have not been possible without these people. The use of titles is very effective however not really focused upon as they show the hard work that the cast and crew have put into the film which usually starts with the crew being shown from least important to most and visa versa for cast. In opening sequences the close ups are used quite a lot to not give away too much detail such as the background and keeps the audience guessing. Making the audience ask themselves questions is a key part in opening sequences as this is when you either gain or lose the audience’s attention and are used in all thriller openings. An example of this is momento as they put props in the background however we can’t make out what they are which leaves the audience wondering what they are.
After a long group discussion we decided to choose to do a thriller as we have the most knowledge on how to do these. A key convention of a thriller is low-key lighting because it seems to have an element of hiding away from the audience and shows that element of secrecy to show that something has or is going to happen. Another convention we decided to use was close ups because it hides a lot of information which keeps the audience trying to piece the given together even though there is clearly things missing
In our opening sequence we have used many of these conventions however we have also developed on these. For example whereas brick we were given a scenario that used an establishing shot, so did we as we start by the tree but however we use a pan to emphasis that where I was going was really important as you tracked the movement. This was challenged because we tried to make it more than just an establishing shot, we tried to use a pan as the establishing shot was in place to make it more effective.
Q2)
How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our opening sequence we have both a male and a female both of the same age. However the female turns out to be the villan and the male turns out to be the protagonist. This is because the media represents males as being the characters that have the control over the situation so we tried to contrast this with our situation as the fact that woman always have control is not always the case.
There is no stereotypical concept in our opening sequence as due to the female being the villain it makes us as an audience wonder how she got herself into the situation in the first place.
When framing the shorts to how the villain killed the protagonist we use close ups of the nails as they are coloured which represents this feminine side of the villain and makes it odd. You never see the face of the villain so it makes you wonder if it is a girl but the big clue is with the nails