Question 1

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


We have used typical conventions that are seen in real media products and have put them into our opening sequence. In an opening sequence all of them have to have these specific conventions to make it good and get the audience hooked to it. These are - editing, props,titles,establishing shot,giving the audience clues, equilibrium or disequilibrium, production & distribution logo, soundtrack, establishing mood & theme or film, prompting audience to ask questions. All these conventions are used in an opening sequence because it allows the audience to understand the different view points from characters, the genre and knowing all the information about the film and what its all about, but not giving away to obviously. For example in the opening sequence to Bridget Jones' Diary, the director has used close ups of her showing that she is the main character, its used emotional music to show what has just happened and how the character is feeling, the titles look like someone has just wrote them emphasising the idea of her diary and in the scene is shot from outside in the cold to her warm room showing the difference in settings. An example of ours that links to Bridget Jones' Diary is that ours also uses specific titles because ours are all in a bold and capital font indicating how serious the matter is and the storyline.

Our opening sequence is the genre horror and these are how we have used the conventions needed. We have used in our opening sequence are titles, soundtrack and giving the audience clues. I believe these are the most effective in an opening sequence as they all give the audience information about the film they are about the watch and it gives them clues for what the film is about and how it is being portrayed. Firstly, we have used the convention titles because we are showing the audience what the film is called which is 'Lethal Media'. This title gives the audience an idea what the genre of the movie is and clues for what the movie is about. For example the word 'lethal' gives the audience a very scary but moving idea about the film and that what's going to happen in the film is not going to be all that pleasant. Additionally, the word 'media' tells the audience that the media altogether has something to do with what is going; but consequently it gets the audience answering questions like 'what type of media is involved in this movie?'. 

Next in the convention titles, we have also given all the names of the people involved meaning the director, producer, the actors and actresses etc. Therefore this insists to the audience which people have helped create it, and it can help them see if they are very well known in famous films. The next convention we have used is the soundtrack. As a group we really focused on this as the soundtrack is the thing that helps get the audience hooked to the screen as firstly tells them what type of film its going to be but also it gets them asking questions such as 'what is going to happen?' making them hooked and wanting to know more. I believe this is really effective as the soundtrack we have used is a huge monotone but scary drone that creates the atmosphere to the sequence, but at the end when it has ended with a cliff hanger the title comes on and it has a famous heartbeat on in the background. Evidently you can see that the opening sequence is about the matters of life and death and the heartbeat shows that clearly. The next convention we have used in opening sequence is giving the audience clues about our opening sequence. We as a group believe it is effective to give clues throughout our opening sequence because it gets the audience more hooked to the screen and wanting to watch what's going to happen next. Also it gets them thinking after when watching about the opening sequence all these different questions that they want to know, as it interests the audience more. We haven't really used many props in our opening sequence just a mobile phone. The mobile is very important in the film as it shows the texts between Demi and John Slasher (the villain) and how he is trying to lure her into the woods and to meet with him, which also links to the title as the word 'media' links to the texts they sent each other. 

We have used the convention of the equilibrium because the main idea of it is to show the normality of the world the characters are in. We have showed that by showing the idea that these 2 girls (Megan & Demi) are friends and that they hang out together, but also we have showed it through the texting between Demi and John as it shows that many incidents like this has happened before in the world today. The last convention we have used is establishing shots as they show the setting at first where the two characters are but also where they are going. There is a specific shot where Demi says 'I think its over there', we have shown an establishing shot of just the forest they have approached too, and have therefore shown the audience where all the action will happen.

As you can see in famous horror movies they use very specific things that we have devolped in our opening sequence. For example the cross cutting between when Demi is calling John to see where he is and when Megan is running away from someone. These incidents all show the seriousness of what's happened and also they are so different but link so well with each other, and show two different matters all linking into one. Carrying on, the most effective is when each of them die because we have cross cutted it that Demi dies first of all and then Megan dies after showing that possibly there deaths linked to something meaning linking to the two boys they were supposed to meet. We as a group believe this works as it shows that actions they do seperately are quite different but it comes together at the very end, and all links together.