QUESTION 1:

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

Style: Influences

Here (above) is a trailer for season 8 of hit US drama 24. As a religious watcher of this program it has been one of my main influences during this project, and from this trailer you can see how 24 use nearly all hand-held cameras. We also tried to capture the action by using handheld camera techniques, bringing the audience right into the scene and imersing them in it as if they were present.

The video below also shows this handheld technique put into practice and is evidently very successful!

Style:

The style of our film conforms very much to the idea of a typical action thriller but with one twist. We have edited our film such to obtain a fast pace; with the soundtrack adding to it to create a real sense of rhythm. We have also used fairly neutral colours and edited the lighting and contrast on our film to give it a professional high-budget blockbuster look – all things typical of a big action thriller.

Here (above) are just a few examples showing how we edited the lighting and contrast to acheive a high budget professional look as well as some beautiful camera-work and focus pulling.

The one twist to our typical action thriller opening can be found when we look at the binary opposites created:

We have the obvious: 

• Hero vs. Villain
• Experienced vs. inexperienced
• dangerous vs. vulnerable
• light vs. dark (villain dressed in black)

(Below: Light vs Dark - Theme used in film POSTER)

...but then we have the setting of our opening... We chose to set the sequence in a family home; this shows realism, but it also creates a disruption to the norm as the ‘safe family home’ is a stage for this terrible event. 

• The safety of the home vs. the event.

Form: Titles

Our opening sequence follows a format seen in many films, for example, the Bourne films and 'Blade Runner' example below:

 Our sequence, like these films begins with titles and the theme music and then suddenly bursts into the opening sequence which, with the fast-paced nature of the opening, has a big impact on the audience. 

 The titles fulfil their function introducing the various production companies, the distribution company, the actors, producers, the director, and some more important roles.
 
We looked at many other opening sequences to try and follow the conventional order of the titles, with the actors just before the title, and ending with the director.

Later after the production I found the treatment of the order of titles on the internet as follows: 

Narrative Structure:

Our film does conform to the classic narrative pattern, but the difference is that our opening begins with an initial disruption to spark the storyline for the rest of the film.


FILM OVERVIEW ACCORDING TO TODOROV'S THEORY:• Equilibrium: Before Matt is captured/Father does not know Matt is captured.


• Disruption: Matt is captured/taken hostage.


• Resolution: Father finds and saves Matt.

In terms of the narrative structure of our opening sequence, our sequence is shot in real time with no flashbacks or flash forwards.

Both our main characters can be placed into Propp's theory very easily as they are both very conventional characters from the action-thriller genre:

Matthew Lockwood - Hero

The 'Bad Guy' - Villain

As many film opening sequences do, we have included many enigma codes in our sequence such as not giving any details about either of the two characters.

BLACKOUT: Genre Conventions - Character:

The characters in our sequence are very common characters of the action thriller genre, but our opening sequence also creates enigma surrounding these characters, leaving the audience vunerable to twists in the storyline.

Characters:

BAD GUY:

We included a typical, but modern, 'bad guy' in our sequence. Dressed in black with a balaclava and a gun, this is a very common character associated with action thrillers. They usually say very little.

GOOD GUY:

Matthew Lockwood, is our typical good character in the opening sequence. He is young, inexperienced, scared, careless, and eventually he inevitably get caught and captured by the 'bad guy'.

The two characters used in our opening sequence are ones conventional of the action thriller film genre, and this familiarity to real media allows the audience to easily relate to the characters and the situation.

For example, COMPARE:

 Left: OUR modern 'bad guy' from Blackout.

Right: 24's 'Tony Almeida'- Real Media 'bad guy'.

Except for the balaclava, both characters are dressed more or less the same, in all black armed with a handgun. This is the typical conventional dress of the modern terrorist/bad guy/assasin!

Genre:

Our chosen genre was ACTION THRILLER. Influenced by films such as the Bourne Trilogy and James Bond, and popular tv drama such as 24 and Spooks, we tried to follow conventions of the genre as it is a very popular and iconic.