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

Our group’s title sequence followed the general conventions of a thriller/suspense film – being in a dark and eerie setting, usually a shed/lab or back alley area. We wanted to establish recognisable image that would be familiar with our audience. Through research into the genre we found that many of the title sequences’ story had something to do with the outcome of the film plot.

We looked into a number of title sequences to get a feel for what we wanted ours to look like. Our main inspiration was Se7en. Se7en is a simple title sequence, yet effective in creating anticipation for the film. 

Our film narrative is based on a very clever mass murderer who leaves subtle clues and riddles for the police to pick up on. The film is more focused on the chase from the police rather than the murderer. This is contrary to out title sequence, which focuses on the killers lair, where he plans and looks back on previous killings. We did this in the title sequence as it saves time in the film, as the a little background on the killer has been shown.

Many of our camera shots were very close up, burring out the surroundings or only having a key light focusing on one area that blacked out the background, which puts focus on the object in frame. We used the occasional canted angle to just vary the shots that we used, as most of the movement was added in editing. We didn’t have any panning or moving shots because of how close up and detailed the still shots were. In editing we used the Bad TV effect to create movement, rather than just having still images.

The background sound we used was in the genre of ‘industrial’ or ‘industrial metal’, which is a heavy and intense sound. We used this as it build up suspense and horror in the title sequence. The as the music moved on, it gradually got heavier and more haunting until the light went out and the music dulled down again.

The mise-en-scene of the title sequence was very dark, small and cramped. It was based in a shed therefore we needed to convey the size. We used many close up shots; this meant the viewer feels closer to the killer and what is happening as they can see every little detail of his workbench and his hands in some shots. As there are no panning shots the audience can only see from what’s burred out behind the main object, this could be said to create suspense.

Our typography is a scratchy front, which looks like someone has written the words and then back gone over them a few times. This could be said to be the killer’s handwriting, as it looks very erratic. Furthermore, it fits very stereotypically into the suspense/thriller genre.

Finally, our title sequence doesn’t necessarily challenge the conventions of traditional media in this genre, rather fits perfectly into it. We wanted it to be clear as to what the film would be about and we feel we have achieved that.