In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Looking at the actual film opening we have constructed, many things become immediately apparent (some desirable; others not so). Firstly, one of the main ways in which our product was a success is that it created a consistently bleak tone, mostly achieved through the inclusion of a non-digetic piece of music over the top to help tie each vignette together. Without repeating myself too much, our final cut film opening was still in essence a mild homage to both Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia and Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Decalogue series (in terms of style and tone respectively). We decided to record a commentary over the Magnolia opening which influenced us so:
The most common feedback we have had on our product is that their is a very clear mood but the actual sequence doesn't make sense. I would attempt to defend myself here by pointing out that most film openings do not actually give a sense of an overall plot and attempting to squeeze in developing themes in just under 2 minutes would be an impossible feat. Having said that, one convention we used was the montage, which is rarely found in a film opening. Montages can help show time passing or just connect different events/characters, and with doing this we allowed ourselves plenty of opportunity to create roles that our audience could connect with.
Each of our characters represented a different stage of grief in the script but we did not feel it necessary to go out of our way to spell this out to the viewer in our opening sequence. This means that as far as the parts go, none of the characters had names and so they were being judged solely on the overall mood of the piece. The music which plays throughout was selected very carefully to craft a mournful tone, and all the different voices overlaying each other singing together but all different parts was key to the all-encompassing nature of what we were intending.
Another convention popular in film openings are credit titles. We chose not to create a separate title sequence, instead including them throughout the sequence in the form of a simple white font on black screen. Originally we had intended for the titles to be over the top of the action (for example, as in In The Loop) but we found that by including our titles breaking up the scenes it allowed for better flow and the overall continuity and pace of the piece is much more effective as such.
We also included an ident at the beginning of our film, aptly and imaginitively titled "Galvin and Brown". We took a Rene Magritte painting and surprisingly easy photoshop tools to create this:
Overall, our opening sequence is successful in that it looks like what it is supposed to thanks in part to forms and conventions such as typical dialogue, mise-en-scéne and continuity through sequence. Although passable as a student film however, this opening would unlikely be enough for a feature-length film due to constraints such as the lack of professional actors and the cameras used not being suited to the style of filming. Also, we would have liked to have more diversity between characters in terms of age and sex rather than people who owed me a favour and my Dad...
Hal
How does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?
Ident: When creating the ident for our production company, we decided that we wanted it to both reflect our company’s ethos and seem appropriate to our film. The image consists of the painting False Mirror by Rene Magritte with a director’s clapper board superimposed into the centre with the names Galvin and Brown in the director’s column. We also used a distortion effect to make the two separate images blend together as one. There are a few connotations that we have tried to impress into our ident, for example the very fact we have used a recognised piece of art in our ident displays our commitment to making films that are artistically impressive as opposed to just making them for a profit. Magritte was known both for the thought-provoking nature of his work as well as its inherent humour which we feel nicely reflected the sort of work we hoped to produce. Whilst I do believe that our ident does conform to the conventions of other idents in terms of its length and the message it tries to convey, it is important to note that most idents are accompanied by some form of animation which ours does not have. If we possessed the technical know-how and funding we could further develop our ident to include an animation to make it appear more professional; we could for
example make the eye blink or board snap. Overall I am pleased with the ident.
Titles:For our titles we decided to use the classic white font on black background because we felt we needed to create a ‘serious’ atmosphere due to the nature of our film and the themes within it. We felt that any attempt to create any flashy/flamboyant titles would be demeaning to the sensitivity of the issue we take on in our film and would serve to create the wrong type of atmosphere it requires. The titles in our film also use the font commonly found on gravestones in keeping with the theme of the film. Not only do the titles in our film perform the main function of giving credit to the people who participated in it, they also serve to help create a sense of continuity. Certain shot transitions did not seem natural when we were in the process of editing, so we came up with the solution of interjecting titles at certain points throughout the film to maintain a smoother rhythm. However this came at a price because the time lapses between each of the titles vary which does seem to throw the pace of our film off a bit, I do however feel the payoff was worth the sacrifice.
Graveyard scene: This shot is a medium shot of the back of four graves (so as not to reveal the names of the deceased); this immediately establishes the premise of the film and gives an insight into what is going to happen and also build intrigue into who, how, when and why these people died and what their relevance to the film is. This is also when we begin to use the non diegetic sound; namely our home grown version of ‘Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space’ by Spiritualised. Using non diegetic music is very common in film openings so ours begins to conform to conventions right from its outset. 
School hall scene: We then fade in midway through a dolly shot in a school hall filled with rows of chairs either side of the camera; moving towards a stage and culminating in a pan towards someone sitting at a grand piano. This is then followed by a high angle mid-shot of Acceptance over the piano followed by a close up of his hands as he plays the first note, which is then used to make the transition to the next shot. Through use of mise-en-scene I think that we clearly establish that this shot takes place in some form of college/school for example the plastic chairs lined up together in an orderly fashion helps contribute to this feel. Some of the more astute audience members will also have noticed how the four chairs and four graves from the previous scene are framed almost identically to each other and will perhaps draw some kind of connection between the two. Whilst not intentional I like the way the chair layout is not dissimilar to the layout of a cinema, which is where in all likelihood our target audience will watch our film. Despite the unstableness of the dolly shot this scene remains my favourite because it’s packed full of connation’s that the audience can identify even if they weren’t intentionally placed, this is a convention of any great hallmark film that I think we pull off rather well.
Bedroom 1 scene: The next shot begins with a medium close up of Denial sleeping in bed followed in quick succession by a close up as he awakes with a slight smile on his face. The camera then steps back to reveal more details of the room as denial climbs out of bed. I have a kind of love hate relationship with this shot in that I hate how we filmed and edited it. Take for example the jump cut between the medium close up to the close up in which the position of denials head clearly moves from one area of the bed to another thus messing up continuity. What I do love however about this scene is the construction of the mise-en-scene and how we get an insight into Denial’s personality solely through the way he has decorated his room. For example what I take from this shot is that he is cultured, as illustrated by the various posters on the wall and creative as illustrated by the keyboard tucked away in the corner. This use of Mise-en-scene to establish character is also a common convention of film openings. Finally I think that this scene is disproportionately short in comparison to other scenes in the sequence which I think doesn’t work very well.
· Establishing shot of seaside town
· Establishing shot of the park
· Long shot of anger turning away from the sea
· Medium shot of anger looking into the distance
· Over the shoulder shot of youths from angers prespective demonstrating shot reverse shot
· Low angle mid shot of anger picking up the rubbish which we match cut to.....
· Long shot of anger picking up the rubbish
I could go on……..
Pease take into account the Magnolia overdub in my evaluation.
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