Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We chose the name ‘be back soon’ because it appeared in the content of the first 2 minutes of the film, but it also gives a good inference towards the plot of the film, and sums up the mystery that revolves around the film, and is evident from the first 2 minutes.

 The Title appears at the end of the film opening because then the audience can think back and remember where they saw the words ‘be back soon’ but then we added a question mark to add an air of mystery, too keep the audience in suspense. The text is white and appears at first over the picture of the two main male characters but then the image behind fades away and we’re left with white writing on a black background so it is very clear.

The aim of the opening to a thriller is to thrill, to get the audience to feel as if they want to see the film, to want to know what happens. We need to get to know the main characters, to get a taste for what they’re like so we can gage how they’re going to affect the film. The characters that we have included are very archetypal; we have a hero, a villain and a sweet maiden. This is very well done I feel in our film opening, as in my film opening, we meet Jonathan, the killer, who shows off pretty well that he is the archetypal bad guy. He is dressed in dark yet relatively smart clothing and he violently attacks another man. He is first introduced to us pulling the victim down the corridor in a head lock, which establishes right from the off that he is the bad guy.   We see the (at- first) ignorant then grieving wife, Sarah, and we meet the victim. As Todorov said, it is common for a thriller to open with disequilibrium, and the aim of the characters, and the direction of the plot is leading to restoring equilibrium. But like most good film plots, there is a twist in rest of the film that shows the victim become the hero and the bad guy become the victim.

The music in our film opening has a sad tone to it, the picked guitar played loudly over the scenes in the taxi of Sarah returning home to emphasise her sadness, then dimmed down for the fight scenes, so we can hear the fight noises but the scene does not appear to be too empty. The music is still quite determined so keeps with the genre of action but does not detract from the feeling of the characters.

HERE PLAY VERY OPENING OF FILM, FIRST 2/3 SHOTS

The film is a thriller, with an action look to it, as is seen by the fight scene which is synonymous with the action genre and is emphasised by the smashing of plates and loud punch noises. It also has the confusion factor as we expect the house to be very different when she returns home, but instead it is absolutely fine and so questions are raised in our minds about the situation. The film is fast paced with a sense of drama, which comes about as a result of the high speed editing and the fight scene.

The film opening establishes the mood of being a thriller by the use of a night time scene, set in an urban environment. This automatically provokes thoughts in the minds of the audience concerning safety, and dodgy goings on. The world that our characters live in is one of young people earning lots of money as can be seen by the quality house, and nice kitchen that appears in our film.

The main plot of the film is very much one or retribution, which has a similar theme to the one shown in taken.

Other influential media texts:

James bond- opening of Casino Royale: for the cross- cutting at the beginning, we got our idea from the cross cutting at the beginning of Casino Royale, we liked the way it goes from a calmer scene in the office, to the much more violent scene in the bathroom.

Costume and props- smart clothes/shoes,

Lighting- the bright lights of the office scene are similar to the bright lights of our fight scene which create bold shadows

In this film, 2 characters in the fight scene are introduced when the fight is in full swing, which is what we have done with our film. The shots in this sequence are very close up and show a lot of detail, and our shots are similar in this respect.

This is also a very good film to compare ours to because it has the sub- genre of action, which is what ours has. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNvzNWuzI9Y&feature=related           

 

‘Ne le dit a personne’, or ‘tell no one’ is a French film that is starts off with the air of mystery right from the beginning, as someone goes missing and is presumed dead. The beginning is also set at night, which is similar to ours and this certainly adds more to the air of mystery.

 This is a link to the trailer for ‘The edge of darkness’, a film starring Mel Gibson and is the story of a father who wants to seek to revenge the people that killed his daughter. This story line is very much like ‘taken’ and features retribution. 

The film ‘ransom’ is again the same sort of film, featuring retribution as the key theme, this time with Mel Gibson trying to find a son.  

JT