Evaluation Question 1

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

Our main product used several influences from other opening sequences such as Kill Bill and Casino Royale my personal inspirtations during this project.
In my research I learnt the importance of an opening sequence and it's conventions.
We therefore knew our opening sequence had to include institutional information, set up the style, genre, stars, setting and basic story of the film.
I have broken down my answer into several sections to show how we were influenced by other films and how we used and challenged their conventions in different areas of our opening sequence.

Genre-ACTION/ THRILLER

The film uses the following Action/Thriller genre conventions:

Guns

Hero Character/Anti-hero. In our film this is Lotus. Another example is The Bride from Kill Bill.

Villain. In our opening sequence this is the drug dealer. An example of a villain is Le Chiffre in Casino Royale.

We also used conventional iconography in our sequence such as:

Drugs

Money

Knives

Alcohol

Cigars

Narrative:
The narrative themes in our opening sequence include:

Defeating the bad guy

An Assassination

Drug Deals

A briefcase full of money

This is similar to films such as: Casino Royale, Bourne Trilogy, Kill Bill.

A particular example of the last point would be the briefcase full of money that Elle Driver gives Budd in exchange for the sword that belonged to The Bride in Kill Bill Part 2. (below)

Narrative Structure:

Opening:

Equilibrium: Guy is clearing up after dealing drugs, relaxed, chilled, having a drink.

Disruption: Shadow appears and assassin enters, prepares to shoot him.

Resolution: Guy is shot and assassin leaves

Restoration: Not clear as this is only the opening sequence.

This is similar to Casino Royale as there is a murder in the opening scene.

Whole Film:

Equilibrium: Lotus is a double-agent working a high-end crime organization for the government

Disruption: Lotus is found to be a double agent. The government withdraw their connections to her so she is on her own.

Resolution: Lotus takes down the boss

Restoration: Lotus becomes a freelance agent

There are similarities with the recent film Haywire as it is about an agent forced to fight for herself.

Our idea to make a film about a female assassin came from several recent female assassin films as illustrated here:

Female assasins

View more presentations from Francis Gillen.

Specifics:

Real-Time and Linear editing are used. It is a tense and slow sequence. Events build up during the sequence so the linear style makes sense.

It is similar to the Kill Bill opening which is completely linear to build the tension.

Function and Form:

Function:

Our opening follows the function of most opening sequences. It introduces:

Characters: The main character is introduced in a way which makes the audience want to know more.

Genre: It is clear it is an action/thriller. (See above)

Setting: The domesticated setting, which is a surprising place for an assassination and marks Lotus as different and interesting.

Titles: Makes clear who produced the film, who distributed it, who directed it, who starred in it and who produced it.

Form:

The action continues through the whole sequence however cutaway titles appear at regular intervals over the action. It is similar to the Kill Bill titles one of which can be seen at the end of the clip above. However we challenge this slightly by having the titles moving and at more regular intervals. We also have the action happening underneath instead of placing the titles at the end of the action as we thought this helped build up the tension as we can hear the man moving about under the titles which adds to the sense of unease. However similarly to Kill Bill we have a cutaway title after the shot which is dramatic and makes the audience pay more attention to the titles as they are shocked by the event that has just happened. If I could do this again I would put the director’s name after the gunshot as it is probably the most important credit, like Quentin Tarantino did in Kill Bill.
A film that similarly has text before any action starts is the Hunger Games an action/adventure film to explain the context to the audience. It draws the audience in as they have to read it and then try to decipher it with the action that follows. It also creates more enigma.

One form we did challenge was the idea of an establishing shot. Most opening sequences I have researched start with an establishing shot (for example Casino Royale) however our one opens on a CU. This brings the audience straight into the action and builds up enigma right from the beggining.This is similar to Kill Bill.

Style:

Tense, Slow, Foreboding Music/ Use of disorientating CU’s/ Dark, shadowy Mise-en scene/Blue colour Grading, Clean/Clinical surfaces and colours e.g. White, pale green and blue/ Low-Key lighting.

It is similar to the tense, slow opening of Casino Royale with its binary opposite of fast violent action in a bathroom and a tense conversation in an office.

See video above

The binary opposite in our film is between the calm, relaxed beginning and setting verses the violent murder at the end. This complies with Levi-Straus’s binary opposite’s theory.

The CU’S used are similar to the action/thriller TV show Dexter. It gives a similar disorientating and immersive effect. In our film this makes the audience suspicious of the male character and makes it clear he is a bad guy. Dexter is similarly a suspicious character as he is a serial killer.