In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?
Our inspiration for our OTS was Scream (1996), Paranormal Activity 4 (2012), The Grudge (2004) and The Ring (2002).
Our video pays homage and therefore uses form with the following clips: A Perfect Murder (1998), I Spit on your Grave 3 (2015), The Ring (2002), The Uninvited (2009), Girl Interrupted (1999) and P2 (2007). All these clips matched our OTS in some form but through our own interpretation. SEE VIDEO BELOW:
Our video pays homage and therefore uses form with the following clips: A Perfect Murder (1998), I Spit on your Grave 3 (2015), The Ring (2002), The Uninvited (2009), Girl Interrupted (1999) and P2 (2007). All these clips matched our OTS in some form but through our own interpretation. SEE VIDEO BELOW:
Other Conventions / Theory Followed:
Using Wes Craven's idea of removal of authority, we removed the child's mother from the storyline by killing her off and the father was never a presence in her life. The member of authority that remained was the Childs therapist, she should have been a safe haven but was the very thing that was haunting her. We also used Dixon's theory of certain characters merely functioning as "sites of activity" , where the horror happens rather than they have a role.
Conventions Challenged:
Our opening title sequence challenged convention more than it met the idea of traditional media.
Our OTS challenged convention as we had no males present in the sequence, the killer was a female and the scenes were shot using a therapy session to tell a story.
Using Wes Craven's idea of removal of authority, we removed the child's mother from the storyline by killing her off and the father was never a presence in her life. The member of authority that remained was the Childs therapist, she should have been a safe haven but was the very thing that was haunting her. We also used Dixon's theory of certain characters merely functioning as "sites of activity" , where the horror happens rather than they have a role.
Conventions Challenged:
Our opening title sequence challenged convention more than it met the idea of traditional media.
Our OTS challenged convention as we had no males present in the sequence, the killer was a female and the scenes were shot using a therapy session to tell a story.
Why we used these clips:
A Perfect Murder 1998:
This scene showed the mother being killed in a flashback by some presence behind her. We felt the scene from A Perfect Murder fit well due to the violence shown and the camera angles used. The scene also never showed if the killer was male or female which is what we depicted in our opening title sequence. Our OTS fits convention by matching in styles with the similar scene from A Perfect Murder and by implementing the same colour choice for the victim. The white clothing shows innocence and vulnerability; both women are sites of activity and not main characters to the storyline. |
A Perfect Murder 1998:
This scene showed the mother dying in the kitchen; she died on the floor up against the fridge. The woman in A Perfect Murder died on her kitchen island and slid down the side of the conter onto the floor. Both victims ended up in the same propped up position and had blood in similar places on their body. |
I Spit on Your Grave 3 - Vengeance is Mine 2015:
Our main scene was based around being in a therapy session. The scene taken from I Spit on Your Grave 3 - Vengeance is Mine was when the main character goes and takes abit her fears to her therapist. This scene matched our Opening Title sequence as it involved our character talking about her fears and that the presence that ahs always caused her trouble, has been a constant in her life. The camera angle does not match, however the use of the therapist having the control wa the same in both clips. |
I Spit on Your Grave 3 - Vengeance is Mine 2015:
Our main scene was based around being in a therapy session; the matching camera angles between our OTS and I Spit on Your Grave 3 - Vengeance is Mine meant that both audiences could connect with the 'patient' and see how vulnerable they truly are. Both characters are led down and talking about how they feel and the past to their therapist. Our main character played with her hands whilst the character from I Spit on Your Grave 3 - Vengeance is Mine played with her blanket; the use of both characters having to remain distracted showed that they both had the same feelings - they were scared about what they knew and had seen. |
The Ring 2002:
Our presence represented the girl from The Ring and had the same iconic hair style. When we first filmed this scene; her style of hair was to hide her face. Upon reflection the presence matches the style and imagery that is used in the making of the character from The Ring. We chose to use this clip due to the way both characters are presented on screen and how they are portrayed to the audience; they're positioning on screen and mid-view shot shows the clothing and body language of each character. |
The Uninvited 2009:
In the flash back including the laptop, writing appears on the screen when the girl drops a book. The scene from The Uninvited where the typing was happening on screen as if on a computer fit well as this was what we were trying to represent. We used this scene as inspiration as to how to film the computer screen, we didn't want to emphasise too much on the screen before the text changed to - "I am always here". |
Girl, Interrupted 1999:
This scene we reversed the original clip to make the toys fly away from the main character. The way both characters are sat on te floor shows how distressed the pair of them are (even under different scenarios). The girl from Girl, Interrupted sits in the same position as the charcaater from our OTS; we wanted them to both sit in the same position to represent the distress and trauma of the scene. |
I Spit on Your Grave 3 - Vengeance is Mine 2015:
This scene we wanted to show that the presence was talking her from a young agae and appeared out of no where. The scene from I Spit on Your Grave 3 - Vengeance is Mine the main character is in er bedroom and the killer appears behing her from nowhere. We used a mid shot at a neutral view to replicate the clip and show the emotion of the main character whilst the stalker/presence appeared from the background. |
The Uninvited 2009:
We used the long narrow corridor to show that the main character was desperately looking for an escape from whatever was chasing her. The scene from The Uninvited showed the characters legs running down the long corridor out of panic. We chose to replicate this same sort of shot but decided to shoot from the torso and up with our character; this was to show her panic and dagged movements in her body language. We chose to use a high angle shot to make the presence appear more powerful over the innocent child. |
The Uninvited 2009:
This scene was where the main character was hidden behind the doors of a wardrobe. We wanted the shot to be slightly out of focus and blurred to add to the effect of the mystery that follows her. The scene from The Uninvited also had the same technique present in the clip where the light blurs over the Childs face. We used this clip as inspiration due to the same movement over the main image - they both followed the same pattern. |
P2 2007 - Flash transition:
We used flash transitions throughout our OTS to differentiate between the flashbacks and the therapy scenes. This scene from P2 had a flash transition to make the introduction to the killer seem sudden and shocking. We wanted a transition between the flashbacks and the therapy scene to make it obvious that she was remembering these moments in her life and the flash transition creates a sense of uncertainty and a sudden wave of bad feelings. |
Matching Convention:
Order of titles: Our order of titles are in the correct and traditional title order for an Opening Title Sequence. It follows the same order as the Insidious opening title sequence apart from their actual title is situated at the end of the sequence. You can see an in depth description of the order of titles on this page, click here. |
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Change of Fonts - Credits and the Title: We chose to use two different fonts to distinguish between our credit titles and our main film title. After researching many different opening title sequences, we decided we wanted to follow convention and have two font choices. In Insidious, the OTS follows the same specification - we decided to follow this as our inspiration. |
Distribution Company:
We chose to use the name 'Forest Fire Films' to make our distribution company sound epic and professional. This matches convention because all distributions have a name to make them seem important. However, there are some aspects to our distribution company that don't match convention. We decided to use the crackling fire noises instead of a music track over the top of the image to make it sound realistic, most distribution companies have a suspenseful soundtrack but we decided against this to stand out. |
Production Company:
We chose to use a horror themed name for our production company to go along with the theme of our OTS. This matches the convention of most horror films because they use production companies that mainly produce horror. We chose to not use a backing track, instead we used narration that matches the image on screen therefore challenging convention as other production companies generally use a track as well as sound effects in there sequences. |