Inspiration for the opening titles to our Thriller film

Creating the opening titles to a film (and particularly for a Thriller film) is an art form in of itself.
Part of the reason for this is that it allows the directors to be really creative with the effects that they want put across to the audience - it could be used to ease the audience into the film with a hint of tension or it could be designed to calm the audience down a little if the opening scene is particularly tense.
Another reason why the opening credits are so important is because it would be one of the very first things that the audience and so the style by which these are done hints at the style of the film as a whole.
The opening titles in our Thriller film are inspired by a combination of those used in the Thriller film Se7en and the ITV drama series Lewis and Endeavour (and likely Morse as well).
In Se7en (see video right) the opening shows a character (who at this point in time is left in the shadows) who is meticulously planning something and making many notes - seeing as this is a crime Thriller we can assume that this is the murderer plotting the acts which he is about to commit. The music is edgy in a why that connotes a destabilised mental state for the character involved. The meticulous nature of the planning for these acts also brings across a sense of OCD, and the fact that we know that the killer is basing his acts on the 7 deadly sins (as revealed in the synopsis) we can almost describe this as a sense of religious zeal to the character. We liked the way in which the titles were done - by showing bits of work from the character followed quickly by a fade in which it would show the next name in the list. As Anna also has a destabilised mental state, this kind of style would suit her character well too.
In each episode of Endeavour/Lewis, the style is very similar in how it opens in that the audience is shown snippets of characters performing different actions followed by a title coming onto the screen which allows the audience to get a feel for what the general themes are for that episode and who all of the main suspects are. Again, the style of credits is one that we felt we liked to it was one that we decided to adopt for our own Thriller film.

Evaluation question 7: "Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression to the final product?"

Evaluation Question 3: "What kind of media institution would distribute your media product and why?"

Evaluation question 5: How will you attract/address your audience?

If our opening were to be developed into a full length feature, we plan to attract and address our audience through means of advertisements. One method of advertisement that we would use is posters. Posters are a good way of getting the word out about the film as they can be stuck to walls or places that people walk past every day or without the specific intention of looking for a film to watch, which will therefore draw the attention of more people. Also, some people like to collect film posters. 

We could also create a website to promote our product. Our colour scheme for the website would be black and red. Black is often associated with power, death, evil and mystery and red, as well as being the colour of blood, often represents danger. We would also perhaps use hints of dark red as this colour represents rage, anger, malice and wrath. The website would contain all the information about the movie: cast/crew information, trailers, where people can see it and links to these other sites. 

We could also use social media, by creating a Facebook page and a Twitter feed and encourage people to share it. Through the use of social media, we could also hold a competition, such as that anyone who shares our film will be entered into a prize draw to win a poster signed by the director and the actress who played Anna, along with any other cast members who would be involved if the film were to be made into a full length feature. By doing this it will increase the chances of our Facebook page and twitter feed being shared, which will therefore make more people aware of our production. 

We could also create our own video space on both YouTube and Vimeo. On this space, we could have cast and crew make vlogs and videos about production, the story and other aspects of making of the film as well as interviews and sneak peeks at scenes. As the average attention span of an online viewer is less than two minutes, we would have to make sure that a lot of the videos are no longer than two minutes long as we would not want to lose their attention. 

We could also create a few teasers for the film and release them a week or two before the trailer is released. Each teaser trailer would provide the audience with an unanswered question, which will draw the attention of potential audience members by intriguing them. The trailer will give a little bit more information but will still not give so much that the audience is no longer intrigued.

Evaluation Question 4: Who would the audience be for your media product?

As our film, if it were to be made into a full length feature (see plot summary), revolves around the psychology of a criminal, and to be more specific a serial killer, our target demographic would be people who find the topic of psychology interesting. 

Also, our target demographic would be people aged no younger than 15. This is due to the fact that that there will be a strong level of threat throughout a large proportion of the film and there is a possibility that strong language will also be used. 

Due to the fact that the film includes a high level of threat and violence, it would also be important to target people who aren’t faint hearted, perhaps through making it clear in a film trailer that violence is included, as if people don’t like the film they may post bad reviews on websites or speak badly about it, which will have a negative effect on box office takings because then other people will think the film is bad and won’t give it a chance.

Evaluation question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In the opening to our thriller, the social groups represented are woman, criminals and police officers, through the characters of Anna and the woman at the desk in the police department. Both of these characters are represented atypically but in very different ways.

Woman, stereotypically, are often thought of as being kind, innocent and gentle. Our main character, Anna, heavily subverts this expectation when we find out that she is in fact a killer, with a body count of 27, which is an extremely high amount of crime for anyone. 

Also, you would usually expect criminals to be men, due to the fact that the news often covers cases in which the criminals are men. Having our criminal as a woman subverts the expectation of a criminal being a man. A criminal, in most cases, will show at least some type of either regret for the actions or in some cases take pride in them, but Anna subverts this expectation as she shows no emotion of any sort. 

The woman at the desk also subverts expectations of women. When one is to hear the words ‘police officer’, the chances of them thinking immediately of a female police officer is highly unlikely. This is because the job is typically seen to require bravery and the occasional need to pursue a hostile suspect, which, stereotypically, are qualities believed to be more in males rather than females. Therefore, representing the police officer as a woman will subvert the stereotypes of women being weaker and more timid than men.

Evaluation question 1: How does your media product use, develop or challenge the conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Question 1 by Matthew Alan Herriott on Scribd