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

Compare your opening sequence with 2 other real opening sequences:

As a group we analysed 4 different opening sequences, all of them from the psychological thriller genre. This gave us a good idea of what conventions to expect in most psychological thriller movies.

In ‘The Sixth Sense’ there is a definite build up of suspense and enigma. One of the characters look as if they have been put in a dangerous situation when they are alone in a cellar. However, nothing actually happens to her and she returns to her husband upstairs. This is similar to what happens in our opening sequence. The character is dreaming (possibly not know to the audience at that point) and sees a hand in the pool of blood. As an anti-climax she wakes up. We decided to build up the suspense in this way as it would set up well for the rest of the narrative. Making it seem like there is danger present when there really is not is a good way of creating tension in the audience. The use of dim lighting in ‘The Sixth Sense’ also builds up tension. Throughout the dream we opted for using dark lighting and black and white to build up tension. This also made it easier to define what was reality and what was the dream.

(Anti-climax scenes, Left: 'The Sixth Sense', Right: 'Reinventing Your Exit')

In both our opening sequence and the opening sequence of ‘The Eye’ there is a sudden switch in mood. A lot of tension is built up in the first minute or so, then all of a sudden the audience are brought back to the real world. This can sometimes cause confusion to the audience as the sudden switch was not expected. However, the sudden switch is a good way of building up the enigma as it was unexpected by the audience. The sudden switch is caused by juxtaposing two or more scenes in both 'The Eye' and 'Reinvening Your exit' this is done through the use of different types of lighting and colouring and different atmospheres.

(Juxtaposing scenes, Left: 'The Eye', Right: 'Reinventing Your Exit')

Our narrative is quite similar to that of ‘The Eye’, so it was interesting to see how they represented the visions this girl was having. It is not made clear in the opening sequence whether these are her visions and whether they are dreams or premonitions. I believe our narrative made it clear that these were dreams our character was having. Which meant our narrative at the beginning of the movie was slightly clearer. However, ‘The Eye’ may make it clear as the narrative progresses.

I believe we used the conventions quite well. We used harsh and dim lighting to create an eerie effect, we built up enigma through the use of visions and premonitions and even though our narrative is slightly unclear this could be resolved later on in the movie, meaning it was made slightly confusing on purpose to make the audience want to watch the rest of the movie.