Evaluation Question Five

How did you attract/address your audience?

My opening sequence begins with my main production company appearing on screen, and then a fade to white transition is used to show the second production company, ‘Rainbow Productions’. At this stage there is total silence so that the audience can focus solely on the production company’s shown, also the absence of sound causes suspense as the audience are waiting to see the first shot of the opening sequence as they are eager to properly start the film, and I believe this is a technique used in many films. This part of my opening sequence uses the codes and conventions of thriller films; usually the absence of sound attracts the audience to continue watching out of suspense and curiosity.

The first shot is parallel to the soundtrack as it appears just as the music starts; the soundtrack helps to grab the attention of the audience as it sets a dark mysterious mood. The first shot is a pan of a wall covered with newspapers, photos and red writing. This shot is significant as it establishes the setting for the audience and they are attracted into the world of the film. I attempted to create an augmented reality.

Throughout the opening sequence, there are close ups of the photos, newspaper articles and the red writing, these close ups are actually clues for the audience to try make some sense of what story is about, the audience can do this by associating the close ups of the photos and newspaper articles, with the voice overs of the characters. I believe these clues work well as there is not much dialogue, characters and action in the opening sequence. The idea of showing photos of the characters instead of the actual characters in the opening was taken from the film Memento; this was done so that the characters were established to the audience but not actually introduced, so that the audience will begin to ask questions like, who are these people? What is their relevance to the story?

Furthermore, a pan of the lead characters’ body in the opening sequence creates curiosity and tension, this is because it starts from his feet and goes up his body, the audience is attracted and in suspense as they want to see the persons face, but as my film follows the codes and conventions of most thriller films, the characters face is not shown so that the audience can try too figure out or imagine the characters face, and to keep the tension. I wanted to build up tension so that the audience fully concentrate on everything that is happening in the opening sequence, and in turn they will naturally anticipate what will happen at the end of the opening sequence, which is a good way to keep my audience hooked.

Close ups of objects, which are also clues, keeps the audience engaged, as they try to figure out the meaning on these clues.  For example, there is a close up of a mobile phone screen and the phone is ringing. The shot is purposely out of focus at the start of the shot so that the audience cannot see the name; this attracts the audience as they are wondering who is actually calling the phone as shot is turning back into focus the audience cannot help but wait to find out the name. I used objects to represent each character, the cap represented Nicholas and the phone represented Sarah as her name was on the screen.

The voice overs used give the audience more clues about the story, they are heard every blackout when an actors name is show. These voice overs also attract the audience to concentrate more as they begin to think who think about whom the voices belong to, the audience can then associate the voices with the pictures and figure out more about the story.  ‘How Can he lay hands on my daughter?!’ Is an example of a voice over that the audience can associate with a picture. The audience can link the voice over with the newspaper article, and figure out that this man is on the hunt for the man who hurt his daughter. The idea of voice overs during blackouts was taken from the film Memento.

While editing, me and my group had to think how we can keep the tension and suspension from the begin to the end, and so we made our opening sequence quite slow paced so the audience can take in as much information as possible to try figure out the story. For example, there is a shot of boots as the person walks into the room; we slowed down this shot to add a sinister and creepy feel to this mysterious character, so the audience can see how slow the character is walking into the room almost as if the character is purposely walking in slow; like a predator creeping up on it’s prey. Furthermore, the pan of the lead characters body is not shown all at once, but it is broken up by using cutaways so that the audience is always anticipating because they are eager to see this characters face, but the pan is interrupted by the cutaways.  The title is shown at the end of the opening sequence, before it is shown, the lead character suddenly opens his eyes as he was unconsciouss then the title is shown, this is common in thriller films. The tile itself also causes suspense as it is not shown straight away, instead smoke fills the screen and the audience is attracted to keep watching as they have to patiently wait for the smoke to clear before the title is shown. This smoke that is used so that there is a sense of mystery to this film, that everything is not clear in this twisted story and that the audience will always be on the edge of their seats awaiting what is yet to come in the film.

I would expect the audience to already know that thriller films are not as straightforward as other film genre, that’s why my narrative is actually non-linear, and my opening sequence is actually near the end of my film, like the film Inception, because it makes my film much more complex and interesting; a film where the audience is much more engaged and have to use their brains more. Also my audience is expected to know that most thriller films show a lot of clues so that the audience are attracted to try piece together the story.

I have chosen the themes of love, hatred and evil. The audience can relate to the use of red lighting and writing as they can be associated with both love and evil, so the audience would automatically think whoever created this room may be enraged and filled with hatred or maybe even love.