Forsaken is about an eleven year old boy, who has been left alone/ abandoned by his parents. The convention of age in films shows how vulnerable somebody is. The main character of the opening is very young, this represents that he is weak and may not be able to defend for himself. He is a sympathetic character who the audience will like and will feel sympathy for. He is a common stereotype of a young person in a film due to his costume (pyjamas), this then adds to the fact that he is a little boy and may not be able to cope by himself representing the name of the film Forsaken.
Forsaken is set in a house, the house is realistic, it is made known where the opening is set, due to the camera work in the first scene e.g. an establishing/ long shot of the house. The house is also there to create an atmosphere e.g. it is very cold in tense parts of the film. This is represented through the lighting during the film. Our lighting is very similar to films such as The Ring, it represents the darkness of the house and the film e.g. giving it a spooky and anxious feel for the audience. However when focusing on the main character in times where the boy feels safe the lighting is warm and bright, this then encourages the audience to have a positive attitude towards the boy. This is similar to conventions in other films, when researching, we especially liked the lighting in films such as What Lies Beneath, this is because it represented what the characters were feeling and how we were meant to feel towards them.
This is a scene from What Lies Beneath, the lighting is very dark and mysterious this typical convention of low key lighting shows that something bad is going to happen to the character, this is what we used in our thriller opening to represent the things happening in the film.
This is an image from a scene in The Ring, very similar to our shot, this is due to the lighting, it shows that something bad is going to happen, this is a typical convention of a thriller movie because it represents how the character may feel and usually leads up to something.
When the main character was acting, his performance was good and very stereotypical of a thriller genre, the use of camera work shows this for example the use of close up shots show his emotions e.g. anxious and scared for his life, which also represents his vulnerability. In many thrillers, close up shots are key to expressing emotions within a character for example our shot and the shot used in Arlington Road are very similar. In the Arlington Road scene the boy is scared for his life, similar to in Forsaken. The boy in Arlington Road is also of young age.
Our camera work is of a typical thriller film genre, this is because we have used a wide variety of shots from different/ strange angles. In the first scene, the camera is hand held, however it is a little shaky, this shows that somebody is walking in to the house/ watching the house. The use of the hand held camera creates tension within the audience, this is what most thrillers tend to do.
This side shot of the boy shows that he is looking at something, this good use of camera work shows the audience that something is there or has happened, it builds up tension and makes the audience want to watch more, this is a good convention to use and I feel like we used it well.
However I feel like our film has challenged conventions that are stereotypical to thriller movies for example the sound. We only used diegetic sound in our film, the sound effects we have added in are simple for example; the doorbell, the phone line and banging from upstairs. We did not include any other music/ non diegetic sound that the character would not hear, this is because we thought that silence would increase the anxiety within the audience. Only few films have used silence in their openings before for example The Ring, however I am happy that we have chosen to have no sound. I also feel as if we have challenged some stereotypes of typical movies. For example stereo typically the person viewed as weak and in distress is usually a female, I am happy that we have chosen a male character for our opening even though he is a child.
When editing our film, I feel like we have followed the correct conventions of a thriller film for example our continuity is well done. We have not included to many transitions except cut. Our cuts are done well and they also speed up as the ending of the opening approaches, this is a common way to create tension within the audience.
Even though this scene was not very long, we decided to use a man to ring the doorbell because this is a typical stereotype of an antagonist.
Finally I feel like our font follows typical conventions of thriller films.
It took our group a long time to decide on what font to use and where to put it, this was because the entire of our film opening was moving images, we wanted to follow the convention of making sure that all the font was not over an image that the audience was meant to see. Overall I think we followed this rule, in other film openings we have watched for example Insidious and Arlington Road always put the producer of the film first, and then the othernames, this is a convention that we followed.
This is the opening of Insidious, even though this isn't a thriller I liked the font used, we found our idea of making the title of the actor/ producer smaller and then have their real names bigger, our font also moved similar to Insidious font. To change the fact that this is more like horror film writing, we made our writing black and white depending on what images where behind it, this then suited or genre of a thriller film.
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