Question 1

These are 9 screenshots of our opening which we can find all the conventions of the an opening.

1. The first shot is the titles, which is similar to other thriller titles such as 'The Sixth Sense'. The font is different from the rest of the titles so the audience can clearly distinguish the difference. This is an uncommon theme in films because the font is normally the same, however as the film is very 'different' it would seem appropiate to do this. The positioning of the title was so it wasn't missed and the colour made it stand out from the background image. We put a powerful image of a dead girl underneath the title to contrast the white font, which usually represents peace and innocence.
2. This shot is the first shot of the film, which sets the scene immediately for this particular scene. The woodland is very typical of a thriller/horror, due to eerie nature and apparent darkness. The camera pans around to show how alone Christopher will be when we eventually cut to him. An empty shot is usually the case in most films to set the scene, so the film can develop accordingly.
3. Costumes and props were important to sticking the genre of thriller and horror. The costumes was really that of just a regular teenage boy, which we tried really hard to portray. The colours contrast the setting and the weather in the scene, with the bright blue jacket and jeans with green boots standing out against the brown woodland and grey weather. Portraying the main protagonist as an innocent boy was key in the first scene as he develops throughout the film to show he's not that ordinary. This keeps the audience interesting to see how the film develops.
4. The camerawork had a variety of shots including show panning shots and quick flashes. The shot you can see (middle left) is the pneultimate shot which is a panning shot of the woodland where Christopher is situated in his dream. This is one of many scenery shots but we also included quick flashes of other scenery and shots to mix in, creating diversity.
5. The titles had the same font throughout, which was just a generic font, with serif. This font looked professional and was in the colour white to represent innocence, as previously noted. A good, clear font was key to see all the main people involved with the film. All actors were named individually, which we saw as a key convention to our film. Jennifer Aniston is a star who always has to have her name on screen by itself, and we incorporated this into our film.
6. The opening scene of Divided will probably leave the viewer confused after seeing it, as it is very unclear what is happening. But this ultimately tells you what is going to occur in the rest of the film. The sense of confusion was something which we were desperate to get across as it is key in most thriller/horror films. It sets the film up nicely because we see the main protagonist and a dead body, which link together throughout the film.
7. Thriller and action were our main genres, which we portrayed clearly. The dark colours of woodland and the weather complimented eachother nicely, alongside the bright colours of Christopher's clothes. Tension is built slowly which is typical in a thriller before the end of a scene, before we then see Christopher wake up, which ends this tension.
8. We first see Christopher walking through a forest alone, instantly telling the audience he is different because he is unaccompanied. The overvoice of a doctor also introduces the character more, because that's the only voice we hear, suggesting Christopher is quiet. The audience then gathers the overvoice is talking about him. Although all of this, we kept the characters background very limited, like not naming where he lives or who he could live with etc.
9. In our production, we only used one special effect which was the flash from the 'Global Film Productions' logo into the start of the film. We kept special effects to a minimal because this would take away the realness of the situation and could potentially lose some seriousness. It isn't very typical of thrillers to use special effects, prehaps only non-diegetic sounds.