Evaluation Question 1 - In what way does your film opening use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real film openings?

Whilst watching a few opening Thriller films, we noticed that the titles were often one word. We therefore decided to follow this convention by giving our film a one worded title to create the effect of tension and mystery. We chose the colour red to make it stand out and because the colour red has connotations of danger and risk.  

This is a shot of the main setting and location of our film opening. We chose this location because in the drive, there was a big enough space for us to move and pan the camera while filming and film several shots from different angles. This location was also ideal because it had the scope of the long gravel path around the house which created a superb crunching footsteps and creaky gate sound effect which are conventional sounds of the Thriller genre. 

As our film is about a teenage son who is seeking revenge on his mum, we chose to stereotype his clothing. Therefore his costume was tracksuit bottoms, trainers and a hoodie.

This shot shows our main character dressed smartly in typical work dress. This stereotypes her to fit in with a career woman who works in an office. The colour black also foreshadows the dark nature of the film. We restyled the actor's hair and makeup to reflect our ideas of a conventional mid 30s suburban woman who has been quite successful in life. The mise en scene of the large, spacious kitchen and stylish accessories adds to the effect of the affluent lifestyle.

We decided to do several cut away shots to help increase the pace of our film opening. We wanted to create a sense of calm everyday life and so we focused on ordinary household objects. To create tension we juxtaposed these slow moving shots filmed on a tripod to keep the camera steady with the handheld chaotic shots of the boy running.

We chose to shoot our film opening around twilight to create a sense of fear and to build tension. We chose to do this because we noticed when watching other Thrillers most were filmed in the dark to make them more eerie.

We chose this special effect for the flashbacks because it gives the impression that the audience is in the mothers point of view and gives a slightly blurry picture as if she has tears in her eyes. It is conventional to show the transition between the verisimilitude of the clear shots showing the present time to the less clear images that show the woman's memory.