Representation is how someone or something is
portrayed. It may alter with clothes, background, settings and hair etc. It is
important when creating a film opening to represent the characters and
locations because it is a way of molding the audience’s perception towards the
characters. Sometimes a character will be represented in a particular way because
of the target audience and the emotions the audience should have to them.
The
genre of my film opening is a Thriller. The narrative of a typical thriller is
about injustice vs justice. There are usually events that involve kidnap,
murder, stalking etc that somebody needs to come over. Often the events start
from the end and work backwards which is the way my group have decided to do
out opening. The reason being the audience see’s what has happened but want to
know how this has happened. Why are two girls in an alley way? However more
importantly why is one on the floor in a pool of her own blood? The audience
will come to their individual conclusion and then they can work backwards and
we can keep our audience guessing (often wrongly) and try and have as many
twists and turns as possible.
Within
the thriller genre the characters never give much away through dialogue. This
is one of the aspects we are playing with for the opening sequence. Throughout
the sequence you will not hear anything that they say clearly, music will be
played over the top. This holds the mystery of what happened. Also you don’t
see that one of the girls is becoming obsessed with the other fully so you feel
sympathy towards one character which this then turned which provokes new
thoughts from the audience because subconsciously they would have an attachment
to one girl until they see the other side of the story which changes the whole
perception of the plot.
In
a thriller opening sequence the location and setting the scene is very important.
Often we see isolated buildings, houses, crime scenes and place out of peoples
view. Often they are dark (low key lighting), eerie and scary looking
locations. This all helps to create suspense and a mysterious narrative to keep
the audience compelled. We chose to have two locations, a party that will set
the plot and then an alley way where we will see the dead body and the other
female protagonist looking worried. In the party the lighting is fun, bright
lights and connotes a good time. In the alley way there would be a deep, dark
red or blue filter which gives dangerous haze over the scene, it helps to
define the genre.
We
will be using the technique of the Enigma code, which is means you leave
unanswered questions for the audience in the opening sequence, it leaves the
audience wanting to know more. By working backwards from what it seems the
villain’s perspective and finding out why her friend is left dead in an alley
gives the audience involvement. It also defies some typical thriller narrative,
as usually the main focus is around the ‘hero’ trying to find out how to solve
a situation, or a victim’s perspective so this is a bit different but I feel it
gives a good twist on the stereotypical thriller genre.
Another
way we are also challenging a typical thriller opening sequence is with our
characters, we are using counter types. In most thrillers the protagonist is male which builds the
stereotype that men are physically and emotional stronger. The victims are
often blonde, pretty and vulnerable. However in our case the ‘stronger’
character is the one that ends up dead. I feel this makes it more relevant and
authentic because it shows that men aren’t always the ‘hero’ and sometimes
there is no hero at all. Sometimes there’s more than one villain.
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