Student Example

We have chosen 'Surface' as our student example because we like the way they manipulated the images buy filming them then playing them on the television and filming them again, it created a flickering effect which was quite spooky and worked well with the eerie tone of the sequence.

Understanding of thriller conventions: They created fear through the rapid shots and flickering shots, not letting the viewer see exactly what is happening which builds tension and creates suspense.

Understanding of the opening sequence structure: The structure is clever as the audience only see the action shots briefly in between the "blood" shots, where they have used food dye to create a blood effect when poured into water and then slowed down. These shots alturnate until the end, where a combination of extremely short shots are put together over dramatic music, progessing to the end where we finally have the film title appear.

Mise - en - scene: Mise - en - scene is used well as the lighting on the blood is dark but not too dark that we can hardly see it. The lighting in the short action shots is dim also but when set to black and white the contrast in colours work well and effectively to create atmosphere. There are no defined props in this sequence, neither are there any special costumes as we can only see the characters briefly from the shoulders up and it is in black and white, and therefore costumes are not such a necessity.

Camera work and Framing: The camera work is obviously hand held in the action shots, to portray the sense of suspense. A tripod is used for the blood shots.

SoundThe sound used in these titles are both diagetic and non diagetic. The diagetic sound that they used was in the action shots, of the girl gasping and crying. The non diagetic sound was used in the blood shots, of tension building music.

EditingThis sequence was edited very cleverly as the blood shot leaves the audience question how it was done, you can not tell that they used food dye in a glass against a dark background. The action shots where done using a hand held camera setting and eerie atmosphere, putting the audience in the same frame of mind as the characters, at unease and not knowing what is happening, again asking questions. At the end of the sequence they uploaded the footage onto a television and filmed it, which is what the lines across the screen are, they then uploaded this footage onto the computer and made the shots fast and close together.

Use of special FX