In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products(i.e. of film openings)
My film "The Ghost of Church Lane does not challenge real media products as Molly and I have included all the typical aspects you would expect to see in a teen thriller film...
Our film opening was called "The Ghost of Church Lane". We decided to call it this as Church Lane is the name of the street where majority of our film was filmed. When researching into thriller films, I found that most titles of thriller films give away the theme of the film, such as Psycho and Halloween. By knowing these titles, we can guess what the theme of the film will be. I feel that the film title "The Ghost of Church Lane" gives viewers an insight of what the theme of the film is. 
We chose to use the colour black for the background of our film title as it has conflicting connotations. The main connotation is that the colour black has a spooky element towards it, which is what we wanted our audience to think about the film opening we had created. Another connotation the colour holds is that black has a mysterious feel to it. When thinking about our film opening, we realised that we do want it to have a mysterious element to it as we want our audience to see the opening, have an idea of what it is about, but not a clear enough idea, so it seems almost mysterious to them what the film will contain and they have to watch it to find out. When researching into fonts used for opening titles, I found that many film titles for thrillers use black bagrounds, with either red or white writing.
The genre of "The Ghost of Church Lane" is a thriller. The opening suggests typical aspects of a thriller film by the use of low key lighting(Typically used in thrillers or horrors), the increasing tension created by the use of camera shots(typically close up shots, as these create suspense) and the song played, but getting louder as it gets nearer to the title sequence.
We used two different settings in our film, which were a house and a churchyard, both in the same area. For majority of the time, we used the churchyard for our film which is a typical setting for a thriller film. The most common settings used for thriller films are old houses and churchyards, both which were used at points during the film opening. I feel this shot really creates the atmosphere we wanted for our film as a churchyard holds a spooky, atmosphere towards it. We wanted the genre of our film to obvious from the start, which is why we introduced the churchyard near the beginning.
A variety of camera shots were used during the filming for the opening title sequence, but the ones we decided to use majority of the time where either a high angle shot or a close up shot. We chose to use a high angle shot because it gives off the impression that our character is vulnerable, and also alone, both physically and mentally.It also shows that the character looking down at her, is the person that holds all the power at the time. We also used close up shots for a number of reasons, one reason was because they can create suspense, as you can clearly see the characters reaction and also they can make the viewers of the film feel conncected to the character and almost feel exactly how they are feeling.
We also used a long shot as these can set the scene and also show audiences where action will be taking place.
We mostly used the dissolve transition in the opening of "The Ghost of Church Lane". A dissolve is a gradual transition from one image to another, during the editing process. We thought this transition would be the most effective one to use as it gave the story good continuity and made it flow smoothly as the scenes would automatically switch and not have a big pause, which can take away the realistic element.
During the churchyard scene, we changed the original background and gave it a misty, dark look to make the scene appear frightening and "chilling", which is what we wanted the outcome to be as most thriller films showing churchyards tend to have the weather dark and dull, to give it the spooky element.
Our characters are intorduced in the stereotypical way you would expect. Sophie is first seen as being a moody teenager, who audiences can guess is not happy at moving house and having to start her life over. Damian is first introduced when he is seen watching Sophie in the churchyard. Most main spooky characters are introduced watching characters that they are going to be getting involved in, such as Edward Cullen in Twilight. He is seen watching Bella Swan in a lesson, before he first gets involved with her.
All props used were props you would expect a stereotypical teenage girl to have. The first scene of "The Ghost of Church Lane" is Sophie unpacking her belongings into her new bedroom. The props included in this scene are things a typical girl would have in her bedroom, such as a mirror, clothes, toiletries, books and a television. The most important prop included in our opening is the photo of Sophie and her father. We wanted viewers to know how important this prop is and what meaning it has to Sophie and what it causes her to do(walk out of the house in sadness to the churchyard, where Damian first sees her , which is why we used a close up shot to show the photo.
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