Katriona Fraser's Media Studies AS

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

My film opening 'Caché' is a teen lesbian romantic drama. Firstly, my film opening subverts the conventions of romantic films, as the large majority of content in this genre follows the story of a heterosexual couple; a male and female partnership. I decided to use two females as I have always thought that there are not enough LGBT films being released, and the majority of LGBT films that are produced are fairly low profile and not in the mainstream of the film industry. My film opening explores this taboo subject of homosexuality. However, it follows the archetype of romance films as it depicts two people that are in love. It is from a teenage girls point of view, which uses the conventions of teen romance films as they generally have a target audience of females aged 13-19. 

My film ident is simple yet effective, which follows the conventions of romance films as they would not be too extravagant. I got the idea for it from the romance film 'About Time'; its film opens with simple white text on a black background, similar to mine.

My first shot is of a blossom moving in the wind, which follows conventions, as flowers represent romance and love, a common feature of many romance films, for instance 'The Notebook' (pictured below).

In my demographic interviews, the interviewees said that they would not expect 'death' or 'scary situations' in a romance film. Therefore, my film opening does subvert the expectations of romance films, as it contains death, grief and potentially scary themes. I decided to do this as I wanted to explore the serious topic of loss and grief which, sadly, touches a large percentage of youths. 

In terms of sound, my film opening uses the convention of a voice over that is seen in so many  teen/romance films today, for instance in 'About Time' and 'Love, Rosie'. I used a voice over as it puts my overarching storyline across. Like in 'About Time', my protagonist, Katriona, is speaking in the voice over. Furthermore, the non-diegetic music that I chose is typical to a romantic drama as it is dramatic and has a melancholy tone. I also layered the sounds of children playing and wind chimes to create more of a sense of looking back at the past and drama. I got the idea for this from the music video to the band 'Nothing But Thieves' song 'If I Get High', which surrounds a teenage boy who has lost his mother. This video contains the same sense of grief and memories of a lost loved one, and it uses the sounds of wind chimes, so I decided it had the same effect in my film opening.

My film follows the conventions of teen films in as much as it focuses on adolescents and contains the theme of love. It explores young people's lives and emotions following the loss of a loved one. 

My film opening uses the convention of introducing the main characters within the first two minutes of the film. My first shot shows a close up of the protagonist, Katriona, which follows the convention of establishing the film's main character quickly. Furthermore, my third shot creates verisimilitude of the relationship as it shows the couple holding hands. This goes with the conventions of romance films and establishes their relationship. 

My film also follows the conventions of a title sequence within the films opening. The credits appear in the corners of the shots and use the same font as the film title, which creates continuity. 

In addition, my film opening foreshadows what problems will arise in the film, but it also leaves a mystery which leaves the audience wanting to know what happens next. This follows the conventions of film openings because if the first two minutes of a film aren't gripping enough or don't leave the audience wanting to learn more, they are likely to get bored quickly and turn the movie off. My film opening ends on a cliff hanger of the blood, making the audience want to know what happens to Katriona. 

During the editing of my film, I have decided to distinguish the differences between the happy memories scenes and the sad, suffering scenes, following the conventions I have observed watching similar films. This idea came from my earlier research on colour mood manipulation, as well as help from pro-editor Jessie. Putting two of my shots next to each other, there is a clear different between the colouration. 

This shot is a happy memory shot, so I adjusted the temperature to make it warmer and upped the saturation to make the shot more colourful. In addition, I  also slightly increased the contrast, which increased the separation between dark and bright, making shadows darker and highlights brighter. I also thought this shot was effective when I increased the saturation, as the already bright climbing frame pops even more and contrasts with Jessie's dark clothing. 

This shot is during the self-harm scenes, so I made it colder and decreased the saturation, which made it less colourful. I also decreased the contrast, which brought the shadows up and the highlights down to make them closer to one another. This gave the shot overall a more dull, grey-blue colour.

Using Plutchik's wheel of emotions, blue puts across grief, sadness and pensiveness.  Also, the brighter orangey-yellow tones of the happy memories show the serenity, joy and optimism.