Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience was one of the most important decisions to make when initially coming up with our idea. In our research, we found out that the most frequent cinema-goers were within the 16-24 age bracket. The following diagram, taken from the BFI Statistical Yearbook 2012 (with figures from 2011) visualizes the proportion of 16-24 year olds going to the cinema over the years. The figure currently stands at 31%.

  
With that decision being made, we went on to decide that females of this category age would become our core audience. We felt that we could target this audience the most effectively (our group being part of this segment ourselves) giving our film maximum potential to get as wide a reach as possible. Our exact reasoning is explained in the below diagram:

We also decided on two secondary audiences to widen our reach even further. Followed are two fictional characters who we would imagine would enjoy our film:

We believe that our film has the potential to target a broad spectrum of ages. Beneficially, these ages happen to be those that visit the cinema the most, giving us confidence that with the right marketing our film would be successful.

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Attracting our target audience is vital to the success of our film. From the outset we drew together our target audience, them being predominantly females of ages 16 - 24, males of the same age and parents of the 35 - 45 age bracket. By paying close attention to the content, style and marketing of our film we set out to target this audience in the best way possible.

One of the challenges we faced was ensuring that when drawing in our primary and secondary audiences, we did not come between our chances at attracting other segments of the population, for example limiting our marketing strategy to purely viral. Despite deliberately choosing those groups who gave the most to box office takings, in alienating the rest of population we would dramatically decrease this figure. Therefore we knew how vital our strategy would be in making the film a success.


Audience Reaction

The above clip is of two target audience members watching our opening for the first time. It shows their exact reactions and they seem to be enjoying it. They reacted how we wanted them to react - laughing at the comical moments and relating to the music.

The above clip is an interview with two members of our core and secondary target audience. They identify what they found successful and what they didn't. We were quite pleased that they managed to know exactly what happens in the opening sequence, showing that they can induce a level of understanding about the story line and perhaps predict what will happen next. We also briefly interviewed other members of our target audience which can be found in more detail here: Neil Shah and Katie Dadswell.


Ways in which we engaged our audience:

• Conforming to Expectations - Through films like Project X and television series' such as Skins, our audience are familiar with the party scenes typical of teen dramas. However, we have developed the conforms and stretched to a more negative viewpoint of drug taking, making the party concept more realistic and gritty than the glamour previously associated with the lifestyle we connote.
• Creating Relatable Characters - We tried to represent all genders and ethnicity in our opening sequence, succeeding definitely with ethnicity. Although our gender mix was theoretically equal, both the main characters were female. With hindsight, we could have made one of the main characters male in order to relate more to our secondary audiences. However, keeping our key audience in mind, we feel we have created Eve as a powerful, likable and potentially inspirational character. 

• Use of Shocks and Surprises - Part of the USP of our media product is that it displays realism of the modern British teenagers social lifestyle. When this lifestyle does rarely occur in films, is usually either glamorized or portrayed unrealistically. Using the graphic overdose scene and incorporating the often tabooed concepts of teenage homosexuality and active sex life, we attempted to engage the audience through shock. Thirteen is an example of a film that benefited greatly from this technique and our film would hope to follow in it's footsteps.
• Choice of Film Style - Our film style is very much inspired by Skins and its renowned edginess which can be seen in the below video. As you can see there is a certain haziness that we also tried to achieve through the echo effect. We feel like associations with Skins would be a good thing in attracting our chosen audience due to the fact that it was such a success among our generation. It is engaging and most importantly, different to the style of conventional films.

• Continuity Editing - The montage present in the overdose scene quickens the pace in order to focus the audience to this element of the narrative. The audience are shown a variety of reactions, and are given a choice of which reaction to abide to. Feelings of guilt are encouraged, as the audience are taken out of the action to see people lounging around carelessly. On the other hand, sometimes this provides an element of humor - conventionally to black comedy making light out of a serious situation.
• Enigma Codes - We use these to attract our audience by engaging them with enigma codes. This leads them wondering questions such as 'Is [Hannah] dead?' or 'Why is [Eve] smiling? Did she cause the overdose?'. All of these questions lead the audience into wanting more. This technique is particularly relevant for attracting an audience outside our target, as curiosity is something any age or gender would have at this point. 

Genre Choice

During our research, the biggest factor in deciding our genre was looking at what our target audience enjoyed most. Using content from the BFI Statistical Yearbook 2012 we made the discovery that themes of partying were very much enjoyed by our target audience. As you can see, the films that feature partying as a key theme actually account for their top 2 most seen films of 2011. This clarified our decision to go with the party themes. We also noted that The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 included sure elements of teen drama.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of contructing the product?

Given that we thought so carefully about the concept and representation of our opening sequence, we wanted to be able to demonstrate these perfectly with good quality sound and picture for maximum enjoyment. Achieving this came with deciding on the right hardware to shoot our footage on and the right software to edit our footage on. Although without our research our concept would've suffered, this element of the process is arguably the most important as it allowed us to create the finished product.

Hardware


Initially, we were going to use a mixture of two cameras for our opening sequence: a Canon 550D and a Canon Legria HV-30. This is what we tested in our first test shoot, using the Canon 550D for the long party shot and the Canon Legria HV-30 for the overdose scene and beyond. Hpwever, due to differences in the cameras, on Adobe Premiere Pro the shots from the cameras were different sizes. We then decided to make a decision about which one to use. The following table explains the advantages and disadvantages of each:

However, on experimenting with both we decided that the Canon 550D was a better option to go with. It allowed us to not only shoot in HD but also in 50fps (as apposed to the standard 25fps) which meant that the quality would not suffer as a compromise to slowing the footage down. Usually, auto-focus would've been an easier option but we wanted the manual focus to allow us to create our shots exactly how we wanted them - in contrast the Canon Legria HV-30 did not have this feature. This links to the visual style we were trying to achieve.

On our first shoot disaster struck when we forgot to charge up one of the spare batteries. If we were doing this again, we would advise to ensure that all batteries, including spares, are charged up. Luckily we had got most of the footage that we needed, but had we not, many of our actors may not have been able to return for a second shoot.

A safety precaution that had to be taken when using the camera was that we didn't under any circumstances hand them to members of our cast, or leave them on the floor without being in their cases. We also had to take care not to drop them. With the Canon Legria HV-30 it was also essential that we did not try and push the tape out when it would come out automatically.

Although our party shot is done hand-held, for the overdose and ending we used a tripod to ensure steadiness. With hindsight, we would've also used a tripod for the shots that involved switching on the lights, although this isn't immediately obvious from our opening.

For each shoot, we kit ourselves out with three Arri Redhead lights: two 650W and one 750W. As you can see, they lit out set to a brilliant degree that provided definite contrast between our party scene and our overdose scene. For this reason, they highlighted the change in mood. We did come across some issues however, the main one finding strange shadows in our shots. It often proved a challenge to keep the light looking natural.  

With their power, they could also get boiling very quickly. In fact they even burnt holes through some of our filters. If we ever did this again, we would not spend so much time planning which filters to use, as everything we needed to set the mood was accounted for via grading. One of the imperative safety precautions was to only let our group touch them, and even then only with the specialized gloves on. Another disadvantage of them was that they were very difficult to carry around, with it taking at least two of us to transport them anywhere. Thankfully, most of the time we managed to secure a lift.

Software

We edited our sequence of Adobe Premiere Pro, which we found very effective indeed. We made use of its grading and echo facilities that helped match our sequence to it's genre, and introduce the key themes of the film. We also used this to create the animatic, which helped us in the planning process to predict how long our shots would last and whether they would would in relation to each other.

What we didn't realize when filming our party shot was that they were very grainy due to the lack of light. It was such a problem, that we planned another reshoot of the entire thing, but with the lights on. As some of our best actors couldn't make it, we were brainstorming other people to ask to ensure continuity. However at the last minute we discovered that Adobe After Effects had the potential to remove grain. Although this was a lengthy process, it saved us having to organise a reshoot which I now with hindsight believe was vital to our success. One of the key things we wanted to convey in our opening was spontaneity - something that would've been lacking had the lights been on. We would've had to compromise mise en scene for quality. However, thanks to after effects, we achieved both to our best standard. Below is a video of how grainy our shot was before after effects. You can see it properly if you watch it in full screen:

We also used new media technology to stay in touch, particularly with the use of facebook and in some cases twitter.

The below video sums up all the hardware and software we used in an annotated version of the opening:

This proved to be an entire new experience for our group - and as for me, I had never used technology to this extent before. It was rewarding to see our film opening that we had planned for so long to finally be brought to life.

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Just by watching our preliminary task and our main task, you can tell that our group has progressed immensely since the beginning of the year. The brief for our prelim was to 'create and edit a video sequence that tells a story, follows continuity and makes sense to the viewer'. We had to include an exchange of dialogue, match on action and a shot reverse shot. The brief for our main task was 'to produce a 2 minute opening sequence for a fiction film'. We had to include titles throughout, sound effects and a soundtrack, understanding of continuity editing, clear signifiers of our genre. 

Prelim

The prelim was beneficial because it taught us not to try and over complicate things and to make things as easy as possible. This means sticking to what we knew, and whilst also challenging ourselves to experiment with new things, not taking on too much responsibility. As you can see we stuck to a achievable genre to convey what we knew well. Our prelim with annotations of how it fit the brief is shown below. It also mentions some of the challenges we faced: 

Location

We had to keep location in mind, making sure we didn't over complicate it - learning this from our prelim. For each task, we chose one easily accessible location where there weren't too many disturbances. For our prelim we chose the interior of our school as we would've had to bear the weather in mind, which would've changed throughout the day. However, one of the challenges we faced as ensuring that we didn't film between lesson switches, as the bells would interupt our filming. We filmed our main task in Alice's house, where once asking permission, we were free to do whatever we wanted within reason. One of the challenges we faced was constructing Eve's walk from the party and out the front door in a way that the audience could gain understanding of relative location. We decided to follow every step of her journey exactly to achieve this.

Planning

For both shoots we planned the process using shotlists and storyboards. In our prelim we created a script but did not create a very substantial shotlist - the one we did make we didn't necessarily stick to. We did more vigorous planning as you can see below, the shot list and script for our main task being typed up clearly:

We also had a test shoot and a practice shoot. Having these was essential to a smooth running of the shoot and allowed us to communicate to the actors exactly what they were meant to be doing. Furthermore, we sent them individual costume details in which they arrived at the shoot in, to save time on the day.

I think one of the main things that made our shoot a success was that we weren't as strapped for time as we were in the preliminary. This is because we knew exactly what we were doing and when we were going to do it - partly due to the animatic giving us a rough idea of how long we wanted to make each individual shot. It became the very first insight into how our film was eventually going to look. Therefore we made adjustments accordingly. The animatic is included below:

  

The Shoot

• We arrived at 10 and we asked everyone else to come at 11. This ensured that we had enough time to get make-up and costume sorted out, and also allowed time for people to be late.
• We provided food for our actors.
• We shot many master shots that we could cut back to if need be.
• We shot on the Canon 550D which gave better picture than the Canon Legria HV-30 that we used with the prelim (apparent in the pictures below).
• We focused more on lighting in our main task than we did in the prelim (also pictured below). 

Editing

• We created many different potential sequences and incorporated our favourite elements of each into the final sequence.
• We would only make changes to this final sequence when the whole group was there to agree to it.
• We didn't have to capture picture from the film  (only sound) which we thought was beneficial as that would've been a lengthy process. Using a digital camera, we only had to import from the card. However, we ended up not needing the sound.
• Below are pictures comparing our shot reverse shots between the prelim and the main task. Here you can see the difference in picture quality:

Evaluating

• We discussed this process as a group, whilst also working individually.
• We organised recorded interviews, held focus groups and organised voice over opportunities together as a group.

Overall, we have learnt a lot from conducting both our prelim and our main task. We have also developed as a team and learnt a lot about working with other people. Undoubtedly, the most key factor to what we believe was a successful opening sequence was our development as a team and the equal allocation of jobs that made everything run smoothly.  

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

This is my analysis of the structure and style of the piece in relation to genre conventions.

GENRE

This is our final piece with a commentary by us on how we utilised genre conventions

FORM AND NARRATIVE 

This diagram demonstrates the functions we wanted our sequence to perform and how we were inspired by key influence Heathers,  the pictures being stills in order taken from our opening and the opening of Heathers

 After the equilibrium and disruption of our opening we would have the recognition of the event marked with the trend of revenge sweeping across the whole school. Attempts to repair would be Eve preventing the murder and the new equilibrium would come about after the tearful reunion between the students followed by their arrest save Eve's. This is the black comedy aspect of the film - their redeeming character arcs are fruitless in the face of the law. These character arcs, specifically Eve's are one convention we followed of teen dramas. Characters in teen films like Veronica from Heathers, tend to come of age throughout the film, becoming more mature, considerate people, Eve being no exception. Another way we followed conventions of teen drama was with characters. We had the typical roles of:

• mysterious female protagonist like Veronica or Effy from Skins
• sleazy male (sometimes jock) like Tony from Skins
• outsider who wants to fit in like Oliver from Submarine 

 More detailed narrative techniques and use of theories can be found under Question 5.



Binary opposites - we included people reacting in different ways so the audience can choose whose side they are on

 STYLE

 

This video includes detailed annotations analysis on the specifics of the style of our film, looking and titles, mise-en-scene, editing, camerawork and sound.

We were particularly influenced on style by the Requiem for a Dream trailer.



Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

We first had to decide who our target audience and our secondary audiences were in order to decide on how we were going to attract them. As mentioned before our target audience was females aged 16-24 and our secondary audiences were males aged 16-14 and older viewers, such as parents. Although we were targeting a specific audience, we also tried to have a broad appeal in order to make our film more successful and bring in more revenue.

 Here is a chart showing the top grossing  independent UK films released in 2012. In the top 20 is the film Seven Psychopaths: a black comedy like our film and distributed by the same institution; Momentum Pictures, showing that unique independent films generate good revenue within the UK. Comedy and drama films are also in the top 20, showing that our chosen genre is quite popular in the UK, however our film is slightly more unique combining both genres to produce a black comedy.

To attract our target audience we had to consider Katz and Blumler's Uses and Gratifications which outlines what an audience want when they watch a film, and we used this as a focus for how to attract our audience and keep them excited.

Information -  Parents, one of our secondary audiences may want to watch the film to be educated about what their children might get up to when they are out. This age group may also want to watch the film and remember what it was like when they were young. Our film also provides insight into the culture of British teenagers, so people who are not part of it can see what it is like and how many British teenagers live.

Entertainment - Our genre: black comedy is a hybrid of drama and comedy, something more unique for the audience to keep them interested and wondering what is going to happen. Black comedy is less cheesy and more gritty than many of the blockbuster Hollywood comedies, and therefore the realism of our opening sequence may be attractive to our target audience. The video effects we have put in our video and the opening point of view shot also bring the audience straight into the action, seeing everything that is happening at the party as the protagonist does, immersing the audience in the opening.

Personal Identity - We have represented British teenagers realistically, and avoided stereotypes, so teenagers that watch the opening sequence may relate to some of the characters within the opening sequence when they watch it and therefore want to know more about the character. Older audiences may recognise their kids in some of the characters or even themselves when they were of a similar age. People are able to identify with characters and therefore want to watch the film to learn more about them, and therefore perhaps about themselves.

Social Interaction - Our film is full of common British themes related to teenager culture, such as alcohol, drugs, parties and different types of teenagers. Watching the film may help the audience gain insight into how other teenagers live and want to talk to their friends about the film because of the knowledge they have gained about other people's cultures. The film helps the audience connect with family, friends and society as they watch, discuss and think about the film.


 Other ways of attracting our audience:

1. Building up Enigma: As Hanna collapses to the floor and everyone is trying to help her, one girl; the protagonist leaves the party with hardly anyone noticing and the audience want to know why she has left and not stayed to help Hanna.
 
2. Continuity Techniques: The audience are taken on a journey through the party with a perspective shots, and as the sequence goes on we have used match on action and the 180 degree rule to ensure the audience follow the storyline easily and do not get confused about what is happening in the sequence.

3.  Genre: As our opening sequence starts, there is a dark, mysterious mise en scene, with eerie titles fading into the party with weird effects and a strobe light. It introduces the genre of our film and sets up audience expectations for the rest of the film. We have immersed the audience into the party, with a point of view shot, in the opening sequence, grabbing their attention as soon as the film starts.

Here is a sound clip of what two members of our target audience, two British teenagers aged 17 and what they thought about our opening sequence.

We also filmed a couple of members of our target audience, aged 17, watching our opening sequence to see their reactions to our opening sequence and if we had the desired effect. Here is the video:

They laughed at some of the footage, and were questioning who the girl walking out of the party at the end was; all reactions our group desired when we were planning our sequence. Although it is hard to hear what they are saying over the sound of our opening, Ellie said 'Who's that' as our protagonist Eve walks up the stairs, showing that the enigma we aimed to create was successful. They looked like they enjoyed our opening and were making comments to eachother showing that they were interested in what was happening.

Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

This post explains our decisions about representation for our opening and the rest of the film.

Click to zoom on our decisions about the basic representation, this diagram represents the process and influences we went through to come to our final idea.

The bigger issue with our representation in the whole film (click for synopsis), however, was that we were presenting teenagers committing cruel illegal acts of revenge - obviously not something we wanted to promote, we combatted this with the tearful recognition of their wrongdoings and the comedic justice with the police who come in at the end. We feel it worked more as a kind of satirisation of teen pressures to fit in nowadays. As Mean Girls used jungle metaphors to symbolise teen culture, we wanted to hyperbolise the impact of trends amongst teens and the need for independence whilst also wanting to fit in, using the revenge plot.

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We have made informed decisions on our use of conventions within genre, narrative structure  form and style, all of which I have explained below. 

Genre

Our film is a teen drama, with sub genres of black comedy and coming of age.

Below is a video on genre conventions. It explains any relevant conventions used in the Opening when we get to them. All three of us worked on all parts of the video. 

Other conventions that we would use throughout the film are:

1. The moral development of the protagonist from a teenager to a young adult (This can be seen in coming of age themes such as Mean Girls - in which Cady grows up and realises that popularity does not really hold much importance)
2. Disruption caused by the protagonist (In Heathers, Veronica decides to make a change and take down Heather, which results in Heather's death)
3. Themes of sexuality, popularity, moral values and self-worth. (Some of these themes can be seen in American Beauty, for instance when it is revealed that Angela lied about having sex, in order to fit in) 

From left to right: Mean Girls, Heathers, American Beauty

For conventions regarding character and representation, please click here. 

With regards to our protagonist, we both developed and conformed to conventions. Like many protagonists in teen dramas, Eve is quite absorbed in herself and in teenage life. The film ends as she matures and makes her way into adulthood. This conforms to conventions. However, Eve's moral journey is not to do with popularity, or other people at all, but about her growing up from her cold and calculating ways. There is also no aspect of her romantic life in the film. We did this because we felt that too often the new equilibrium was reached in relating to the protagonist entering or fixing a relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend. Although this could alienate viewers who are fans of the romance genre, we wanted to update the teen drama genre in a more realistic way. 

These teen-drama protagonists were key influences for us. Clockwise from top left:

1. Effy - Skins. Effy is cold and cuts herself off people, never allowing herself to make true connections. She does however have a close relationship with brother Tony. This family relationship but cold exterior otherwise inspired us.
2. Kat - 10 Things I Hate About You. Kat is very independent and again very cold. She eventually has to allow herself to let go; these traits are all exhibited in our protagonist.
3. Kim - Chalet Girl. Kim is determined, intelligent and sarcastic; she often uses black humour in her speech. Our character will also be sarcastic but not for the purpose of humour. She will also be very intelligent.
4. Tracy - Thirteen. Tracy gets caught up in teen life and becomes very self-absorbed, similar to Eve. 
5. Annabel - St Trinians. Annabel thinks very highly of herself, and has to let go of this to find true happiness, as does Eve.
6. Cady - Mean Girls. Cady becomes self absorbed and caught up in a madness which she must let go of, as must Eve with her revenge. 
7. Veronica - Heathers. Veronica triggers a very serious fake-suicide pattern, which she must put an end to. Eve must put an end to the revenge trend she started. 
8. Susanna - Girl, Interrupted. Although the storyline has various interpretations, Susanna like Eve realises the trouble she is in and does what she can to amend this. 

Other conventional characters in teen dramas include:

• Jocks or sleazy males 
• Cheerleaders and unintelligent yet attractive females
• Geeks and nerds
• Outcasts or loners
• Parents

From left to right: Mean Girls -  Jocks, A Cinderella Story - Cheerleaders, St Trinians - Geek,
 Mean Girls - Outcasts, American Beauty - Parents

Teen drama characters also often fit Propp's character theory which I have discussed below. 

Narrative Structure

In general, film structure usually complies with Todorov's narrative theory. Teen dramas are no exception (neither are black comedies nor coming of age films). Below I have outlined Todorov's narrative structure and how we have followed it. 

1. Equilibrium - Pupils at are school are introduced at a party. Everyone seems sociable and gets on with each other, and there is use of drugs, alcohol and sex. *
2. Disruption - One girl collapses at the party and seemingly overdoses, there is lots of panic and people react in different ways. (Eve sold dodgy drugs to her "best friend" to exact revenge for sleeping with her brother behind her back)*
3. Recognition - The pupils at the school start to suspect Eve had taken revenge, and start settling their vendettas in cruel, unnecessary ways. One slightly unsociable boy takes this too far and plans a cold murder of an innocent girl who rejected him romantically. 
4. Attempts to repair - Eve prevents the boy from exacting his revenge and the whole school are shocked when his cruel intentions are revealed. 
5. New equilibrium - In a big emotional gathering, the whole school realise their wrong doings and promise to end the madness, and be nicer to each other and resolve their problems in other ways. As school breaks and they all walk out, the police arrive to take them to the station after catching wind of all of the events. 

* The first two stages(in blue) are the stages that are in our opening. This demonstrates how our opening has also conformed to narrative convention. 

This is a very conventional narrative structure. We chose to conform to it to make the film easy for the audience to follow. It also is successful with audiences because they feel as if they have been on a journey with the films' characters, and they are happy that the situation has been resolved. 

Narrative techniques or devices are used to keep the audience interested and entertained, but also to move the plot forward. We used the following narrative devices in our opening:

Narrative technique	Example of where we used it	Why we used it
Ellipsis	When Eve is walking up the stairs	Watching Eve climb all of the stairs would be boring, and it would slow the sequence down too much. The audience would not gain anything from it and are able to piece together the events themselves.
Linear sequence	During the overdose scene and Eve’s exit	This juxtaposes the POV shots in the beginning, as well as juxtaposing the effects of drugs against the potential consequences. It makes it clear that the viewer is back in the real world, and enforces the negativity of drug taking.
Real time	From when Hannah overdoses	This contrasts greatly with the POV shots at the beginning, and makes it clear that that episode of the scene has ended along with all its related themes and the mood. It also creates clarity so the audience can understand what has happened.
Cliff hanger	When Eve smiles	The audience do not know what will happen next, and so are more likely to watch the rest of the film to find out.
Enigma code	When Eve smiles	Following the confusion and chaos of the overdose scene, this raises many questions in the audiences’ minds. Why did she smile, why did she leave, is she somehow responsible? The audience want these questions answered and so are likely to watch on.
Cultural code	The beer cans	When seeing these, the audience immediately think of alcohol and being drunk. This makes them think of past experiences/films/awareness, and they therefore can understand the events and relate to the characters more.

We also used character roles (a theory suggested by Vladamir Propp) to help move the narrative along and so that the audience could identify and recognised characters further. However, the lines of good and bad are somewhat blurred in our opening due to the long running theme of revenge. 

Arguably the Heroin, Eve saves the day by preventing the murder of the innocent girl. Like conventional heroins, she is the protagonist. However, she is also arguably the villain, because she sparked of the revenge trend by exacting the first very cruel revenge. 

Hannah fits the character role of the victim, because she is drugged by Eve. However she has villainous aspects to her: Eve did not commit the revenge for no reason. 

Another arguable villain is the nerdy and unsociable boy. He plans a cruel revenge for no reason, and has to be stopped by the protagonist/heroin. 

Form

Most people can immediately recognise a film opening, even if they aren't told what media it is. Below I have identified the typical features of an opening sequence. We intentionally followed all of these to make the form obvious, so that the audience could concentrate on more important things such as the story-line. 

We intentionally followed most of the conventions for opening sequences. Those that we followed we had no reason to break, and they help audiences recognise the form of media this is. However, we did not use any institution idents. If I was to do this project again, I would make one for X productions, because it further helps audiences to identify that this is a film opening. Furthermore, if X Productions were to become a real production company, it would help audience recognise their films and associate them together. 

Style
To clearly demonstrate our points with regards to style, we have made annotations over the top of the film opening. The annotations appear in time with relevant shots/sound/titles to what we have done and the  style of the film opening.

Please watch this video in full screen because otherwise the annotations do not fully display themselves. 

In summary, we used conventions where we thought it was appropriate. We did not use them for the sake of creating a conventional film; we used them when we felt they would increase audience appeal. Where we felt a convention was outdated and unrealistic, we tried to develop it. Overall we have neither completely conformed to stereotypes nor created a ground breaking film opening; instead we have developed conventions according to current times.