Question 1 - Evaluation

I decided that the genre I wanted to loosely follow for my opening sequence was a British crime drama.  I based a lot of my initial ideas on films like Snatch by Guy Ritchie, and Layer Cake to try and develop the sense of a gritty, dark story that still has elements of that dry wit and really comedic lines. I used a lot of different genre conventions to reinforce and challenge this, type of film.

The narrative of the main character accompanies the whole opening sequence.  This gives us someone to instantly trust, or at least think we do, and acts as a guide throughout the story.

I think the soundtrack, which is Beethoven’s moonlight sonata, really challenges the genre convention. I used this track to contrast the high-octane action and suspense with a much calmer, more peaceful soundtrack.  Giving the audience the sense that the main character has the situation under control, and is not at all nervous.

The use of shots, angles and composition were also really important to us in correctly portraying the crime genre conventions. To do this I used fast paced match on action to create the sense of being able to see more than the character in the scene, making us feel worried for him. I used a variety of different high angle shots, such as the one of the character walking from the car to the house, to show the lack of control the character has over the situation, which we noticed were very affective in the film reservoir dogs, when a hostage was being interrogated.  

I intended the editing in our piece to be very much seamless and smooth. Which generally challenges the very abrupt, and noticeable transitions of many British crime dramas.  A good example of the smooth transitions in the sequence is when the character is getting into his car and is about to drive off.