Evaluate how your product used, developed or challenged the forms and conventions of real media products

Title (1)

• Hide and Seek – minimalistic. Fading white against black background. 
• Vertical stripes, looking as if they were lights streaming through blinds or in a wardrobe, like the idea that someone is hiding somewhere dark. 
• Appears after Ellie closes the cupboard door and turns off the light.
• Used silence – to give it that empty yet creepy feeling.
• Thin and capitalised – thin for the minimalistic effect, capitalised – similar to ‘Taken’, a film we have taken inspiration from for our plotline – but bigger compared to the credits – this is to enforce its importance.
• Simple animation: appear in a typewriting style, stretch and fade to black. Reason for doing this is because our film is on the serious side; we don’t want to have over-the-top animations and we wanted to keep it simple. Seen in other films of similar genre such as "What Lies Beneath'.

Credits (2)

• A HANISHA MISTRY Film – Similar to the title, white is more prominent compared to it.
• Appears after our ident.
• Uniform.
• Similar to the format to the title. Animation is simple.
• Used smaller fonts. So as not to take over the title.
• White against black background. Similar to ending credits in ‘Taken’.
• After the appearance of certain characters, the screen fades to black and their names will appear as it fades in. This is so the audience can know who’s playing who. 
• We decided to have a white text against a black background instead of just having it appear as the opening goes on because we felt that the background is too busy and that the credits may not be seen.
• Quite simple and unobtrusive in keeping with the genre.

Characters (3, 4)

• In the two-minute film opening, we have to establish the fact that the two sisters have a close relationship (apparent in exchange of dialogues and the high-five). This is vital because later in the film, it will show just how important Georgina is to Ellie.
• In psychological thrillers, the main character is usually in an unstable mental state of mind. They often have to deal with conflicts of their mind – their upsetting past; crimes they have witnessed and suppress; dealing and resolving with a restless memory; going on a journey, looking for unanswered questions from the past.
• Therefore we chose to have our main character, older Ellie (Gillian) having nightmares of her sister being kidnapped back when she was younger. Later on in the film, we will have older Ellie looking for answers to rest her troubled past.
• Most of the opening is in younger Ellie’s POV so she may be an unreliable witness – similar to Briony Tallis, a young girl (older than Ellie by a few years) in ‘Atonement’ so her memory could have been suppressing important information.
• Georgina acts as a careless teenager who opens the door without any precautions, leading to her kidnap.
• Casting Georgina: she had the appearance of a ‘hip’ teenager – short, stylish hair and trendy clothes.
• Casting younger Ellie: she had a stereotypical appearance of a sweet younger sister with a child-like face and cute fluffy, clothes.
• Casting older Ellie:  we had to make sure that they have something in similar so the audience can tell that they are the same person but in different stages of their lives. Both Ellie and Gillian have a long brown hair with a slender frame.
• Use of younger versions of actress shows importance of past events which is very typical in our genre.

Mise-en-scene (5, 6, 7 and 8)

• Kidnapping takes place at home, this means that the kidnapper either knows Georgina or stalking her. House is large and brightly lit, this suggests that the sisters belong to a rich family. This implies that kidnapping or any form of a traumatic event can take place anywhere, even in the safest place you know. This is slightly similar to the hostage situation that takes place in Bruce Willis’ ‘Hostage’. 
• Georgina’s room is chic, has some stuffed toys on the bed and has a very nice layout. This represents a fashionable teenager’s stereotypical room.
• Older Ellie’s room is darker and colder. We chose it this way because we want it to appear like she woke up in the middle of the night.
• The costumes asked to be worn are clothes suitable and often stereotypical of their age.
• Older Ellie’s costume is a pair of pyjamas, to create a sense of media realism as people in films tend to wake up in the middle of nightmares.
• The actor who played the kidnapper had a hoodie on to conceal his identity. Hoodies have the reputation of being worn by youths who occasionally get into trouble or ‘chavs’.
• Usually, films in our genre have cold and dark lighting throughout the film: ‘Don’t Say a Word’ and ‘Shutter Island’ respectively. We broke the convention by having bright and warm lighting throughout the memory but we would plan to use dark and cold lighting throughout the whole film after that sequence.
• Props such as magazines and paperwork are spread out on top of the bed to show that Georgina is easily identifiable as a student – this is an easy way to portray her as a teenager.
• The most important prop is the photo frame of the happy sisters, young Ellie and Georgina. Like a close-up of an object (tape) in ‘Stuart: A Life Backwards’, it shows that it is very important. When older Ellie looks at it just after a nightmare, it shows that she still remembers and thinks of her sister and it relaxes her.

Camera Work (8 and 9)

• We used two-shots and over the shoulder shots as we wanted to show that they are both important and that they have a close relationship. 
• In one two-shot, it almost seems like an edge of the frame shot – which suggests distance between characters – but they lean towards each other which shows a stereotypical sibling relationship: although they may sometimes fight, in the end they still love each other.
• When younger Ellie looks for a place to hide, we have unusual shots such as inside the cupboard when she looks in, a shot from above on the banister depicts her playfulness.
• High angle shots such as the one from the banister or the one behind her when she hides behind the table looks like someone is looking down on her and it captures how small and vulnerable she is.
• Georgina has almost as much screen time as Ellie has, but gets kidnapped. This is similar because in ‘Taken’, the daughter had a lot of screen time in the beginning, but was missing throughout the whole film and her father is looking for her.
• We took inspiration from this and will have older Ellie looking for Georgina throughout the whole film, and whatever may happen to Georgina, the audience will sympathise with her because of her earlier screen time.
• As the opening is supposed to be a memory, it is mostly in younger Ellie’s POV. The POV shot of her looking at her sister getting kidnapped is shot under the table and is moving slightly up and down to make it seem like she’s breathing heavily. This is similar to the scene in ‘Don’t Say a Word’ in which a young daughter witnesses assailants pushing her father on the train tracks and killing him. The use of a POV shot can make audiences empathise and see what is going on through a distressed child’s eyes.
• We also show a close-up of her face as she sees what is going on. Her face displays emotions of helplessness and this causes the audience to sympathise with her. 
• When older Ellie wakes up, the camera pans to the left as she reaches out to the photo frame. The use of this technique makes it look smooth and it seems like it’s routine for her.

Editing (2 and 5)

• We used ellipsis as the sisters high five at the door so it would make sense that time has passed before Georgina is seen up in her bedroom and younger Ellie makes her way upstairs. We did this by fading in and out to black; as we did so, we also added the actors’ names.
• Other times when it fades in and out, the title and credits appear, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an ellipsis.
• We used cutaways during the scene where younger Ellie witnesses her sister being kidnapped. We did this by switching from a close-up of her face to her POV shot.
• We used a dissolve to show the transition from the dream to reality to make it easily distinguishable.

Sound (3, 4 and 7)

• The dialogue at the beginning between the mother and her children is light and caring. This gives the audience the impression that they are a close family. Georgina makes sure that her mother has everything so she wouldn’t come back in case she has people coming over. The children saying their goodbyes to their mother at the door is similar to Cady Heron in ‘Mean Girls’ saying goodbye and waving to her parents as they drive off – she does this to make sure they’re gone before she has other people coming over.
• The exchange of dialogue between the two sisters is casual and stereotypical of siblings – the older one lightly tells off the younger before deciding to go through with her games.
• Before Georgina goes down to answer the door, her dialogue has been added in post-production because we felt that it was too quiet and the dialogue doesn’t seem right. 
• As the dream dissolves into reality, we overlapped younger Ellie shouting, ‘Georgina, no!’ with older Ellie shouting it as she slowly wakes up and younger Ellie’s voice slowly fades out. We used this technique to give the feeling that Ellie’s nightmares creeps and still haunts her after many years.