Homecoming Official Opening Sequence

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

Evaluation Question 1 from Chris Himathongkom

Here, I produced a presentation using Keynote and exported it into powerpoint. In this presentation, I compared my thriller opening with an existed film, as well as other products such as video games. 

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

In our thriller opening sequence "Homecoming", we used different technical areas from mise-en-scene, sound, editing and camera techniques to achieve the representations of age and gender. We did this by representing the negative stereotype of a teenage boy as it matches the expectation of reality.

We achieved this by using mise-en-scene as one of the main component by showing the house as being really messy and not being well taken care of. We did this by firstly putting a pile of unopened mails in the front step, representing the age of a teenager as not being very responsible as well as the gender of male to be more untidy. The mails also created tension and gives the audience hints of time passing as there are many mails from different date throughout the week which haven't been looked at which suggests to the audience that he is unable to check the mail. The cereal bowl shows that he as a teenager leaves stuff around the house in addition to the tobacco being spread onto the picture shows a negative stereotype of teenager being rebel and unresponsible. The dirty uncleaned dishes in the sink and the left-opened fridge represents the age and gender of him not being very hygienic which is a negative stereotype of young men. The shoes being left around in the house shows negative representation of him as being untidy which meets the expectation of a normal typical teenage boy. The picture frames around the house shows the mise-en-scene of a normal happy middle class family. This is a positive stereotype of a family as it shows them as being close since a long time ago which shows that there was no divorce or separation in the family. There were also childhood pictures which shows that the family has quite a strong bond in between them. The pots of paint around the house shows the house as being renovated. This is a stereotype of men as men tends to do all the labour tasks in the family while women does other things. The final murder scene shows the body wearing a low-waisted tight jeans with boxers which is a stereotype of young teenage boy. 

We used sound to represent the age and gender in this opening sequence by adding answerphone messages from his family members and girlfriend as well as the dentist appointment. The first message was from an operator at a dentist which is a girl. This is a stereotype as most of the operators for big companies are usually female as they have softer and more manipulative voice. The second message was from the character’s mother telling him to look after the house and not have any party. This is a positive stereotype of age and gender as the mother is usually very protective over the children and very uptight. The fact that she told him not to have any party suggests that the character likes to party a lot and getting drunk which is a negative stereotype of young male. The first message from the girlfriend was a negative stereotype of young teenage girl as it shows her being clingy and very over-protective. It also shows the stereotype of women having to call the men which suggests men as being higher in status which is a stereotype. The fact that he missed the date with her shows a negative stereotype of men being less responsible as he forgot the date. The message from the dad shows a stereotype of male being more laid back than the women. The fact that the mom was worried shows a negative representation of women as overthinking a lot while the dad is more chilled out. The last message from the girlfriend gave a negative representation of a teenage girl as she was getting mad and overthinking that he liked someone else which is a stereotype of women to be very sensitive about their partner cheating which leads to overthinking, suggesting that she is the overly-attached type of girlfriend.

In the editing section, we decided to minimise editing as much as possible therefore the audience can focus more on the objects around the house as well as the answerphone messages. We tried to stabilise the footage using warp-stabiliser to remove the handheld motion of the shot but in the end we decided that it would look better with the handheld effect as it represents the stereotype of teenager being more active rather than middle-aged business man which is more responsible and consistent which then we would have used the stabiliser to create the ‘consistent’ effect. On the last scene of the murder, we decided to slowly zoom-out from the birds-eye-view shot of the dead body to show clearer settings of how the body is gushed with blood, representing the stereotype of age and gender of teenager boy being more violent.

For camera angles, we came to a conclusion to use a one-shot take throughout the whole establishing shot of the opening sequence. This is to show the mise-en-scene of the house without the audience being interrupted by cuts to represent the negative stereotype of a young teenage boy being really messy and untidy. The last shot of the birds-eye-view of the dead body represents the character as being over-powered and having less power in society as the shot is looking down towards the body, showing the stereotype of teenager being lower in society than the working age, giving a negative representation to the character.

Evaluation Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Part 1 (based on the film idea as a whole):


Lionsgate Films is a California-based independent film production and distribution company. It is one of the most successful film studio in North America. The company is strong on horror and  it mostly focuses on foreign and independent films.







Lionsgate Films pros: Thriller is one of Lionsgate Films. These thriller films are usually dark and tense which turns out to be really successful. These components are also included in our thriller, making it even more reasonable for Lionsgate to distribute our film.

Lionsgate Films Audience: most of the audience of Lionsgate Film are teenagers in which fits in perfectly with the target audience for our thriller. One of the most successful film they have produced is American Psycho which won 5 awards and 8 nominees. The most popular scene is the murder scene which the main character murdered his victim with an axe, guttering and splashing blood all around the room while all the furnitures in the room were covered in white sheet as it was being renovated. This is similar to our thriller opening sequence which means that the company might be interested in our film.



Part 2 (based on the budget)

Slingshot Studio is a British distribution company founded in 2006 by Arvind Ethan David and Arts Alliance Ventures. It produces and distributes low-budget British movies which had been all shot digitally. The company raised private equity , strategic multi-picture investment from public bodies such as BBC Films or UK Film Councils.

They would distribute our film as they focuses more on low-budget movies in which our thriller would have extremely low budget. They distributed films such as Tormented (2009) and Sugarhouse (2007) which are both thrillers, suggesting that they may be interested in distributing our film.

Evaluation Question 4: What would be the audience for your media products? (Interviews)

Here i carried out an interview to find out the exact target audience for my thriller. I asked them questions about their favourite genre of films, their age, what they expect to see in a thriller and whether they would want to go watch the thriller that I made after i explained the rough plot to them.

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

I did some research into the target audience, considering their age and their favourite genres of film as well as the things they expect to see in a thriller and found the result as follow:

From the interview, I found that most of the audience that would be interested to see my thriller are from the age of 17-19. This is because the plot of the movie fits with teenager's interest as they can personally relate to the situation due to the same social class and age. The thriller interests this age group as it could happen to them which makes it more relatable than different age groups

Evaluation Question 5: How did you attract/address your audiences? (Script)

Uses and Gratifications Theory- a media product has to fulfil specific pleasure to its audience (Bulmer & Katz 1974)

-Identity: main character is a teenage boy in which matches our target audience as it is relatable to them

-Entertain: there is a tension build-up which leads to climatic ending which brings escapism to the audience, focusing their minds on the plot and forget their worries temporarily.

-Social Interaction: the opening sequence creates a debate whether who killed the character or how he was killed, this produced a topic of conversation between other people.

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Settings: typical middle-class house which appeal to our target audience of teenagers as they all still live in the same house with their parents and for a teenage boy being home alone while parents are on vacation are quite common, making it relatable to the audience.

Narrative: The story is about a violent murder of a teenage boy in his own home, with the teenage boy lying dead being the main and only visible character in the opening sequence. We also used other narrative devices such as the a pile of unopened letters to suggests that time has passed as well as the non-diegetic sound of mom getting worried after her first call, also suggests that time has passed.

We aim to appeal our thriller opening sequence to late teenagers as they can relate to the character and show them that this could happen to any of them.

We didn't include any music in order for the audience to focus the most on the answerphone messages and the music may interrupt it.

We put in the credit titles so that the audience may be able to identify the actor/actress or director that they like, in which attract the audience to come see the full film.

We decided to use a 1-shot sequence to prevent the interaction between the audience and the mise-en-scene around the house from being distracted, this also shows a specific style in which is new and may attract new audiences

Thriller has its own specific convention, one of which is tension building and climatic ending. We achieved this in our thriller by using variety of answerphone messages to give the impression that he haven't been replying lately, hinting something may have happened to him. We also used the mies-en-scene around the house showing stuff being dirty and out of place, suggesting that the house has not been taken care of for a period of time. This builds the tension for the last climatic scene, showing the dead body on the bed in which is a convention of thrillers.

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

Evaluation Question 6: What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Here we added annotations to the youtube video to explain the technology we used throughout the thriller.

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

Post Production- Editing

Editing refers to the post-production process of making a film. It allows us compose different clips into one timeline creating a sequence. This process involves cutting raw footage into manageable chunks and putting together out of these different shots from different angles. It also allows us to put credit titles into the clip as well as adding sound effects to create atmosphere and mood throughout the piece.

The program we used was Adobe Premiere which is a composition/editing software. It allows us to edit any clips that we import into. What it does is that it has a timeline in which we can put all of our different shots into to create one seamless sequence. We can add sound, titles and effects as well to achieve what we're trying to make. Before we started editing, we need to decide on many decisions such as whether to still stick to our '1 shot' sequence where the whole opening sequence is left into 1-shot as the way it was shot or whether we should cut from objects to objects as the 1-shot may not look that good due to unstableness and shakiness of the camera. We, together as a group, made the decision to stick with the 1 shot sequence as it would be more unique and more challenging to make them look professional. We also needed to decide whether to stabilise the footage or not and the colour-grading whether to add it in or leave it as it is.

In the editing process, I was in charge of the credit titles, putting together different shots and make sure that the continuity was perfect, adding textures to the sequence such as the zooming out of the last scene and the fading of the title. I had to make sure that all the credit titles shows up at the right time which doesn't interfere with what was going on in the sequence. I also had to make sure that the focus of the audience stays on the answerphone messages and  the objects in the scene and not the titles. All of this had been done in the editing suite allocated by my teacher. We assigned different tasks for each person in our group, for example one person is responsible for the soundtrack and sound effects etc.

On our first editing session, we put the raw footage into the timeline and roughly putting in place on what goes where. We used the selection tool to select clips in the timeline and move it to where we want to. We also used the track selection tool when we need to select more than one clip at a time to move it so that it fits with the sound effects. While cutting each clip, we used the zoom tool to make sure that the point we cut each footage is absolutely accurate so that the continuity would be perfect. We used the hand tool to move around the timeline so that we can select different points to make changes to or cut. We also used the razor tool to cut a clip into 2 different clips when we wanted to extend a particular moment of the shot.

Due to the shakiness of the camera when the sequence was being shot, we decided to use warp stabiliser effect in our sequence. This effect basically allows us remove unwanted camera movement from the footage such as wobbly handheld shots. To achieve this we need to analyse the footage as well as render it so that the footage plays smoothly as possible.

From this editing process, I learned how to use basic tools in Adobe Premiere such as the selection tool and hand tool as well as the more advanced tools like the razor tool. I also learned the process of adding titles and selecting different fonts/sizes to suit the sequence. I also learned how to add effects such as transition of videos and other components such as the zooming in between one shot and another or zooming out. These skills has helped me to be able to edit my own personal work and allows me to perfect the thriller opening sequence as I have learned to use the software properly and effectively.