Media Language in My Film Opening

 This blog post contains the used combinations of technical elements in my film opening to create meaning. 

Scene 1: Bedroom Scene (Getting Ready)
	Technical Element: Camera => Tilt The film opening starts by showing a tilt of pictures and polaroid pictures of Cassie and her friends. As the audience sees this for the first time, this tells them a brief background of the character, they can know or assume that this is the character’s friends, this tells them about her lifestyle and implies that she is a social and outgoing person.
	Technical Element: Mise-En-Scene => Props The makeup scattered across the desk tells the audience more about Cassie’s personality, it implies that she cares about her appearance. The choice of pink items like the hairbrush, powder, and cushion foundation emphasizes femininity, it shows that she is vulnerable and innocent.
	Technical Element: Camera => Medium Shot  This scene shows a medium shot of Cassie getting ready for the party through her laptop camera’s point of view. The scene shows multiple clips of her putting her make-up on, implying to the audience that she is getting ready to go somewhere. There are also pictures of Cassie with her friends under the camera which shows that she has a lot of friends and is a very social person. This can tell the audience more about what her personality is going to be like. Technical Element: Sound => Diegetic Sound Upbeat music plays in the background, we used the song ‘Like a G6’ this is a pop song often associated with partying and fun. This implies that Cassie enjoys a lively lifestyle, which can be appealing to teenage preferences. Technical Element: Mise-en-Scene => Lighting The lighting is bright compared to typical thriller conventions where the lighting is lowkey. This allows the audience to feel a more positive energy and feel the excitement Cassie is feeling too.  The combination of technical elements makes the audience feel excited and engaged at first as it subverts to typical thriller films where the film starts with an uneasy feeling right away. This allows the audience to have a better plot twist later on in the film.
	Technical Element: Edit => Jump Cut This scene shows Cassie getting ready to leave after she receives a call from her friends. This scene uses a jump cut as the scene cuts into a few seconds later but still in the same scene. This can imply and tell the audience that she is in a rush.
	Technical Element: Sound => Non-Diegetic Sound The camera angle used to show this scene was a high angled over the shoulder shot. As a hand touched her shoulder, her upbeat music stopped and was replaced with a non-diegetic discordant sound effect.  The jump cut created a rushing feeling to the audience, then as the music stopped and the discordant sound was added, this created suspense and tension to the audience. This can then engage the audience’s feelings with the character.
Scene 2: Fighting Scene
	Technical Element: Camera => Medium Shot This scene shows Cassie and her mother having an argument. Her mother is shown in a medium shot to show her gestures and body language. This makes the argument more expressive making it easier for the audience to engage in the argument.  Technical Elements: Mise-en-Scene => Costume Mother’s appearance and clothing:  Hair clipped up => strict parental figure Wearing glasses => smart and intelligent Dressed in black => boringness and dullness The combination of both the camera and mise-en-scene emphasizes the mother’s character as a strict and controlling parental figure.
Scene 3: Party Scene
	Technical Element: Camera => Establishing Shot After Cassie storms out of her room, the scene cuts to a car parking. The use of an establishing shot shows that the next scene will be in a different location. This shows the audience that the scene is going to move to a different setting which means that Cassie is going to the party.
	Technical Element: Mise-en-Scene => Props During the party scene, the scene cuts to a clip of the drinks being consumed in the party. The mise-en-scene of alcohol bottles, gives a sense of rebellious and reckless activity to the audience, as the teenagers are drinking underage.
	Technical Elements: Sound => Diegetic Sound During the scene where someone puts a powdery substance into the drink, the party music fades away, this was used to highlight the problem and create an uneasy or suspenseful feeling to the audience.
	Technical Element: Camera => Long Shot + POV shot The long shot was used to show and emphasize on the characters movements and gestures. In this scene the long shot was used to show Cassie and her friend dancing in the party, this allows the audience to see the characters enjoyment in the party. The POV shot used was from a person’s phone recording the two character’s dancing.   We used the POV though instagram which is a social media platform often used by teenagers, this represents the conventions to teenagers to being very active on social media.
	Technical Element: Camera => Close-up + Dutch Angle  The close-up allows the audience to focus and understand the character’s facial expressions and what they’re feeling. A dutch angle is when the camera tilts during a close-up, this implies that the character shown is feeling dizzy or uneasy.  In this scene, the camera angles were used to show Cassie’s emotions after taking a sip of her drink. This emphasizes Cassie’s facial expressions allowing the audience to focus on it and engage in the scene.