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

Title: Bitter Youth 

 This title was chosen because it creates ambiguity for the viewer as it has nothing to do with what is shown in the opening sequence. Originally however, we were going to add small flashbacks that the stalker would have of himself as a child with the girl he is stalking. This would uncover the fact that his obsession with 'Sammie' had been going on since he was a child, and it would also uncover how he was mistreated by other children. But we decided to take this out so that the viewer was left with more to decipher.

Setting/location

Our opening sequence is set in a cellar/basement and a church. These are very common conventions of the psychological thriller genre because they both give an eerie and an unsettling feeling. We started with Sammie going into a church because it was a form of emphasising her purity and innocence. The use of religion is a typical thriller convention and has been used in films like 'The Omen' because it suggests that good is going to be challenged and the innocent are going to be victims of evil. We originally wanted to use a cathedral like 'The Omen' but due to technical difficulties, this could not be done. Her location is a great contrast to the stalker's location which is his basement or cellar, instantly suggesting that it is a hidden room and that he tries to cover up his mental disability. The fact that it is secluded from the rest of humanity also links to thriller conventions.

Costume and props 
Sammie is first introduced with a pastel pink coloured top that again suggests her gentle nature and her stereotypical girly personality. Her black pumps and plain black leggings emphasise her simplicity as a person and the fact that her character is very natural.
Contrasting her, the stalker wears a plain baggy, black t-shirt, trainers and jeans. His simplicity and lack of fashion suggests he doesn't care about his looks (he's careless) and his character instantly sticks out from the rest of society. 
Our main prop was the board in which the stalker has accumulated a montage of pictures of Sammie that showed that he had been stalking her for quite a while. We also used a polaroid image that was blank and that he eagerly shakes; this represents his struggle for the love of Sammie. 

Camera work and editing
The whole of the first half of the opening sequence is in the stalker's point of  view and this is clear with the hand held camera. We also chose to simulate his blinks so that the viewer could feel like they were actually in the scene. This idea was taken from the film 'Enter The Void' as we thought it made the point of view shots more realistic. When he is stalking Sammie inside the church, we chose to have different angles of him seeing her as she is sat looking at the alter and praying so that we could see his desperation and the agile skills that he has learnt over the years. There is a part where she looks back and the camera turns as though it was him looking inconspicuous. 

In the editing process we decided to use many blurs as this would suggest his blurring vision that is a result of his ongoing obsession for Sammie; this is commonly used in psycho thrillers to highlight the mind orientated subject. We also used a voice over at the end so that we could again, gain more insight into what he was thinking and also took inspiration from another psycho thriller 'Fight Club'. 

Title, font and style

Our fonts are either black or white, which link back to his black and white mind twitches and also relate to the theme of good vs evil; the white is Sammie's purity and the black is the stalker's dark mind. We used a simple font because of the complexity of the mis-en-scene making it too much if our titles were  more extravagant. Also, the simplicity mirrors the simplicity of the costumes of both of the characters. However, our last 'directed by' titles were done using stop motion while still following the black and white theme to mirror the newspaper article cuttings he has of Sammie in one of the shots.

Story and how the opening sets it up

Bitter Youth tells the story of a troubled boy that falls in love with a girl when they are only children. As they grow up, they begin to grow apart and he begins to develop an obsession for her and takes pictures to put in a basement in his house that is dedicated to her. Sammie, the girl, being pretty and popular, has lots of friends and is a stereotypically perfect person. The stalker (who's name we never really established) gradually begins to kill off all her loved ones and appears in all their funerals as a 'distant friend'. At the end he asks her out for a coffee and she agrees as she is completely oblivious to what he's done and only wants some comforting for all the deaths she has had to go through. The film would have ended like that, with a cliff hanger to follow the ambiguity of psycho thrillers.
It is pretty clear from our opening that a girl is being stalked as he follows her into a church and takes a picture of her. We then see how he has many pictures of her in a abasement that suggests he is not right in the head and could be willing to take his actions further.

Genre and how the opening suggests it 

Our genre is firstly clearly portrayed with our story line which suggests that there are psychological elements involved. The whole idea of a stalker is quite disturbing and instantly comes across as a thriller without being confused with horror. In the basement, the stalker acts unnaturally by stroking images and kissing images suggesting a mental disorder. In one part he smears red pen on her forehead making the audience think that his obsession has gone so out of control that he would rather she die than not be with him. However this action is merely a glitch of his illness where he imagines that he is smearing his blood on her in order to be closer to her. The confusion this creates, links to the conventions of psycho thrillers. We used a very soothing and calm diagetic 'ave maria' playing in the church to link to good vs evil in contrast with the dramatic music that is played in the basement, showing it's genre as it creates a creepy atmosphere.
The setting, as I mentioned before is also very stereotypical of the genre because they are commonly used in psycho thrillers. 

How characters are introduced
The stalker is first introduced with a close up of his eye, suggesting that the viewer is going to have an insight into his thoughts and that he is going to be the main focus of the film as he is the first character that is shown. Yet, he is firstly fully shown (no face involved) when he walks into the basement and his strange physicality is shown. Sammie on the other hand, is introduced as the victim when she is walking into the church and the viewer instantly grasps the fact that she is a good and likeable character.

Special effects

We edited certain sections so that the screen is flipped for a split second in black and white (some shots are just simply in black and white without being flipped), again portraying his insanity and lack of sleep causing him to see things. We also alternated the pace of the sequence by going really fast and then slowing down in certain parts to relate too the themes of disorganisation, manic, and loss of control. This could also represent the fact that his mind is like a roller coaster.