Examples of genre conventions

    Having established our genre and identified certain conventions of such genre, I have decided to view certain examples where these conventions are present, and how we could use them in our film opening.

- "Orphan" (2009) -

This psychological thriller is based on an orphan girl who is adopted by a family in the United States, she is originally from a mental ward for children in the Ukraine. This film focuses on the metal health issues this orphan faces and her journey with assimilating with her adopting family. The tone of the film is dark and mysterious, similar to the actions and appearance of the orphan girl.

This tone is achieved with set design, costume design, and editing. The dark monochromatic color scheme present in the set and costumes can be juxtaposed, and therefore are emphasized in contrast with lighter colors and lighting as seen outdoors, in the hospital scenes, and in the car.

This juxtaposition is also evident with the dark "filter" used by editing the film and having a darker look, specifically when showing the orphan girl, particularly towards the ending of the film when darker subjects arise.

Our team looks forward to incorporating these techniques when producing our film opening as it will aid in the development of our tone and subsequently, the story. We plan on using close-ups, low-key lighting, fast paced editing, dark monochromatic color schemes, and a specific design for costumes.

- "Toc Toc" (2017)

"Toc Toc" is a Spanish film based on OCD, potentially the disorder our story will focus on. This film is quite different from a thriller, as it is comedic but overall has a unique way in presenting this psychological disorder.

The opening of the film features a montage of a character's OCD fixations as they are arriving to a clinic for therapy. As more characters arrive in a waiting room, each get to know each other and finally work together to figure out and disrupt their fixations. This lighthearted film introduces the mental disorder by the details of a person's fixations, while contributing to the storyline.

On the artistic attributes this film maintains an orange-brown and blue monochromatic color scheme which is symbolic of the situation the characters find themselves including the environments and acts to emphasize certain character's details on fixations.

This film also features many close-ups to the characters and small details which draw attention and are used for symbolism. Although the reasoning for the technical use is to serve a separate type of film, the same technique along with set design and other elements of mise-en-scene can act to draw attention to certain details, act for symbolism, and aid in introducing certain elements of storytelling, specifically as we are attempting to introduce the conflict a character faces with their own mental disorder.

Ultimately, we can utilize elements of costume design, color, set design, and camera movements to aid in the presentation of our mental disorder in a manner which follows genre conventions, and act centripetally to our storyline.