The genre that our opening scene will be is a thriller, since it contains violence, gore and action. If we were to say it had a sub-genre, I would probably say it was a crime-thriller, as it is about the FBI agent, and there is even crime in the opening scene. I am going to pick a range of media products that either share the same genre, or if I can find some, the same sub-genre as our opening title sequence.
Firstly, I am going to pick a film that is also a crim-thriller. The film that I am going to analyse and compare to our opening scene is The Little Things .
This film was directed by John Lee Hancock, and released on the 16th of April 2021, and was produced by Warner Bros Studios. From what I can tell in the trailer, there are 3 main characters in the film: the main police officer, his boss, and the suspect. Our opening scene also consists of 3 main characters (the murderer, the FBI agent and the victim). Another similarity is that in the scenes where it is intense and the killer may be around, it is very dark and has quite sinister undertones, which is what we would like to convey in our opening scene, like that part in the trailer where he is looking in the suspects car, and is asking about the space in the boot.
What I gathered from the trailer of the movie, is that a recurring theme in the film is that the police officer perhaps isn’t giving the respect or the time of day to put his points and ideas about the case across, and can’t seem to prove his ability to his superiors, which is quite similar to the original idea that we had in place for our FBI agent (a woman who isn’t respected by her colleagues, but is still the best agent on the force). I was interested to see if there were any editing or camera techniques within the scene that I think might be good to incorporate in our opening scene, and so I picked a specific scene from the film and watched it to find out.
I really like the use of the mid shot on the police officers face whilst he is reversing, but considering our opening scene doesn’t contain any cars, it wouldn’t be that useful to us. One shot that I really liked was the mid shot through the windshield on the suspects face before he turns to speak to the police officer, as you can really see how deranged he looks. This is something that we could incorporate into our scene.
In terms of editing, this scene from the film has quite long shots, which we may use at the start of the opening scene whilst the FBI agent is still searching the building, but I think we would want to speed it up whilst she is searching for the murderer and for when she finds him, as it will building up intensity in the scene. There are quite a few differences between our opening scene and the film I have chosen, for example in our scene it is a female FBI agent, whereas in the film, it looks to be a male detective or police officer. Our FBI agent is also going to be dressed more like the police officers’ boss in the film than the police officer, as she will be wearing a suit as oppose to a uniform. Ours will also be set in the UK, as oppose to LA, and will be based mostly inside.
The next media product that I am going to analyse is a thriller TV show called Who killed Sara. The first episode was released on the 24th of March 2021 by Netflix, directed by David Ruiz Barnardo de la Rosa.
Since this is a thriller TV series and doesn’t contain many police officers (judging from the trailer), the similarities between our opening scene and this series may be limited, but this may work as an advantage, as it may provide some inspiration. One similarity, however, is that both our opening scene and this series are based around a murder, but the difference is the murder in our opening scene was an attempt at murder that happened in the present, whereas in the series, it happened a long time ago. Again, this series has quite dark undertones judging from the trailer, which is what we would like to convey in our opening scene.
However, it seems that the similarities stop there. There are far more characters in the series than in our opening scene, and a few of them are of a different nationality. Also, one huge difference is that the enemy or villain in the series is wearing a suit and is much better dressed than the main character who is getting revenge, which is entirely the opposite to ours, as the main character (the FBI agent) is wearing a suit, but the murderer is very poorly dressed.
This also seems to be set somewhere in North or South America, and the theme of their series is revenge, whereas ours is just the FBI agent doing her job and killing the murderer. This shows that there is quite a big difference between our opening scene and this TV series that I selected.
The next media product that I am going to choose is a crime thriller video game. The video game Battlefield Hardline, which was released on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and other gaming platforms on the 17th of March 2015. It was developed by Visceral Games and published by Electronic Arts. The director was Ian Milham.
This game has multiplayer and campaign modes that you can select from. The campaign allows you to be a police officer in California and Florida. I played the first part of this campaign when I was younger, and it entailed going into a house and searching it for any illegal substances, and then taking the people in when the substances where found. This is very similar to our opening scene, as it is literally police officers searching a house, but the difference is, ours is an FBI agent, and she’s searching for a murder instead of drugs. Here is the trailer for the game, as it shows the different game modes, and the campaign. I have also shown the first scene in the campaign in which I played, and some of the multiplayer gameplay.
There are many similarities between this video game and our opening scene. For example, it shows the police officers in the campaign searching through the house. Also, one of the maps on the multiplayer campaign is a house, and you play as both the police officer and the criminals.
However, the general tone and theme of the video game seems to differ from our opening scene. The video game presents itself as a media product that revolved almost entirely around the guns and perhaps a little bit of drug usage, which is far from the case in our opening scene. It also shows bigger showdowns, with a large amount of police officers infiltrating an area with a large number of criminals, which is very different from our one FBI agent and our one murderer.
Also, the location is very different again, as ours is in Southern UK, whereas this is in Western USA for the most part. There is also a huge amount of characters in the video game and a very small amount in our opening scene, showing that there is quite a big difference between the two.
For my next media product comparison, I am going to choose another thriller TV series called Line of Duty released in June 2012. It was produced by World Productions and was directed by Jed Mercurio.
From the series 1 trailer that I watched, there seem to be a lot of similarities with our opening scene and this TV series. For example, there is a lot of female representation in the police force, which is what we have tried to show in our opening scene by making the FBI agent female. Also, the criminals are poorly dressed, look scrappy and scary which is how we want our murderer to look (just without the balaclava that they wear in the series).
Also, it is set in the UK, and it looks like it is set in London, which is not far away from where we will be shooting our opening scene. However, there are also quite a few differences between our opening scene and this TV series. Firstly, there didn’t seem to be a lot of blood or gore, and so it was almost more of a crime-drama than a crime-thriller. Another point to back this up is that within the trailer there was a hint that there was a rogue police officer within the precinct, which draws away from the thriller and more towards the drama. One thing that I really liked from the trailer, however, was that there were quite a few close ups on characters faces to show their true emotions, which is something that I think would be vital to replicate in our opening scene.
Also, the fast-editing shots to intensify the trailer is something that we have thought of doing in our opening scene as it goes on. Since this TV series had quite a few seasons, I am also going to analyse the series 6 trailer and compare it to our opening scene, to see if the show has changed.
Again, the representation of female roles is a huge similarity between our opening scene and the series trailer, which isn’t something that I have noticed in any of the other media products that I have compared. There are no big changes to compare, as the season 6 trailer was very similar to the season 1 trailer. I think this series is quite similar to ours but leans more towards the drama side than to the thriller side, and we would really like to present our opening scene as a thriller.
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