As said in the last post, our title sequence involves elements of four different genres: crime, drama, mystery and thriller. Since each drama is very distinct and complex on its own, my partner and I decided to split up the research. I was assigned crime and drama while my partner would do mystery and thriller, and we will then compile our research together to formulate the conventions of our own title sequence that would include aspects of all four.
Crime genre conventions:
As for the mise-en-scene of this genre, there are distinct characteristics for setting, lighting and costuming. The setting of crime movies is usually in banks, shops, jewellers, gang hiding spots, police stations, museums and homes. The costuming will usually portray the common character types of a lower class with poor or street clothing. The lighting is generally low-key and has shadows to produce the mystery aspect.
When editing crime movies, there are usually reverse shots placed throughout to represent flashbacks and the consequences of actions of what the character would have done if they hadn’t done said motions.
Cinematography techniques in crime movies include deep composition and shallow focus to show that there is a lot of chaos occurring, but only places the focus on one plane, either foreground, mid ground, or background. Long shots are also used to set the background and setting of the scene. Low and high angle shots are utilized to represent superiority and inferiority of certain characters. In this same line of thought, eye-level shots are used to portray equal importance of characters.
Crime movies actually have some common themes between them, usually making a statement about social status and the government system.
Into the Truth 