Easy listening Songs:
Lykke Li - Possibility
Fleetfoes-white winter hymnal
The xx?
Islands

Pop/rock Songs:
Plastic Bertrand - Ca Plane Pour Moi- no video available
lost prophets where we belong -

Dance/Electronica
Crystal Castles
Celestica -

Ancillary texts

Amy Mc Donald.

This popular Scottish artist arrived in the top 3 of our music charts in Christmas 2007, with her single 'this is the life' following this you may have recognised another of her popular songs 'Poison Prince' Which as a group we were contemplating using as our song choice for the music video task, because of it's upbeat rhythm and its folky undertones. However the song didn't have the kind of texture to it that we wanted, when creating our first music video, and so it not going to be used. However it is useful to look at her website, to help us when we create ours, as we will be working with a similar genre.

When looking at her website http://www.amymacdonald.co.uk/gb/home/ we can see that the colour scheme complements her pop indie/folk genre: a mellow creamy, grey, and black. A conventional photo of the artist blended onto the home page. Clear font matches the blurry photograph edges. Generally, neat and clear, with easy access to useful links including: News, Music, Live, Biographys, Galleries, Videos, Lyrics, Music store, Merchandise, Mailing list, and forum. Everything a fan would want to know about this artist available under one roof. Throughout these links the style and aethetics all match, with plenty of photos or videos of the artist round every corner. The page even comes with 8 discreet links to pages of the artist in other languages, catering for a multitude of fans. There are also links to highly popular platforms such as Fackbook, bebo, ilike and more.

All these things combined makes for a highly sucessful webpage. We can learn alot from such a good example.

Postmodernism.

THE MIGHTY BOOSH

I chose to analyse the Mighty boosh simply because i love it.its funny, its uptodate, the songs are -in my opinion- clever and incredibly catchy, and above all its as random as it can possibly get

This halarious comedy tv series by the BBC also icludes near enough everything postmodernism should be: very hyper concious - the sets and props don't hide the fact they're made out of cardboard or that the moon is a man with cream on his face, Eclectic there are identifiable references to other influences especially within their songs , which is similar to another post modern comedy show 'flight of the conchords', narcissisic everything vince and howard do are narcissistic just listen to their lines, a little nostalgic this refers to the eclectisim they celebrate past influences, it acts against modernism nothing within the show is predictable or conventional, includes parody again the eclectisim, very intertextual vince and Mick jagger, an active audience they are expecting that the audience will recognise their references to other texts.

Within Strinati's conventions of postmodernism, the mighty boosh includes:

The breakdown of the distiction between high art and popular culture: The two characters howard moon and vince noir represent the battle between high art and popular culture, howard enjoys jazz while vince likes the rolling stones, howard dresses more conventionally while vince dresses in feather boas track suits and crazy hats. This friendship between the two blurs the lines as the two can be very similar, and are constantly together. they defy class differences between high art and popular cuture and throw them under one roof.

The breakdown of the distiction between society and culture: The two characters are based upon the actors themselves.as the clip says 'howard and vince are probably 10% exaggeration when we first started to write we thought "ah well lets just be ourselves" (noel) was obsessed with clothes, stupid haircuts; julian was obsessed with jazz, nabokov, and playing hamlet.' we can never be sure while watching, how much is the actors and how much is character.

The decline of the meta narrative: nothing in the program, hints at following a meta narrative such as religion, marksism or anything of the sort. quite the opposite, the characters live by thier own passions such as jazz and Mick Jagger. creating a sense of hyper reality within the program as well as intertextuality.
Confusions over time and space: we are contantly loosing ourselves within the show, even at the begining we hear the narrator say 'come with us now on a journey through time and space' we have no idea when its set, and where howard and vince are on thier adventures.
Emphasis of style over substance: Vince is a character compleatly representative of style over substance, 'what are you bringing to the table vince?' 'well right off the batt i'd say style' he's constantly changing his surroundings or his dress to suit his style, with no consideration of substance or meaning. This is usually when howard becomes jealous and fails himself. the mightmere of milky joe is a classic example. The Mighty Boosh appears to commend style over substance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQGjuUyK95c&feature=list_related&list=SL&playnext=1

Valkyrie- textural Analysis.

Directed by Bryan Singer Written by Chris Mc Quarrie and Nathen Alexander

When i researched thriller into IMDB the name that came up was Valkyrie. It is a very popular film and although perhaps not immediatly thought of as a thriller it certainly holds the conventions: trying to destroy the plans of a villain, torture or violence, hero, heroine, this film 'thrills' its audience and includes questions such as 'what did the colonel do wrong?' 'where are they?' etc.

2 mins into opening: we see German writing that is then translated into english this happens twice one saying 'this is based on a true story' the other 'Valkyrie' but in different fonts. We then hear men shouting promises in German but we don't see them we see only the words they speak translated onto a red faded and moving background which turns into a corner of the swastika.
next we have a pan moving from right to left from the weeks of an army truck and subtitles inclosing the devision and where they are based. the pan continues onto army tents, and we hear German voice over. English subtites appear below. Fade out and into the inside of the tent where we see actor Tom Cruise dimly lit by a gas lamp writing at a desk in full army gear.This shot is side on half shaded by the tent curtain. Close up of gas lamp, the voice over and subtitles continue. Close up of fountain pen writing onto what we assume to be a diary...or perhaps letter? the light flickers on it. Mid shot left side filled with subject and right with desk. over his shoulder we see the night and some men unloading things from the truck we previously saw. Extreme close up of hand paning onto his face. The voice over language is now fading from German into English and the subtites have stopped. His monologue was about his and others defiance towards Hitler.

From first cut to final.

As you can hopefully see, there are many differences between our first cut and our final. Most noticably the music. (check out Ren's blog for more details) We also added little inserts of clicking noises that contrast with the silence, exaggerating the false pretense of being home alone. One other music addition was adding an undertone to the villain's appearence to make it clear who he is. The editing has had nips and tucks to make continuity as good as possible.Sorry its taken so long to upload this, we've had a few problems with internet steaming, and navigating round youtube. thankyou for your patience. you can also find the first cut version on youtube.

The Facade first cut

Textual Analysis: The Secret Window:

The Secret Window:

The film begins with a close up on the character's face as he sits in his car. We then hear his thoughts as his conscious argues with himself. The camera then pulls out and we can see that he is it a motel and goes into a room with a couple sleeping together. Some music then rises in volume as their voices fade out as they scream at each other. The camera then pulls out to give us an establishing shot of the motel rooms. This scene builds tension very well as the audience are full of questions: Why did he go back? Was the woman his wife? The scene then fades into the next one of a camera flying over the ocean as the title's roll up. This opening is very effective as it does not give away too much of the story before the film really starts to begin and this is a theme that we, Hannah and I, have tried to do with our Thriller opening.

Our Soundtrack: Explained

Hannah and I had a lot of trouble making the music to accompany our film and spent a lot of time on it. Around halfway through editing our film, we decided it was time to compose a soundtrack to our film on the "Garageband" software on the Mac's at school. After around a week of experimenting and testing, Hannah and I were still not completely satisfied with the results and decided to start over again. Hannah then suggested that we use the new "Garageband 10" software on her friends laptop so we could choose from a different and greater variety of music for our film. So over the weekend she composed and recorded the music and downloaded it onto her USB and brought it into school. On first hearing, I will admit that I was sceptical that it would successfully fit our opening properly yet after careful editing, I soon discovered that Hannah had put a great lot of effort into the music and it suited the film perfectly. The soft choral music is very haunting and reflects the "quiet before the storm" to quote a fellow classmate's opinion. The music lulls the audience into a false sense of calm before the thriller/horror element of the film takes over and this exaggerates it and helps to build tension. Overall, I am very happy with the soundtrack to our film and believe though it may appear unorthodox at first, it is very effective and suits our film perfectly.

our thriller opening final cut.

Director study.

Quentin Tarantino.

Quentin Tarantino became a famous American director through his hit film Resevoir Dogs, though he also works alot as an actor, writer, cinematographer and producer. Born in Tenessee he and his mother moved to Los Angeles where he spent his time making cheap films with his close friends and working at a video shop (his first noted film was called Captin peachfuzz and the anchovy bandit !). In 1992 he created Resevoir Dogs with the help of well funded friend Monte Hellman. The film was shown at the sundance film festival and immediately became a hit. After this he wrote several scrips (true romance and natural born killers) and was offered several jobs by various directors; declining these offers he instead worked on the script for pulp fiction.
His most recent film is Inglourious Basterds a film on how WW2 could have turned out...
He Directs thrillers and Horrors and has many trademarks including shooting from the inside of car boots, using Cadelacs and Chevrolets in his films, making references to cult movies, frequently working with Uma Therman Tim Wroth Harvey Keitel and many others...

A Much Needed Updating Of Our Blog!!

Analysis of last year's Thriller's:

Reminscence:

I found this thriller opening very well executed and I found the storyline very easy to follow. it used a variety of shots and I especially like the long shot at the end which was sped up, it gave the film a professional feel. it managed to show flashbacks and make the audience understand it too which was done very well. The music they used at the start was also done very well, considering it wasn't from any professional artist and again made the film seem very real. Yet the best thing about this Thriller opening was that it made me want to know more about what happens later which is the main aim of any Thriller film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGiEBB3ZCDM

Regret?

I also found this thriller opening very intriguing. It took a while to get into the story line and i believe the shot's in the car did take a little too long. However the variety of camera shots used during this time is also very good, using various angles, movement and framing. The opening also had some very interesting shots like when we see the man through the wing mirror of the car. I also like the shot when we see the main character start to remember; the blurry effects and the tense music makes the audience relate to the character.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z3ac0g5yac

Game Over

I found that this Thriller was not really an opening, but was more like a short film. the opening shot is very effective as the camera turns 360 degrees around the character and we can clearly See the "change in circumstances" of Todorov's theory when we see the girl seeing somebody inside the house. The music throughout is also very good as it is slightly haunting which very much matches the mood of the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myM5kyURQe4

Wes Craven Director Study:

Wes Craven is an American director and writer, known for creating some of the most famous horror films of all time. His successful films include the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series, the “Scream” series; The Hills have Eyes, The Last House on the Left and Red Eye.
After working as a teacher and a taxi driver, Craven became a sound editor in New York. After co-directing a few films, Craven made the horror film “The Last House on the Left”, released in 1972 which was a big success. His second film “The Hills have Eyes” also won a critic’s prize at the Sitges Festival. Craven then went on to produce may other projects and in 1984 he released his best known work by directing and writing “A Nightmare on Elm Street”. After many moderate successes (mainly sequels to earlier films) he then created and directed the hit film “Scream” and its successful sequels. However, after “Scream”,
Craven moved away from directing just “pure horror” films and made the drama/musical “Music of the heart”. Ever since then all of Craven’s films, even the horror films, have a slight twist in them that incorporates some other genres. For example in 2005, Craven directed the hit Thriller “Red Eye”. The film starts off like it is romantic comedy yet it soon turns into a thriller/horror.
As for the future, Wes Craven is currently “in development” of 3 films after a 4 year break so it seems we will be seeing some of his work in the near future.

Shots we took and risk assesments.

There was one shot in our film that we were struggling with, the road shots. We thought about it often and when the time came to try out our ideas, there was no problem. We asked Ren's brother if it was possible to use his car for the shot, he agreed and was also our driver. We then used my camera from home to do all the shots so incase there was a problem we wouldn't damage the school cameras. We held my tripod, with the camera attached out of the sunroof of the car with the screen tilted downwards so we could see the shots we were filming without ourselves having to be out of the sunroof. Everyone was safe and the shots worked perfectly, although a little wobbley. (Once sped up in editing it looked great and added realism.)

The music.

The music fits perfectly with our film after a few nips and tucks of editing. The only problem being now that the eery heaven like music clashes compleatly with the beat we have for the title. We're wondering if this is perhaps good as it shocks our audience or if it will loose their attention. We are in the process of testing this on several peers.

Unabriged film, title choice, plus music details.

The film has been refusing to upload at the moment but hopefully within a few days we'll be able to post the unfinished version.

The film is mostly edited although there are credits, change of soundtrack and a few little editing tweeks to still be done.

We decided to call our film 'The Façade' because of the masked theme throughout. Façade is a term derived from the French, the literal meaning being appearence. In english the term façade is 'to cover up to have a facade is to have a different side of you, or have a side your hiding etc. Note the word is said with a soft c it is not said 'fakade'.

The reason for the music change was due to the music being a little simple, not fitting to the movement on screen and the club like beats in the background were unsuitable really.
I have changed the music to an eery heaven like chorus of vocals with an intro, bassline etc. All this was done on a newer edition of garage band using volume master which changed and helped alot. I made sure movet and pace of the track fitted together simultaniously by checking the time per second on quicktime player and co-insiding this with the time per second on garage band. It was close to impossible to play both of these at the same time without downloading the music and film onto someone elses laptop so i await to see if the time of the film and music co-incide when we download the music onto imovie. wish us luck. :)

Photos and basic film shot.

This film shows the basic idea of what we wanted to acheive in the last section of the film. The photos show costume design: the man's face isn't seen in the film but it is interpreted that he puts on the mask to hide his face. He wears a dark smart suit to express how cunning, heartless and smart he is. In the film (later to come as we are still working on it) we see him -for want of a better word- 'ping' his latex gloves. this also shows how he has thought things through. The innocent girl's costume should portray her as feminine and again innocent. We achieved this with a white flowing little skirt and pink top. The black cardigain and tights are there to express the mistakes she's made in her life. The things she did to cause this angagonist to hold her hostage.

Deep analysis of Swordfish introduction

Two mins into it:
SHOT ONE:
close up of John Travolta's face also his face is in depth of field. EDITING: fuzzy screen as if theres a bad signal. continuity. straight cut. SOUND: high pitched tension building key, John Travoltas character talks directly/ seemingly at the audience about hollywood cinema being 'shit'. MISE-EN-SCENE: hard to tell as all of shot's depth of field is on Travolta's face but green lights that are reminicient of electronics operating, are in the background, metal chair also maybe? they appear to be in darkness, save the light on Travoltas face. Neatly trimmed and styled beard, slick back hair dark black suit and strong tan. looks like a man of power, money.
SHOT TWO:
side mid shot of Travolta then focus pull onto background of metal table and chairs and cup and saucer- cafe? EDITING: continuity fluid, his talking is continuous. straight cut. this continues throughout. SOUND: music continues, Travolta now talking about 'Dog Day Afternoon' starring Al Pacino. MISE-EN-SCENE: we know see he is in a cafe.
SHOT THREE:
One sided mid shot, focus is pulled onto Travolta's face again then changes once more so the whole shot is in focus. SOUND: music continues, Travolta continuing to talk about Sidney Lumet as a director. MISE-EN-SCENE: metal jugs etc in background.
SHOT FOUR:
close up and D.O.F on cigar cutter and his cigar. SOUND: we hear the noise of the cutter as the music and Travolta continues to talk, listing film making techniques. MISE-EN-SCENE: cutter and cigar give off a kind of gangsteresque lifestyle of this character.
SHOT FIVE:
return to previous one sided mid shot. The same out of focus into focus shot is used. SOUND: music continues, Travolta continues to chatter, we hear cutter is placed onto the table and a lighter is picked up and lit. MISE-EN-SCENE: same as before and continues as the scene doesn't change.
SHOT SIX:
close up D.O.F. on lighter and cigar meeting. SOUND: gas of lighter, puffs of breath taken from Travolta.
SHOT SEVEN:
moving shot of Travolta lighting his cigar, almost like an unsteady camera. handycam? lots of focus pull in and out again. As Travolta finishe,s the camera pans to his face changing from an object shot to a mid shot. SOUND: lighter switching off, breathing as he sucks his cigar. sound of lighter being placed on table, Travolta speaks again of 'Dog Day'.
SHOT EIGHT:
side shot of Travolta talking. Again focus pulls. SOUND: Travolta talking about if sunny wanted to get away with his crime, he should have killed more people mercylessly. music continues.
SHOT NINE:
over two shoulders shot of mysterious characters in suits. D.O.F. on him still. SOUND: music vibrates a little more as if resounding in your head as he talks about killing people.
SHOT TEN:
close up of his face. D.O.F. is on him SOUND: as before.
SHOT ELEVEN:
mid shot of him focus pulls. SOUND: music is gradually changing keys getting lower and lower deminishing like our trust or like in him does. He continues to talk about killing. MISE-EN-SCENE: we see alot more of the background now, bottles of spirits are lined up behind him. we see his dark suit.
SHOT TWELVE:
pan from shirt to face close up. SOUND: music and chatter continues.
SHOT THIRTEEN:
reflection of a man half his face covered by dark shadow, also in a suit pan from this to Travolta close up. focus pulls and the unsteady camera handycam again? SOUND: he talks about how fast media travells nowadays about crime etc. music continuous.
SHOT FOURTEEN:
pan from body to mid shot handycam again? focus pulls. SOUND: as before.
SHOT FIFTEEN:
over two shoulders shot again. D.O.F. on a small section of his shoulder and glasses. SOUND: he talks about killing many peple all at once.
SHOT SIXTEEN:
close up of his face D.O.F. on him. SOUND: he talks of capturing all this on high definition camera and 'practicly tasting the brain matter'

All this shows just how detailed just 2 minuites of film thriller intro can be. in sound continuity etc. Although we don't have as much technology at hand, we can certainly take on board the level of detail and quality we need to add to our film.

Questionnaire Results...

Analysis

Me and Hannah both decided to give these questionnaire's to people within our target audience (16-30's generally) and I think that they have been very positive. it seems that every person who filled it in ,apart from one, liked thriller films so the information they gave us must have been credible. As for their favourite films, we got a variety ranging from the disaster film "The Day After Tomorrow" to the action-packed "Bourne Series". For the different sub genres, it seems that the most popular ones were psychological thrillers, crime thrillers, disaster thrillers and action thrillers. As some of these sub genre's would be nearly impossible to replicate (disaster) I think me and Hannah should have limited the choice we gave them, so this could have been something we could have improved on.
Overall, I've found the results of the questionnaire very interesting and Hannah and I will try our best to use this feedback to develop our film into a thriller that will please the audience.

Filming is officially finished! (for now!)

Over this weekend, Me and Hannah finished the first cut of our film. We are both generally pleased with the results, yet we both agree that we may have to re-shoot some scenes as we were not totally happy either with some of the mise-en-scene or the quality of the camerawork. (especially in the car scenes)
On Sunday, Hannah came over to my house in Barningham and we shot the car scene's and the scene in the house. We found that holding the camera just out of the sunroof was very effective, yet however the shots were very jolty and so some of these scene's will need to be reshot. The house scene however was very good, and after a few good takes,we nailed the scene.
As for when we film in future, is uncertain but we will try to keep you updated till then!

Brainstorming Ideas + Storyboards

Music

Our need for music was clear a) to build tension in our film b) to make the dance splices more effective.
It was also important for us to create the soundtack before filming so it was possible to film the dance in sequence to the music to create continuity.
i'd created a piece on garage band that had not only the tension of strings but also a beat that ensured that the dancing would look right.
After creating one and talking it through with ren we wondered if we could make a better one together. We have already asked other members of our school which of the two they prefered. here are our results:

First: fits thriller genre, strings build tension, perhaps more variation in the beat, nice dance beat in background.
Second: too optamistic, not fitting genre, nice mix of tunes, not really thriller befitting.

Photos of us at work.

We found it important to record our gradual progress through our film-making so here are some still shots of us finishing our soundtrack and storyboards:

Scream - Directed by Wes Craven

Though this film is a horror film, I found it important that I analyse the opening scene's because our film is influenced by it. This will be brief, as the last film I did a textual analysis on (Red Eye) got rather lengthly! The film starts off with the title dropping down, and turning from white into a dark red, which is a metaphor for something innocent (white) being killed (blood red).

After this the film goes straight into Casey (Girl) picking up the phone and talking to the stranger. She is dressed in white which shows her innocence and we can also see this as she talks to this man, by the way she politely talks to him and puts up with him repeatedly calling her. As the conversation goes on, we see Casey and the stranger connecting as they get into a debate over scary movies.
There is a lot of foreshadowing in the opening, such as when Casey pulls out a kitchen knife when she is naming horror films and the pathetic fallacy of the dark windy weather outside. However just as the conversdation starts getting somewhere the stranger drops the famous line "I want to know who I'm looking at" and the story takes a scary turn as we watch Casey panicking. This is where the audience get hooked in to the story and starts to pay real interest. As this is happening, the popcorn on the stove is slowly growing just as the tension is in the scene.
It starts getting real when we see the stranger interacting with the house (ringing the doorbell etc) towards the end of the opening we see the horror element of the film as we see Casey's boyfriend "Steve" tyed up. I chose to analyse this film as Hannah and I have chosen to do a "Damsel in Distress" stalker opening just like the one I have described. So to make sure we get our opening right, i chose to analyse "Scream".

To watch the opening click on the link below and watch the first 5 minutes of "Scream"

Thriller Opening Title decided!!

Hannah and I both decided that the name of our Thriller opening will be called The Facade in today's media lesson. We have chosen this name as our opening features a lot of masks, (in the dance scenes) so we decided that the name should be influenced by this.

Who is our Target Audience?

Wikipedia claims that "a target audience is the primary group of people that something is aimed at appealing to". To a film, the audience is vital and it is by entertaining the audience that a film will successful.

In our thriller film, Hannah and I have decided that the audience we will be aiming for is the teenagers/young adults audience for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the protagonist, played by Hannah, is a teenager/young adult so the audience will then be able to relate to her and be able to be entertained. Another reason why we might aim for this type of audience, is that our film is heavily influenced by many other thrillers such as "Scream" and "Red Eye", both from successful director Wes Craven. We chose these films because both of these films, because to me, both of these films are examples of a typical thriller (though "Scream" actually is a horror) The simplicity of both of the story lines make it easy to understand, yet the fast action and the gripping pace make the audience sit on the edge of their seat,entertaining thier target audience and therefore "thrilling" the audience. This is what we are therefore trying to achieve in our thriller opening so our film will also entertain our audience.

initial ideas and inspirations.

Yesterdays lesson was spent brainstorming ideas for our thriller opening. After hearing out Rens ideas from his inspiration 'Red Eye' we spoke about keeping the simplicity of film set in a house and using minimal amounts of shots. Ren spoke of using one long shot that could be done in his house, including the car outside, through his hall and into the living room. This we agreed sounded perfect.



As we countinued to speak about the thriller openings we liked what could work and what couldn't, i brought up the opening to the shining and how brilliantly just the traking of the car builds tension. We concluded a good traking scene of a road would lead us to the house in which the previously mentioned shot would take place.



But i desperately wanted somthing a little different from the classic damsel in distress thriller. Out of the blue i remembered a piece of work i'd done in AS drama recently with disturbing music and abstract dance. I thought it would be a creative idea if we could mix the two in somehow and sure enough Ren thought that as the girl comes into the house we have a shot of her dropping her jymbag and a mask from the dace in the hallway.

Our basic idea is to splice the road scene with the credits on it, with the abstract dance and then finish with the ambiguous house scene.

The whole idea is very much in the early stages and could easily be cut and changed depending on availabilitys and time.

Red Eye – Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy – Directed by Wes Craven

Titles: Fast titles flash onto the screen, with upbeat suspenseful music in the background. The title of the film “Red Eye” flashes up fittingly in red which gives off the connotations of danger which is key in a thriller. Titles end with a non-diagetic bang.

First shots:

We see the camera pan across a table with photo’s of a young woman. Eg: the classic family pictures (graduation, pictures with family etc). We then see a man dressed in black walk into shot a put down a set of keys and a wallet with the initials JR on it. As this man walks into shot, we hear rising strings which, with him being dressed in black may signify him to the audience that he is a baddie. He then goes onto walk out of shot. The camera slowly zooms in on the 2 objects while the suspenseful strings in the background slowly rise in volume getting louder until it ends with a bang as a gloved hand snatches the wallet off the table. These shots are perfect to study as a media student as they are one of the most conventional thriller openings I have seen.

Next we are thrown to a different location which looks like a port or a shipyard and we see frozen fish being boxed up. The next shot is an extreme close-up of the frozen fish as the lid of the box slides into view. Then we see a hand stamp down an “APPROVED” stamp on the top and we then see a mid shot of the boxes being loaded up and taken away. In this scene, the change in location from the house to this shipyard is very fast pace, which is conventional of thrillers and makes sure the audience are paying full attention to understand what is going on.

The shot dissolves into the next where we then see an array of photo’s on the top of a table being laid out which show a shot of a skyscraper, its blueprints and the floor plan of its penthouse suite. We also see the back of a person’s head yet it is too short and too zoomed in that we cannot get a look at the person’s profile. This is a classic trick of a thriller as it introduces characters without giving you any information on them. This hooks the audience in and is conventional of a thriller.

Then there is a graphic match cut as we see the shot change as a person slices the top of a fed ex package and slides out JR’s wallet we have seen before, of which he open’s and we see the driving licence of a balding middle age man who we presume is JR. the man then takes the credit and loyalty cards out of the wallet and puts them back into the package. In this scene, the audience is starting to get interested as we see the wallet from the first shot again, yet the man doesn’t even look for any money, so we assume that the person who took the wallet was no common thief.

It then cuts and we see one of the boxes of iced fish being pried open with a crowbar by a thuggish looking man. They then claw away at the ice to reveal a metal crate inside which is then loaded into a van and the fast paced music comes to a crescendo. This finally proves to the audience that something “fishy” is going on and that these people are obviously smuggling something or doing something illegal. This also establishes a “bad guy” to the audience which is a vital role in a thriller film.

The next shot begins with an establishing shot of the “Lux Hotel” and we hear the diagetic sound of a conversation between two women over the top. It then cuts and we see the situation of a young hotel receptionist dressed in white (showing her innocence) where she has lost the reservation of some angry, middle age guests. We then see the classic middle shot/ shot reverse shot of a dialogue scene as “Cynthia” (the receptionist) calls “Lisa” who seems to be the original receptionist. This now gives the audience some details as we now see some characters being introduced to the story and will keep them watching.

It cuts to a low angle shot of a taxi driving in heavy rain (pathetic fallacy) which slams on the breaks as a car cuts across it. This gives the audience a bit of action, something that is conventional in a Thriller. We then see the face of the taxi driver as he yells at the driver through the mirror as a sort of P.O.V shot of the passenger. We then recognise the women from the pictures at the start and from a picture in the wallet and we are introduced to the main character “Lisa Reisert”(Rachel McAdams) where we see her deal with the difficult hotel guest and helping her collegue. This identifies her to the audience as a “good guy” from her attitude.

Overall I believe “Red Eye” to be an exciting and conventional thriller which manages to hook the audience into watching more. I believe the films most good however for it’s villain, “Jackson Rippner” (Cillian Murphy) who despite the cliché name, makes the audience believe that throughout the film that “Lisa” is under real threat and inspired me.

This film has inspired our thriller opening as the shot at the very beginning where we see the wallet being stolen, will also be featured in our film except we have twisted it slightly as in our thriller opening, you will see a mask getting taken

2-3 minuites into 7 thrillers...

PULP FICTION-

WHAT IT TELLS US: we see two clever thieves plotting, they have no sympathy, we don't know names, they're sitting in a restaurant and they know each other well. The shot doesn't change often, it alternates between two shot and shot reverse shot. Diagetic noise is heard.
CONVENTIONAL?: mystery, more questions than answers,danger is exhibited e.g: thieves
UNCONVENTIONAL?: no credits, yet
I LIKED: having it all in small amount of shots, no change of scene either.

SWORDFISH-

WHAT IT TELLS US: we don't know names, man plotting again explaining things to two men, man is powerful? gangster type scene, money based monologue, non diagetic synchronous music suspenseful, no response from other characters. we don't see the other mens faces.
CONVENTIONAL?: mysterious, gangsteresque, danger, power,
UNCONVENTIONAL?: -
I LIKED: having just one scene again nice focus point

SEVEN-

WHAT IT TELLS US: We see organised professional character in his home, focus on objects importance...? detective rough area, murder, no names, new guy, friction between them, love for job?, we meet both main characters.
CONVENTIONAL?: mystery, murder, dangerous, rough area, bloody, binary oppositions.
UNCONVENTIONAL?: perhaps more blood than usual?
I LIKED: focus on objects rather than characters.

THE OTHERS-

WHAT IT TELLS US: Bible pages and drawings perhaps of strong importance to characters, we see who's starring unlike the other films, flickering light, candles? dark lighting, use of shadows, children drawings foreshadowing? we meet few characters.
CONVENTIONAL?: mystery, darkness, creepy house, bleak, scream early on in the film, tension building.
UNCONVENTIONAL?: including children, perhaps not unconventional but unusual.
I LIKED: focus on objects, also use of shadows,

THE SHINING-

WHAT IT TELLS US: tracking of car from Birdseye,setting scene, synchronous non diagectic sound building up tension in viewer, credits derelict landscape, we see a large building that blends immaculately into the landscape, we see main character.
CONVENTIONAL?: suspenseful, mysterious, non diagectic soundtrack.
UNCONVENTIONAL?: -
I LIKED: tension, not having much necessarily going on.

FIGHT CLUB-

WHAT IT TELLS US: We see molecules, not making much sense adds to suspense, questions, guns, violence, explosives, derelict building.
CONVENTIONAL?: mystery, suspense, danger.
UNCONVENTIONAL?: bit more phycological .
I LIKED: The voice over, and the phycological edginess of it

SIXTH SENSE-

WHAT IT TELLS US: non diagetic music, suspense only black screen and credits, focus onto lightbulb , importance of light?
CONVENTIONAL?: suspense, non diagetic music,
UNCONVENTIONAL?: -
I LIKED: focus on one thing.