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.