Here is the preliminary task that my group and I filmed in order to experiment with camera angles, editing and sound.
If given the opportunity to re-shoot this clip there are a few things I would do.
Firstly I would make sure background noise was kept to a minimum as background noise can deter the audiences focus away from what is actually happening in the clip. At the time of filming, classes were going on so we inevitably had background noise as a result.
Secondly, I would want to add some non-diegetic sound to represent the characters emotions and also make the mood of the clip easier to pick up. Non-diegetic sound will also give it a level of professionalism and it also make sure the viewers attention doesn't sway.
Finally, I would use a bigger variety of camera angles. For example, as the main character walks into the class room, I could use a high angle/birds eye shot; this type of shot, would emphasize the insignificance of this character to the audience. The difference in proxemics could place an emphasis on his sadness and depression, the direct result of the bullying he is experiencing. Also, using a low angle shot to show the bullies would enable the audience to understand the power imbalance between the two, while also establishing the dominance they hold over the boy and his daily life.
Sunday, 25 December 2016
Thursday, 22 December 2016
My Initial Plot Ideas
Here are two initial plot ideas that I came up with before deciding on my current Thriller opening
Idea one:
A girl (around 18 years old) has been on holiday with her four other friends and noticed that they have, one by one, been slowly disappearing mysteriously. Soon it is just the girl left and quick flashbacks are shown of the girl's friends being taken away as she walks down (at night) a deserted, wet road. In her hands she holds four pictures, each of them blurry but she can clearly see the horror and torture in them and believes that it is her friends in the picture and its happening to them. When holding the pictures she starts to hear voices, like echo's and it sounds like her friends so she follows the 'noise'. Soon the voices get louder and the girl looks up to see that she is at some sort of shack. She recognises the noises as her friends and on instinct , runs forward to the shack and hounds on the door. Suddenly the noises stop and the door slowly swings open, seeming to have no person that opened it. All is heard is the girl's breathing as she steps into the pitch black room, looking around. She hears creaks on the floor board. She starts to panic and tries to feel her way back to the door but can't it the dark. As she is walking back she steps on something and picks it up. It's a torch and she quickly picks it up and clicks it on to immediately reveal a man in a scary clown mask right in front of her face.
"You ready?" he asks her in a eerily cheery and playful voice.
The girl is paralysed with fear as she looks down behind her and see's her friends dead on the floor, all organised in the shape of a cross (Christianity one). Just as the girl is about to scream the clown grabs her hair and drags her down. Then it cuts to black.
Idea two
A family: Mother, Father, Sister, Brother. They recently moved into an old abandoned house and immediately raise suspicions from the tight community neighbourhood. The kids from the strange house go to school and soon weird things seem to start happening to the kids there. This makes people more suspicious but the they do not outright accuse the family. However, after one of the kids has a sleepover at the mysterious house because she made friends with one of the kids and dies the next day at school, people start accusing the family of poisoning the girl the day before. They say that the caretaker that found her saw froth coming from her mouth. The family deny everything but their short answers and tendency to hide away makes their denial unbelievable. Suddenly, the caretakers son dies and eventually the people decide to create a mob and march up to their house. The mob murders the family who are defenceless and try to deny everything before their deaths. As they are turning away, grateful that the problem in their town is gone, the caretaker speaks.
"Let's hope they burn in the Cyanide they poisoned that little girl with"
The mob will turn around and look at the caretaker confused. One of the people speaks "You said it was bleach before"
It is then everyone realises that it was the caretaker not the mysterious family. The realisation sets in that they just killed innocent people and it fade's to black.
Idea one:
A girl (around 18 years old) has been on holiday with her four other friends and noticed that they have, one by one, been slowly disappearing mysteriously. Soon it is just the girl left and quick flashbacks are shown of the girl's friends being taken away as she walks down (at night) a deserted, wet road. In her hands she holds four pictures, each of them blurry but she can clearly see the horror and torture in them and believes that it is her friends in the picture and its happening to them. When holding the pictures she starts to hear voices, like echo's and it sounds like her friends so she follows the 'noise'. Soon the voices get louder and the girl looks up to see that she is at some sort of shack. She recognises the noises as her friends and on instinct , runs forward to the shack and hounds on the door. Suddenly the noises stop and the door slowly swings open, seeming to have no person that opened it. All is heard is the girl's breathing as she steps into the pitch black room, looking around. She hears creaks on the floor board. She starts to panic and tries to feel her way back to the door but can't it the dark. As she is walking back she steps on something and picks it up. It's a torch and she quickly picks it up and clicks it on to immediately reveal a man in a scary clown mask right in front of her face.
"You ready?" he asks her in a eerily cheery and playful voice.
The girl is paralysed with fear as she looks down behind her and see's her friends dead on the floor, all organised in the shape of a cross (Christianity one). Just as the girl is about to scream the clown grabs her hair and drags her down. Then it cuts to black.
Idea two
A family: Mother, Father, Sister, Brother. They recently moved into an old abandoned house and immediately raise suspicions from the tight community neighbourhood. The kids from the strange house go to school and soon weird things seem to start happening to the kids there. This makes people more suspicious but the they do not outright accuse the family. However, after one of the kids has a sleepover at the mysterious house because she made friends with one of the kids and dies the next day at school, people start accusing the family of poisoning the girl the day before. They say that the caretaker that found her saw froth coming from her mouth. The family deny everything but their short answers and tendency to hide away makes their denial unbelievable. Suddenly, the caretakers son dies and eventually the people decide to create a mob and march up to their house. The mob murders the family who are defenceless and try to deny everything before their deaths. As they are turning away, grateful that the problem in their town is gone, the caretaker speaks.
"Let's hope they burn in the Cyanide they poisoned that little girl with"
The mob will turn around and look at the caretaker confused. One of the people speaks "You said it was bleach before"
It is then everyone realises that it was the caretaker not the mysterious family. The realisation sets in that they just killed innocent people and it fade's to black.
Tuesday, 20 December 2016
Effect of Music and typography
Analysing sound and typography
Effect of music:Movie opening one
now you see me official opening scene
From the start, sound is used by the director to create tension. The scene begins with mostly diegetic sound, such as dialogue and even the sounds of the cards as they flick past each other, this adds to the realistic nature of the film and straight away causes the audience to believe every second. The sound of the cards as they touch each other is usually loud for such a small movement. This causes the audience to realize the importance of this simple act and straight away feel connected with the film. Non-diegetic sound is used by the director in the form of music. This is used continuously throughout therefore adding to the mystery of the film. This music also increases in both speed and volume and specific parts in the play, causing the audience to feel a rush of excitement and begin to wonder what might come next.
Effect of typography
Typography is also often used at the beginning of all short opening scenes to create emotion or even give a clearer understanding of the film. However unusually the director of now you see me does not use much typography at all, possibly suggesting it may be used later on. This is done so that the audience is focused completely with what is happening during the opening scene rather than being distracted. The only small amount of typography used within the opening scene of now you see me, is in the bottom left of the screen stating Chicago, allowing the audience to understand where the scene is set. This piece of text does not move and is fairly small in the bottom left hand side of the screen. The font is small however slightly bold causing it to stand out suggesting to the audience that this very small piece of information may be significant throughout the rest of the film, however possibly later on rather than at that specific point in the scene.
Movie opening two
Effect of sound:
seven official opening scene
Throughout the opening scene of Se7en by David Fincher sound is used in order to create tension and certain emotions from the start. Continually throughout the scene non diegetic sounds in the form of music are used to create suspense. The music used has a strong beat that is quite forceful or even powerful, this causes the audience to experience a sense of panic, as it is hinted that something bad is yet to come. Both the volume and amount of sound within the scene slowly increases as the scene progresses, as a result to more effects slowly being added. This creates also a sense of alarm as the music suggests that it is building up to something, hinting something negative to soon take place. The opening scene also contains many harsh sounds such as squeaking and the sound of metal touching. This results in the audience feeling slightly uncomfortable as they are unaware of what is to happen next, and also slightly uneasy whilst watching.
Effect of typography:
Typography is also used within se7en to create a similar effect on the audience. Continually throughout the short opening scene the text is extremely jumpy and doesn't really stay settle for longer than a few seconds on the screen. This also alike the music and sound effects causes the audience to feel slighly uneasy or even uncomfortable as nothing apprers to be settled or even set in place. The text also appears to flash up on screen very suddenly, whilst the writing is white with a black screen, This causes the writing to stand out whilst also adding to the uneasy feel experianced by the audience. All writing is very shaky and constatly moving within the scene, this causes they audience to feel nervous as they begin questioning what will happen next. The font of the text is very uncordinated, and represents possibly even a childs hand writing, straight away sugesting to the audience the very worst for whats to come. Finally the words are continuously moving around making it hard to read and making us feel uncomfortable. All of this causes suspense and tension within the audience as we create theories in our head as well as becuase it is very difficult to watch.
Effect of music:Movie opening one
From the start, sound is used by the director to create tension. The scene begins with mostly diegetic sound, such as dialogue and even the sounds of the cards as they flick past each other, this adds to the realistic nature of the film and straight away causes the audience to believe every second. The sound of the cards as they touch each other is usually loud for such a small movement. This causes the audience to realize the importance of this simple act and straight away feel connected with the film. Non-diegetic sound is used by the director in the form of music. This is used continuously throughout therefore adding to the mystery of the film. This music also increases in both speed and volume and specific parts in the play, causing the audience to feel a rush of excitement and begin to wonder what might come next.
Effect of typography
Typography is also often used at the beginning of all short opening scenes to create emotion or even give a clearer understanding of the film. However unusually the director of now you see me does not use much typography at all, possibly suggesting it may be used later on. This is done so that the audience is focused completely with what is happening during the opening scene rather than being distracted. The only small amount of typography used within the opening scene of now you see me, is in the bottom left of the screen stating Chicago, allowing the audience to understand where the scene is set. This piece of text does not move and is fairly small in the bottom left hand side of the screen. The font is small however slightly bold causing it to stand out suggesting to the audience that this very small piece of information may be significant throughout the rest of the film, however possibly later on rather than at that specific point in the scene.
Movie opening two
Effect of sound:
Throughout the opening scene of Se7en by David Fincher sound is used in order to create tension and certain emotions from the start. Continually throughout the scene non diegetic sounds in the form of music are used to create suspense. The music used has a strong beat that is quite forceful or even powerful, this causes the audience to experience a sense of panic, as it is hinted that something bad is yet to come. Both the volume and amount of sound within the scene slowly increases as the scene progresses, as a result to more effects slowly being added. This creates also a sense of alarm as the music suggests that it is building up to something, hinting something negative to soon take place. The opening scene also contains many harsh sounds such as squeaking and the sound of metal touching. This results in the audience feeling slightly uncomfortable as they are unaware of what is to happen next, and also slightly uneasy whilst watching.
Effect of typography:
Typography is also used within se7en to create a similar effect on the audience. Continually throughout the short opening scene the text is extremely jumpy and doesn't really stay settle for longer than a few seconds on the screen. This also alike the music and sound effects causes the audience to feel slighly uneasy or even uncomfortable as nothing apprers to be settled or even set in place. The text also appears to flash up on screen very suddenly, whilst the writing is white with a black screen, This causes the writing to stand out whilst also adding to the uneasy feel experianced by the audience. All writing is very shaky and constatly moving within the scene, this causes they audience to feel nervous as they begin questioning what will happen next. The font of the text is very uncordinated, and represents possibly even a childs hand writing, straight away sugesting to the audience the very worst for whats to come. Finally the words are continuously moving around making it hard to read and making us feel uncomfortable. All of this causes suspense and tension within the audience as we create theories in our head as well as becuase it is very difficult to watch.
Wednesday, 7 December 2016
Thriller movie opening storyboard
This is a storyboard that my partner and I created in order to give us a clear idea on what we needed to be doing when we started filming. Using a storyboard allowed us to know what type of shot we were doing at a specific moment as well as what type of camera movement.
These storyboards should hopefully provide you with a rough idea of how our Thriller opening will look like when it comes together in the end.
Sunday, 4 December 2016
Treatment
Treatment for Thriller opening
The scene opens with a pan across a dark room but we cannot see who is in it yet. The scene then shows a girl walking through a wooded area and there are diegetic sounds of the girl's surroundings (e.g her walking down the steps or the trees rustling) to make it seem to real and allow the audience to emphasise. The shots of the girl walking vary from extreme long shot, to medium to close up to show how near the unknown antagonist is getting towards the girl. In between these shots the scene will cut to someone in trapped in the dark room that is shown in the beginning and it appears that she person is being recorded, however there face is not shown. Near the end of the scene, the woman will stop and just as she is about to turn around it will cut to black. Then, the scene will finally show the face of the person locked in the room and reveal it to be the woman that has been followed. At the end, we will see the hands of the antagonist clicking the camera. There will be some non-diegetic sound of someone breathing which will presumably be the antagonist and this will make the audience feel a little uncomfortable as this sound feels a little intrusive of personal space.
The scene opens with a pan across a dark room but we cannot see who is in it yet. The scene then shows a girl walking through a wooded area and there are diegetic sounds of the girl's surroundings (e.g her walking down the steps or the trees rustling) to make it seem to real and allow the audience to emphasise. The shots of the girl walking vary from extreme long shot, to medium to close up to show how near the unknown antagonist is getting towards the girl. In between these shots the scene will cut to someone in trapped in the dark room that is shown in the beginning and it appears that she person is being recorded, however there face is not shown. Near the end of the scene, the woman will stop and just as she is about to turn around it will cut to black. Then, the scene will finally show the face of the person locked in the room and reveal it to be the woman that has been followed. At the end, we will see the hands of the antagonist clicking the camera. There will be some non-diegetic sound of someone breathing which will presumably be the antagonist and this will make the audience feel a little uncomfortable as this sound feels a little intrusive of personal space.
Lighting analysis
Lighting is often used within films to create a certain atmosphere or mood. It can also determine the importance of a character and their status. Here is my lighting analysis of three images from three different thriller films.
Shutter Island
This is an image taken from the movie Shutter Island. Lighting is used here to create tension and suspense among the audience as well as to convey the feelings and emotions of the character. The candle illuminating the characters face creates mystery as to why this is the only source of light. This light also let's the audience see the characters expression which is one of panic and fear, this let's the audience in on the characters emotions. The dark background creates suspense for the audience as they will be curious as to what is not being revealed and why. The light on the character usually will mean something positive but the light contrast to the dark background instead creates an eerie and unsettling feeling. The light contrasting the dark also suggests something bad is about to happen. This will be described as low key lighting due to the contrast in colours. The director uses the lighting to highlight this character in the scene and display his status.
Fatal Attraction
This scene in Fatal Attraction does not have much contrast in lighting other than the characters clothes. The man is show to be wearing dark clothes and the woman wearing white, this is a contrast as the woman is attacking the man and wearing a colour that usually means innocent or pure. The little contrast of colours in the image add to the realistic effect the director wanted to create. The director has focused more on the expressions of the characters in this image by using high light key lighting. The dull overall lighting shows the negativity that it also being displayed in the image. Most of the lighting is coming from the background which, once again, adds to the realistic effect and also focus on both characters not just one. The director does this to show that they both important in this particular scene.
Misery
The lighting in this scene is very dull and reflects the characters feelings and emotions. The director uses the lack of different colours in the image to create mystery and questions from the audience. We can't really see the faces of the characters but their positions allow the audience to guess what the situation could be. The female characters clothing matches the colours of the walls and some furniture. This could suggestive that she is a possessive character and also could convey her mindset to the viewers. The bed which the male character is tied up on is the only bright thing in the room. The director could have done this to show that the male character is the good one and is innocent and the female character that looms over him with dark clothes is bad.
Shutter Island
This is an image taken from the movie Shutter Island. Lighting is used here to create tension and suspense among the audience as well as to convey the feelings and emotions of the character. The candle illuminating the characters face creates mystery as to why this is the only source of light. This light also let's the audience see the characters expression which is one of panic and fear, this let's the audience in on the characters emotions. The dark background creates suspense for the audience as they will be curious as to what is not being revealed and why. The light on the character usually will mean something positive but the light contrast to the dark background instead creates an eerie and unsettling feeling. The light contrasting the dark also suggests something bad is about to happen. This will be described as low key lighting due to the contrast in colours. The director uses the lighting to highlight this character in the scene and display his status.
Fatal Attraction
This scene in Fatal Attraction does not have much contrast in lighting other than the characters clothes. The man is show to be wearing dark clothes and the woman wearing white, this is a contrast as the woman is attacking the man and wearing a colour that usually means innocent or pure. The little contrast of colours in the image add to the realistic effect the director wanted to create. The director has focused more on the expressions of the characters in this image by using high light key lighting. The dull overall lighting shows the negativity that it also being displayed in the image. Most of the lighting is coming from the background which, once again, adds to the realistic effect and also focus on both characters not just one. The director does this to show that they both important in this particular scene.
Misery
The lighting in this scene is very dull and reflects the characters feelings and emotions. The director uses the lack of different colours in the image to create mystery and questions from the audience. We can't really see the faces of the characters but their positions allow the audience to guess what the situation could be. The female characters clothing matches the colours of the walls and some furniture. This could suggestive that she is a possessive character and also could convey her mindset to the viewers. The bed which the male character is tied up on is the only bright thing in the room. The director could have done this to show that the male character is the good one and is innocent and the female character that looms over him with dark clothes is bad.
Customer Profile questionnaire
Customer Profile Questionnaire
Male/Female: aged 16-20
What is it about Thriller movies that you like so much?
I like the suspense, the heightened roller coaster of a journey that I go on when I get really absorbed into the plot. I like the fact that it is so well thought out and the eerie Gothic feel Thrillers create. I am captivated by the atmosphere and the imagery Thrillers use to create an extraordinary scene.
I like the suspense, the heightened roller coaster of a journey that I go on when I get really absorbed into the plot. I like the fact that it is so well thought out and the eerie Gothic feel Thrillers create. I am captivated by the atmosphere and the imagery Thrillers use to create an extraordinary scene.
What are your top three Thriller movies?
'Psycho', 'The Birds' and 'What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?' have to be my three favourite.
'Psycho', 'The Birds' and 'What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?' have to be my three favourite.
What is your favourite Thriller sub genre?
If i'm watching a Thriller I think the sub genre I tend to like is romance, I think it takes the movie away from that hard edge. It takes the movie in a different direction.
If i'm watching a Thriller I think the sub genre I tend to like is romance, I think it takes the movie away from that hard edge. It takes the movie in a different direction.
Where are you when you watch Thriller's usually?
I am usually in my home because I don't tend to go to the cinema that much. I like being at home because then I can really express myself and get out of my seat, I really embody a movie when I get involved.
How often do you watch Thriller films?
I'm not really a TV addict so I don't watch Thriller's often. The only time is probably when something new has come out, has good reviews and looks interesting. But I don't watch Thriller's that often, maybe about twice a year.
Between 'Gone girl' and 'Seven', what do you prefer?
I love Seven. That was one of my favourite movies of all time. I love seven because of the journey it took me on, all the rights ingredients were there and it had a wicked ending that was very impactful. It definitely did not end on an anti-climax.
I love Seven. That was one of my favourite movies of all time. I love seven because of the journey it took me on, all the rights ingredients were there and it had a wicked ending that was very impactful. It definitely did not end on an anti-climax.
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