This opening sequence from "Touch Of Evil" really helps our group for our thriller as the continuous dolly shot is exactly the type of shot that we would like to use on ours for "The Magician" thriller idea. The scene is also set in around about the same time as us so I will take inspiration from some of the themes i.e. clothing in the shot.
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Our Final idea for a thriller
However in the end we decided to choose our idea of having a magician, who goes round to clubs in the 1960's, performs tricks "accidentally killing people" then fleeing away, from our research we realised that stereotypes work best in thrillers/ horror's as it is easiest for the audience to relate to them. For example, for our magician we will have him wearing a top hat, waistcoat and coat tails as this is how people stereotypically view magicians to look like.
For our victim, we will use a girl, (almost always used as the victim as they are seen as weak and vulnerable) as our casting will work she will look innocent and we will have her wearing white as this is a symbol for that innocence.
As our thriller is a mystery, the girl will get in the box, however you won't see the event happen, making the audience think about how she could of died, making this more believable as a trick gone wrong
For our victim, we will use a girl, (almost always used as the victim as they are seen as weak and vulnerable) as our casting will work she will look innocent and we will have her wearing white as this is a symbol for that innocence.
As our thriller is a mystery, the girl will get in the box, however you won't see the event happen, making the audience think about how she could of died, making this more believable as a trick gone wrong
Conceptual Ideas for a Thriller
As a group we came up with a few ideas for our thriller:
- the wiki leaks
- the cervical cancer jab gone wrong
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Narrative and Character
5 Stages of Narrative structure:
- Equilibrium
- Disruptive
- Complications
- Resolution
- New Equilibrium
- Equilibrium- Typical day at the beach, sunny, everyone is perparing for July 4th, everyone is happy.
- Disruptive- A dead body appears.
- Complications- Do they close the beach for July 4th? Will more people die? Is it a shark?
- Resolution- they keep the beach open, and go to catch shark.
- New Equilibrium- Shark is killed, shark hunter is killed. Everything returns to normal but there are new changes between the people.
5 Stock Characters:
- The Hero
- The Villain
- The Helper or sidekick
- The Victim
- The Donor
- Hero- Harry Potter
- Villain- Voldermort
- Helper- Ron and Hermione
- Victim- Sirius Black
- Donor- Dumbledore
Prisoner of Azkaban poster
Denotation and Connotation of a Horror film
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| A shot from the movie "Scream" |
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| The Denotations and Connotations of these film pictures |
Friday, 19 November 2010
Conventions of a Horror Movie or Horror Iconography
Here I have made a list of things and feelings that we associate with Horror Films that scare us:
Blood
Suspense
Screaming
Death
A Weapon - An Axe
A Fear - Spiders
Contrapuntal Music - Disjointed Music
Usually at night time
Secluded area
Creepy House
Pain
Bad Weather
Psycopath
Horrible noises - screaching
Small confined spaces
Bent trees - no leaves
Someones always alone
Massacre
Black cats
Protagonist
Antagonist
Black magic
Ghost's
Chase sequences
Swamps
Faulty lights
A woman always dies first ( we see this clearly in Scream, when the blond girl is murdered at the beginning)
Inept police
Scary children
Dolls
Clowns
Delapadated buildings
Cars breaking down
All of these above are signs and signifiers of a horror film genre, a film that incorporates most if not all of these is "Nightmare on Elm Street"
Blood
Suspense
Screaming
Death
A Weapon - An Axe
A Fear - Spiders
Contrapuntal Music - Disjointed Music
Usually at night time
Secluded area
Creepy House
Pain
Bad Weather
Psycopath
Horrible noises - screaching
Small confined spaces
Bent trees - no leaves
Someones always alone
Massacre
Black cats
Protagonist
Antagonist
Black magic
Ghost's
Chase sequences
Swamps
Faulty lights
A woman always dies first ( we see this clearly in Scream, when the blond girl is murdered at the beginning)
Inept police
Scary children
Dolls
Clowns
Delapadated buildings
Cars breaking down
All of these above are signs and signifiers of a horror film genre, a film that incorporates most if not all of these is "Nightmare on Elm Street"
Moodboard. A list of things that scare me.
Here is a list of things that scare me, and that if these were incorporated in a horror film, it would cumulate to being very thrilling:
- Spiders
- Sharks
- Balloons
- Ghosts
- The deep sea
- Cramped spaces
- Rape
- Blood
- Darkness
- Clowns
- Children
- Psychos
- Dolls
- Terrorists
- Monsters
- Bats
- Paranormal
- The Unknown
Editing
When editing we created a log bin for our rushes so that it would be easy to access for the editing process. Our log bin was very significant as it would hold all the best takes that we had produced on the day of our preliminary task, as in doing this the takes that worked well would be easier to get to as they would all be in one folder. once we found the best takes we would then have to edit them by cutting the takes at certain points so that it would fit with the next piece of action, for example, going from a wide angle shot to an over the shoulder shot. Here we would take the wide angle shot and cut it at the point where we want it to change and then we would have the over the shoulder shot cut, using "Ctrl" "I" so that from that point we can drag it down to the time line and piece it together with the wide angle so that when you watch it back it would run smoothly from the wide angle to the over the shoulder shot. This is called "Continuity Editing"
Organising the shots we referred back to our story board to see which shots best told our story, the audience are meant to sympathise with the man holding the gun as he is being bullied in to shooting the victim, therefore he had more screen time and more close-ups as this made him look weak, but when he refused to do it, it made him look powerful, however we gave the woman who was persuading the man to shoot more over the shoulder shots and wide angles as this gave the perception that she is powerful at the beginning but then when she walks away she is given a wide angle as this shows that she has lost and makes her look weak as she walks out.
For continuity editing we had to make sure that the order of shots added up so that it wouldn't look strange for the audience, for example we would have a wide angle shot, followed by an over the shoulder shot, followed by a close-up, this would be so that it continuously flowed, as if through the eyes of the viewer and so that it wouldnt break the 180 degree rule. This controls the story as the flow of shots is very important to interpret how the audience will view it.
In the editing process to make an impact on the line of "Do It" we had a close up of the gun at the victims head, cocking the gun, then a cut to an over the shoulder shot of the man saying "I can't", the close up of the cocking of the gun was to make the impact that the victims life is at stake, this was also done to draw a lot of the focus onto the gun to show its significance in the story.
Organising the shots we referred back to our story board to see which shots best told our story, the audience are meant to sympathise with the man holding the gun as he is being bullied in to shooting the victim, therefore he had more screen time and more close-ups as this made him look weak, but when he refused to do it, it made him look powerful, however we gave the woman who was persuading the man to shoot more over the shoulder shots and wide angles as this gave the perception that she is powerful at the beginning but then when she walks away she is given a wide angle as this shows that she has lost and makes her look weak as she walks out.
For continuity editing we had to make sure that the order of shots added up so that it wouldn't look strange for the audience, for example we would have a wide angle shot, followed by an over the shoulder shot, followed by a close-up, this would be so that it continuously flowed, as if through the eyes of the viewer and so that it wouldnt break the 180 degree rule. This controls the story as the flow of shots is very important to interpret how the audience will view it.
In the editing process to make an impact on the line of "Do It" we had a close up of the gun at the victims head, cocking the gun, then a cut to an over the shoulder shot of the man saying "I can't", the close up of the cocking of the gun was to make the impact that the victims life is at stake, this was also done to draw a lot of the focus onto the gun to show its significance in the story.
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| Here is a print screen of final cut pro |
Friday, 15 October 2010
Preliminary Task Evaluation
Preliminary task October 2010
For our Preliminary task evaluation we dicided to film in the film studio as we thought; due to the set, it would benefit our film the most. As a location it fitted the scene well due to its white walls which would allow the actors to show up a lot better, this would be part of the mise-en-scene. We also liked the idea of using a large space as this would prepare us for our thriller in January.
My Roles For The Task
My roles from the task changed throughout the time as we wanted to try out all the roles as this would prepare us well for when making our thriller later on. The roles that I did were "being in charge of actors", so setting up the scenes; being the "Director", this incorporates saying the phrases "standing by", "Roll it", and "Cut" as director for some time I had to oversee the operation and make sure we were on schedule. Another role I had to do was be the "Cameraman" this included making sure that the headroom was right and that there feet were not missing from the wide shots, that the white balance was set up as this disivers all the colours in the universe and that if you get white right the rest of the colours will be. Another job I had to do was to make sure verything was in focus; I did this by zooming up close onto an object, ours was the gun and then once this was focused onto the rest of the shot would be. This was very important for when it comes to over the shoulder shots and close-ups
Lighting
The lighting that we set up for our task was very bright but soft, we did this because we wanted to incorporate the shadows of the characters as we thought this would make the shot look moody and more menacing. It was effective for the scene and helped very much as it was able to put across the feeling of tension and suspense for the audience
Filming
For filming we had to set the camera tripod up right, we did this by untightening the bolts and moving it up then fixing it into place. we did at one point have to adjust this and make it taller for shots such as close ups and over the shoulder shots, to make sure it looked good we had to make sure that the tripod was level in each shot
For the wide shot we had to make sure that there wasnt much head space and that the actors fitted into the scene, this also had to be done for the over the shoulder shots and close-ups. We also had to make sure that no equipment was in the shot as this would ruin the atmosphere completly. An example of equipment would be lighting equipment.
Also when behind the camera I had to make sure that we did not break the 180 degree rule as this would make the characters look like they were standing next to each other not opposite if I had broken it.
To evaluate; I thought that we worked well as a team making sure that the technical componants were all adheared too and that as a group we worked well to create a suspense filled scene.
Our Preliminary task
For our Preliminary task evaluation we dicided to film in the film studio as we thought; due to the set, it would benefit our film the most. As a location it fitted the scene well due to its white walls which would allow the actors to show up a lot better, this would be part of the mise-en-scene. We also liked the idea of using a large space as this would prepare us for our thriller in January.
My Roles For The Task
My roles from the task changed throughout the time as we wanted to try out all the roles as this would prepare us well for when making our thriller later on. The roles that I did were "being in charge of actors", so setting up the scenes; being the "Director", this incorporates saying the phrases "standing by", "Roll it", and "Cut" as director for some time I had to oversee the operation and make sure we were on schedule. Another role I had to do was be the "Cameraman" this included making sure that the headroom was right and that there feet were not missing from the wide shots, that the white balance was set up as this disivers all the colours in the universe and that if you get white right the rest of the colours will be. Another job I had to do was to make sure verything was in focus; I did this by zooming up close onto an object, ours was the gun and then once this was focused onto the rest of the shot would be. This was very important for when it comes to over the shoulder shots and close-ups
Lighting
The lighting that we set up for our task was very bright but soft, we did this because we wanted to incorporate the shadows of the characters as we thought this would make the shot look moody and more menacing. It was effective for the scene and helped very much as it was able to put across the feeling of tension and suspense for the audience
Filming
For filming we had to set the camera tripod up right, we did this by untightening the bolts and moving it up then fixing it into place. we did at one point have to adjust this and make it taller for shots such as close ups and over the shoulder shots, to make sure it looked good we had to make sure that the tripod was level in each shot
For the wide shot we had to make sure that there wasnt much head space and that the actors fitted into the scene, this also had to be done for the over the shoulder shots and close-ups. We also had to make sure that no equipment was in the shot as this would ruin the atmosphere completly. An example of equipment would be lighting equipment.
Also when behind the camera I had to make sure that we did not break the 180 degree rule as this would make the characters look like they were standing next to each other not opposite if I had broken it.
To evaluate; I thought that we worked well as a team making sure that the technical componants were all adheared too and that as a group we worked well to create a suspense filled scene.
Our Preliminary task
Monday, 11 October 2010
Sound
Sound can be found in all different types of forms in the Diegesis. These can be found under:
Diegetic - within the film world
Non- Diegetic - sound which has been put in later (after the shot)
Synchronous - Sound that goes with the movement
Asynchronous Sound - Sound that juxtaposes what is being shown.
A movie which uses sound very effectively would be that of Kill Bill Vol. 2 in the scene where "The Bride" is being buried her fiance's friend. In this scene they use MAINLY the sound of Non-Diegetic and Synchronous sound.
Diegetic - within the film world
Non- Diegetic - sound which has been put in later (after the shot)
Synchronous - Sound that goes with the movement
Asynchronous Sound - Sound that juxtaposes what is being shown.
A movie which uses sound very effectively would be that of Kill Bill Vol. 2 in the scene where "The Bride" is being buried her fiance's friend. In this scene they use MAINLY the sound of Non-Diegetic and Synchronous sound.
Friday, 1 October 2010
More Research For The Thriller Genre
Great Elements for a Thriller movie to have would be:
Here is a link to the-
The Unotuchables Movie poster
- Suspense
- Action
- Dramactic Music
- Expecting to see Police and Guns
- Enigma to be solved
- A character within the movie to be double crossed
- Violence
- Contrapuntal sounds
Here is a link to the-
The Unotuchables Movie poster
Researching the thriller genre
To learn about the thiller genre we have had to research a few to understand what goes into the making of one. for this we studied the opening sequence of Children of men and the Usual Supects. I particualry enjoyed these two for the story line and the way it was made.
For "The Usual Suspects" the beginning was fast paced, they did this through the use of montage editing which showed all the characters and their backgrounds giving us a lot of information in a very short space of time, This gave the suspense of drama as they were all getting arrested and kept the audience interested as you wanted to know why they were being arrested and what they had done as criminals.
For "Children of Men" which was also had a very powerful beginning, was made in a different way as it gave more of the impression of sorrow. (This is because it is about a dystopic future for all man kind) the editors were able to create this as the beginning had a lot less edits in it, the reason we know it is in the thriller genre is because when the camera breaks the 180 degree rule and pans round to show him as a flawed character, it is also mainly done so that the audience can see the bomb go off from the cafe as this type of action is mainly associated with the action/thriller genre. we also know its a thriller film as it deals with the threat of mankind and the lack of child birth and there are signifiers that tell us that the anti- hero will be able to save man kind.
Here is a link to the trailer of "Children Of Men"
For "The Usual Suspects" the beginning was fast paced, they did this through the use of montage editing which showed all the characters and their backgrounds giving us a lot of information in a very short space of time, This gave the suspense of drama as they were all getting arrested and kept the audience interested as you wanted to know why they were being arrested and what they had done as criminals.
For "Children of Men" which was also had a very powerful beginning, was made in a different way as it gave more of the impression of sorrow. (This is because it is about a dystopic future for all man kind) the editors were able to create this as the beginning had a lot less edits in it, the reason we know it is in the thriller genre is because when the camera breaks the 180 degree rule and pans round to show him as a flawed character, it is also mainly done so that the audience can see the bomb go off from the cafe as this type of action is mainly associated with the action/thriller genre. we also know its a thriller film as it deals with the threat of mankind and the lack of child birth and there are signifiers that tell us that the anti- hero will be able to save man kind.
Here is a link to the trailer of "Children Of Men"
Composition
Photography brings a visual language that is universal in understanding. We must then understand its vocabulary which consists of shapes, textures, patterns, lines, colours, shade of light to dark and sharp to blurry images. Just as we must learn to arrange words in a coherent order in order to make sense when we write or speak, so too must we put visual elements together in an organized manner if our photographs are to convey their meaning clearly and vividly.
Composition means arrangement: the orderly putting together of parts to make a unified whole; composition through a personal, intuitive act. However, there are basic principles that govern the way visual elements behave and interact when you combine them inside the four borders of a photograph. Once we have sharpened our vision and grasped these basic ideas of principles, then we will have the potential for making our photographs more exciting and effective than ever before.
About Myself
Hi i'm Jess,
For A level's i am taking Art, Textiles, As Dance and Media. I chose these subjects as i wish to carry these on for further development at Uni.
I chose Media studies as i have always found it interesting to see what it takes to make an interesting film, behind the action. I am very excited at the prospect of making a horror film as it will be a new and exciting experience. I would like like to further my development to A level to make a music video!
My favourite films are very broad as their is no particular genre i like: to name a few would be Inglorious Bastards, The Last Song, Romeo and Juliet in Love, Transformers; and James Bond.
I will post further comments on here to keep you all uptodate on my progress with my horror clip.
Jess
For A level's i am taking Art, Textiles, As Dance and Media. I chose these subjects as i wish to carry these on for further development at Uni.
I chose Media studies as i have always found it interesting to see what it takes to make an interesting film, behind the action. I am very excited at the prospect of making a horror film as it will be a new and exciting experience. I would like like to further my development to A level to make a music video!
My favourite films are very broad as their is no particular genre i like: to name a few would be Inglorious Bastards, The Last Song, Romeo and Juliet in Love, Transformers; and James Bond.
I will post further comments on here to keep you all uptodate on my progress with my horror clip.
Jess
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