Thursday 19 December 2013
Pier Interview- Thriller Research
Wednesday 18 December 2013
General Research into Thrillers
In order to understand the genre we are working, I am writing on the Thriller genre in general in this post.
The genre is driven by the main aspects of suspense, excitement, anticipation; the need to get the audience 'on the edge of their seats'/ alert. These films have a tendency to be fast paced especially the action thrillers, and nerving/ increasing the adrenaline in the audience; getting the audience to expect one thing and reveal that it isn't the case and something unexpected occurs to keep the story fresh by reveal.
The thing with Thrillers is that they have a lot of overlapping themes with other genres, and subsequently also due to the variety in which Thrillers come as, they are split into sub- genres of which I've reviewed both psychological thrillers and an action thriller for the coursework, but seeing all the sub- genres that exist, I realize just how many Thrillers I've actually watched generally in my life time including; Crime Thrillers, Legal Thrillers, Science Fiction Thrillers, Religious Thrillers, Action Thrillers, Film Noir & Psychological Thrillers & even Erotic Thrillers.
............................
After accomplishing the Preliminary exercise, I'm wandering whether our short film would fall into the crime- thriller genre as it involves the cold, dark, mysterious killing of a suspect by a detective who could be considered a bit contradictory to what a detective does and seemingly the potential of an anti- hero character in how he seems to be the protagonist except his dark words/ actions seem uncertain between moral and unmoral.
............................
I've begun to questionnaire people I know about their knowledge and comments on Thrillers i.e. my parents.
What comes to your mind when you think of a Thriller film?
-Scary, Tense, exciting
-sitting-on-the-edge-of your seat
-holding hands to love ones
-Suspense, unexpected parts of film (equally expected parts- cliche's, but thrillers can sometimes cleverly bringing you into thinking something else; drawing you away from expecting an upcoming event)
What makes a Thriller good in your opinion?
-good build-up/ story
-good characterization/ familiarization with protagonist from the usual thriller beginning being a normal day-to-day character with a causal/ normal day-to-day routine
-eerie music (psychological thriller)
-isolated, dark/ Gothic places- dark/ sinister
How would you start a Thriller off?
-daily casual opening introducing protagonist
-(action thriller)action/intense opening (007 films are similar but really a genre of themselves)- to catch audience attention
Name a few other sub-genres in the Thriller genre...
-Political thriller- how government works- popular dramas- certain politicians up to business they shouldn't be doing/ corruption- very popular for an older audience (older adults)
I also did a questionnaire which 10 of my colleagues where I developed a pie chart with every response from a person (they were allowed to say more than one thing hence why the pie chart do not add up to 10).
The 1st pie chart deals with my peers' first thoughts on the word thriller, which will help me think up of the direction we want to take for the opening titles e.g. more action packed over scary etc.
This 2nd pie chart shows what my peers expect when they are about to see a thriller- regardless of sub-genre. These are key words worth implementing into the final idea for the opening titles.
Recently, we have decided on taking a similar step to the main task as the preliminary in keeping the opening mysterious e.g. eerie setting/ music, and making the audience slightly nervous right at the end. The only ways we would emphasize or intensify the action concept (action packed being mentioned a quarter of the time from the questionnaire) would be in making jump/ hard cuts from frame to frame to increase audience interest in an increase of pace, as this piece isn't action based e.g. explosions, guns etc.
For the opening titles, we have taken on board aspects from this questionnaire such as dark settings making up a lot of a thriller's environment, but this will probably be challenged in our final piece as we plan to shoot in our school grounds in a couple of empty corridors (although in the editing stage we can dim the lighting if we wanted to).
Hopefully there are other ways of making it intense and exciting after than a dim lit setting e.g. sound; background music or effects.
The genre is driven by the main aspects of suspense, excitement, anticipation; the need to get the audience 'on the edge of their seats'/ alert. These films have a tendency to be fast paced especially the action thrillers, and nerving/ increasing the adrenaline in the audience; getting the audience to expect one thing and reveal that it isn't the case and something unexpected occurs to keep the story fresh by reveal.
The thing with Thrillers is that they have a lot of overlapping themes with other genres, and subsequently also due to the variety in which Thrillers come as, they are split into sub- genres of which I've reviewed both psychological thrillers and an action thriller for the coursework, but seeing all the sub- genres that exist, I realize just how many Thrillers I've actually watched generally in my life time including; Crime Thrillers, Legal Thrillers, Science Fiction Thrillers, Religious Thrillers, Action Thrillers, Film Noir & Psychological Thrillers & even Erotic Thrillers.
............................
After accomplishing the Preliminary exercise, I'm wandering whether our short film would fall into the crime- thriller genre as it involves the cold, dark, mysterious killing of a suspect by a detective who could be considered a bit contradictory to what a detective does and seemingly the potential of an anti- hero character in how he seems to be the protagonist except his dark words/ actions seem uncertain between moral and unmoral.
............................
I've begun to questionnaire people I know about their knowledge and comments on Thrillers i.e. my parents.
What comes to your mind when you think of a Thriller film?
-Scary, Tense, exciting
-sitting-on-the-edge-of your seat
-holding hands to love ones
-Suspense, unexpected parts of film (equally expected parts- cliche's, but thrillers can sometimes cleverly bringing you into thinking something else; drawing you away from expecting an upcoming event)
What makes a Thriller good in your opinion?
-good build-up/ story
-good characterization/ familiarization with protagonist from the usual thriller beginning being a normal day-to-day character with a causal/ normal day-to-day routine
-eerie music (psychological thriller)
-isolated, dark/ Gothic places- dark/ sinister
How would you start a Thriller off?
-daily casual opening introducing protagonist
-(action thriller)action/intense opening (007 films are similar but really a genre of themselves)- to catch audience attention
Name a few other sub-genres in the Thriller genre...
-Political thriller- how government works- popular dramas- certain politicians up to business they shouldn't be doing/ corruption- very popular for an older audience (older adults)
I also did a questionnaire which 10 of my colleagues where I developed a pie chart with every response from a person (they were allowed to say more than one thing hence why the pie chart do not add up to 10).
The 1st pie chart deals with my peers' first thoughts on the word thriller, which will help me think up of the direction we want to take for the opening titles e.g. more action packed over scary etc.
This 2nd pie chart shows what my peers expect when they are about to see a thriller- regardless of sub-genre. These are key words worth implementing into the final idea for the opening titles.
Recently, we have decided on taking a similar step to the main task as the preliminary in keeping the opening mysterious e.g. eerie setting/ music, and making the audience slightly nervous right at the end. The only ways we would emphasize or intensify the action concept (action packed being mentioned a quarter of the time from the questionnaire) would be in making jump/ hard cuts from frame to frame to increase audience interest in an increase of pace, as this piece isn't action based e.g. explosions, guns etc.
For the opening titles, we have taken on board aspects from this questionnaire such as dark settings making up a lot of a thriller's environment, but this will probably be challenged in our final piece as we plan to shoot in our school grounds in a couple of empty corridors (although in the editing stage we can dim the lighting if we wanted to).
Hopefully there are other ways of making it intense and exciting after than a dim lit setting e.g. sound; background music or effects.
Monday 16 December 2013
Opening Titles Development 6; Storyboard Development of new idea
Our New idea involves a simply to shoot opening title scene of an assassin breaking the neck of a victim whilst constantly flicking to another scene of a pianoist who at the end of the opening is revealed to be the killer.
Main Task Names
and Reasoning
Name
|
Reasoning
|
The Whisper
|
The masked murderer says something o the victim before he kills them.
This simple title is not detailed enough to let the viewer’s know what
happens, creating tension, and can be used to pique interest due to its
simple name which gives away minimal spoilers. Since what the murderer says
is inaudible, it can create even more tension with a title like this as you
want to know what he whispers.
|
Sound
|
This can have a double meaning relating to the masked man. It can
firstly relate to the thing he says to the victim, which is inaudible. This title
makes it seem misleading so it could mess around with the viewer. Secondly,
it can relate to the piano scene with the music, which is what the viewer
mostly hears. It hardly gives anything away to prevent spoilers.
|
Drip
|
Refers to the tear on the mask of the murderer, but also the fact
that he has blood on his hands. This title is more revealing but simplistic
and only has implications without giving much of the plot away. It could be
interpreted in sinister ways but other than that it gives away nothing,
building suspense as people want to know the story.
|
Friday 6 December 2013
Opening Titles Development 5; Script no. 2
New Script
Long shot of the UK police station. (MD1 Filled with students, looking as if working hard and typing fast, using “hackertyper.com”)
Another camera shot of the entrance of the police station, with muffled voices heard of a police chief shouting. Camera follows an IT guy jogging down a corridor with a small cardboard folder, which appears to be full. As we enter behind the man, the Chief shouts.
Over shoulder shots of police on computers and 3rd person shots, combined to create match-on-action.
Police chief: Have you traced the IP yet!? We need that IP tracked immediately; we have no time to waste!
Police: I’m trying sir!
Police chief: Then try harder!
Just as the police chief finishes his sentence all the computers start shutting down and there are gasps of disbelief.
Police chief: (Demanding tone) WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!
(Silence)
Police Chief: TELL ME!!!
(Short pause before officer pipes up)
Police: (nervously) They’ve shut us down… Sir…
Scene switches to another building of a Hong Kong police station. Scene then changes to inside the station where a Chinese policeman is at a computer with an over shoulder shot. A man is handing him a satellite photograph.
C. Police: (In Cantonese) I’ve printed it off.
C. Police Chief: (In Cantonese) Thank you, I’ll ring them now.
Chinese police chief picks up a phone next to him and starts inputting a phone number.
Phone rings in UK police station and UK police chief is seen picking it up and talking. The Chinese police chief speaks in English and the UK police chief is informed of theobject. As they talk, the conversation is heard, while the camera shows investigators getting into a car. The shots are relevant to what is being said. Conversation ends as the investigators are standing where they were told to go.
Investigator 2: (holding laptop) I am sure, in fact, the signal is coming from… right… above us?”
Camera switches to POV to show investigators as they look up, and just as they see an object the scene cuts to a black screen with the title fading in.
Tuesday 3 December 2013
Opening Titles Development 4; Reserch on web
As a group, we have found a website called http://hackertyper.com/ where you can spam the keyboard/ write anything, and the site (black screen, green text will make you look like you are hacking/ coding) which we could film ourselves doing without audio, as we would want to keep the identity of the hacker a mystery until the hint right at the end of alien intervention.
Opening Titles Development 3; Script no. 1
Simple Script by Sam
Long shot of the UK police station.
Another camera shot of the entrance of the police station, with muffled voices heard of a police chief shouting.
Over shoulder shots of police on computers and 3rd person shots, combined to create match-on-action.
Police chief: Have you traced the IP yet!? We need that IP tracked immediately; we have no time to waste!
Police: I’m trying sir!
Police chief: Then try harder!
Just as the police chief finishes his sentence all the computers start shutting down and there are gasps of disbelief.
Police chief: (Demanding tone) What just happened?!
Police: Sir, they’ve shut us down.
Scene switches to another building of a Hong Kong police station. Scene then changes to inside the station where a Chinese policeman is at a computer with an over shoulder shot. A man is handing him a satellite photograph.
C. Police: (In Cantonese) I’ve printed it off.
C. Police Chief: (In Cantonese) Thank you, I’ll ring them now.
Chinese police chief picks up a phone next to him and starts inputting a phone number.
Phone rings in UK police station and UK police chief is seen picking it up and talking. The Chinese police chief speaks in English and the UK police chief is informed of the object. As they talk, the conversation is heard, while the camera shows investigators getting into a car. The shots are relevant to what is being said. Conversation ends as the investigators are standing where they were told to go.
Investigator 1: It’s here right? I don’t see anything.
Investigator 2: (holding laptop) I am sure, in fact, the signal is coming from… right… above us?”
Camera switches to POV to show investigators as they look up, and just as they see an object the scene cuts to a black screen with the title fading in.
End
We will be altering this simple script to fit an opening e.g. typically barely any dialogue and more of a 'actions speaking louder than words' situation, so that the audience can wok out what's going on by using their heads.
Opening Titles Development 2; title names & storyboard
Final Main Task Idea
Short Summary:
The entire world’s computer systems are being hacked by an unknown source. As data on practically everything is being taken, police forces are struggling to stop it. Shortly, a space satellite picks up something and investigators are sent to the location to find the source. Upon arriving, they are able to pick up a signal… directly above them.
The entire world’s computer systems are being hacked by an unknown source. As data on practically everything is being taken, police forces are struggling to stop it. Shortly, a space satellite picks up something and investigators are sent to the location to find the source. Upon arriving, they are able to pick up a signal… directly above them.
Title Suggestions
|
Reasoning
|
Beyond
|
The hacker is from an alien source up in space, with technology beyond human capabilities and is literally beyond their reach. A title this vague also makes the film seem more mysterious.
|
Hacker
|
So you get the general idea of what the film is about before seeing it- and it is basically simple. The audience and their expectations are going to be surprised to find out what the hacker is/ where it is.
|
Titles and Opening
The film starts off with British police on computers actively working on computers as they are being hacked. A police chief is yelling angrily such as ‘hurry up, track the IP!” and then a scene is shown in Hong Kong as they receive something from a space satellite showing something in Britain. They phone the British police and tell them of this. Investigators are seen walking over to where it is, one carrying a laptop, and a signal is picked up right above them. They camera then cuts to a point-of-view shot of the investigator as they look up, and an object is seen for a split second before cutting to a black screen with a title.
Here's a storyboard I have made to convey me and Sam's Hacker/ Beyond idea. This mainly displays the story and several ideas for the camera shots and the audio (music increasing volume when the scene becomes tense).
I haven't included much on the titles appearing throughout the opening, but we'll be improvising the font/ style and the transition of these titles when we finally come to the editing where we would obviously pick a font to be c
onsistent throughout the 2 minute opening.
Thinking about the task at hand, we considered the fact that this is an opening to a film, and plan to make it start off in an office like room as if nothing out of the norm was happening then with the sudden shutdown and corruption of computers worldwide in an instant the whole atmosphere is going to change. Our idea is that the Hacker hacking worldwide authorities is actually from out of space, but is only slightly implied right at the end before the film title as a police squad notice the signal has taken them into the middle of nowhere and realize there must be something above them...
If the film was ever fully made, it could delve into a very typical alien invasion story, but for our task we don't even need to mention that.
Here's a storyboard I have made to convey me and Sam's Hacker/ Beyond idea. This mainly displays the story and several ideas for the camera shots and the audio (music increasing volume when the scene becomes tense).I haven't included much on the titles appearing throughout the opening, but we'll be improvising the font/ style and the transition of these titles when we finally come to the editing where we would obviously pick a font to be c
onsistent throughout the 2 minute opening.
Thinking about the task at hand, we considered the fact that this is an opening to a film, and plan to make it start off in an office like room as if nothing out of the norm was happening then with the sudden shutdown and corruption of computers worldwide in an instant the whole atmosphere is going to change. Our idea is that the Hacker hacking worldwide authorities is actually from out of space, but is only slightly implied right at the end before the film title as a police squad notice the signal has taken them into the middle of nowhere and realize there must be something above them...
If the film was ever fully made, it could delve into a very typical alien invasion story, but for our task we don't even need to mention that.
Monday 2 December 2013
Opening Titles Development 1; 1st Ideas
Ever since the Preliminary Task, me and my peer Alex have been talking about the potential locations for outside thrillers if they were to take on board a particular gothical, dark theme.
Where I live in Poole, East Dorset, there's a good area of heathlands; Holton Heath, Upton Heath, and Canford Heath.
We have a list of things we've been told not to include in any of our tasks;
-Using actual guns; even if unloaded
-Cars in motion
In Holton Heath there is an old explosives site from WW2 that was closed down after the war by the Royal Navy and left as a nature reserve that is open to the public which would be great as it is a good place to film shots where you shouldn't have barely any sign of civilization apart from pylons and possibly the sound of distant cars on a dual carriage way. This Image to the left is from wiki of a particular rusty, old site for a potential scene in our opening titles.
This is a birds eye view of Holton Heath from Google Maps where the brown/ green areas in the center of this image are permitted pretty much to the public but surrounded by zones like the industrial estate (bottom right) and the greenery land (mid right) owned to an organization that is pretty much a creative day care for disabled people.
One of my peers, Alex, is planning to get an HD camera for our filming if we ever decided to film outside school boundaries e.g. in Holton Heath or somewhere of particular natural outside world interest, as we aren't allowed to take the schools' HD cameras outside the school.
To begin with, I was thinking of my group producing a thriller that falls into a simplistic sci- fi due to my love for sci- fi in general and the possibilities of the fictional world, although it would have to be a good idea to do on an extremely low budget of almost nothing. Then I had the idea of a psychological thriller of a girl being killed on the way from school by a dark mysteriously supernatural character.
My 1st Sci- Fi Thriller ideas
My 1st Psychological Thriller ideas
My Peer Sam had this 1st idea;
Where I live in Poole, East Dorset, there's a good area of heathlands; Holton Heath, Upton Heath, and Canford Heath.
We have a list of things we've been told not to include in any of our tasks;
-Using actual guns; even if unloaded
-Cars in motion
In Holton Heath there is an old explosives site from WW2 that was closed down after the war by the Royal Navy and left as a nature reserve that is open to the public which would be great as it is a good place to film shots where you shouldn't have barely any sign of civilization apart from pylons and possibly the sound of distant cars on a dual carriage way. This Image to the left is from wiki of a particular rusty, old site for a potential scene in our opening titles.One of my peers, Alex, is planning to get an HD camera for our filming if we ever decided to film outside school boundaries e.g. in Holton Heath or somewhere of particular natural outside world interest, as we aren't allowed to take the schools' HD cameras outside the school.
To begin with, I was thinking of my group producing a thriller that falls into a simplistic sci- fi due to my love for sci- fi in general and the possibilities of the fictional world, although it would have to be a good idea to do on an extremely low budget of almost nothing. Then I had the idea of a psychological thriller of a girl being killed on the way from school by a dark mysteriously supernatural character.
My 1st Sci- Fi Thriller ideas
•Taking the idea of Doctor Who/ Stargate
combined
•A portal between worlds/ planets
•Portal could be a door
•The protagonist (a psychic) locates the
whereabouts of strange energy in a school
•This psychic is a student which is trying
to skive off a lesson in order to solve this energy signal in his head whilst
being looked for by his fellow pupils; who think he is weird/ a problem child
•He finds a door that leads to a destroyed
world/ wasteland where he is met by a guy in worn out clothing telling him of a
time where his world was destroyed by a psychic who mastered his abilities but
used them for the sake of revenge and power making him incredibly corrupt
•This guy is suddenly killed by the power
of thought by the parallel version of the protagonist who then realises he is
in danger of himself taking over the world, and has to somehow overcome his
anger in order to prevent his world being destroyed
•Somehow this parallel will have to
be revisited and not just a plot devise at the start
My 1st Psychological Thriller ideas
•A girl is walking home down a dark path
off the reaches of a residential estate from school
•Is texted all of a sudden by an unknown
contact saying “I’m here”
•Turns around to see a dark figure in the
trees staring at her
•She starts to speed walk down the path as
this figure seems to be jumping from one spot to another
•Tries to get back off the path but is
blocked by the figure and ends up taking a long cut through the trees until she
stops under a bridge breathless
•Suddenly she turns towards the horizon
and sees the figure jump towards her closer and closer until it disappears and
she breathes in relief but then is attacked from behind in a headlock and then
a blank screen from her POV as her neck snaps
•Bit of a dramatic/ graphic ending?
:P
My Peer Sam had this 1st idea;
Film Title: Hacked
Characters:
Hacker
Police Detective
Victim
Hacker
Police Detective
Victim
Plot:
A hacker is hacking into major banks across the globe, stealing large sums of money for personal gain. The police are actively hunting him down, but he is constantly on the move. As police raid where places he’s been staying previously, their computer systems are also getting hacked as the anonymous hacker removes their files on him. A victim – now homeless – is interviewed, describing the effects of losing everything. After a long and desperate hunt he is cornered and police prepare to invade his last hideout. Then, things take a turn for worse when the hacker has stolen all information from British banks, including personal information of customers and accounts. A choice is then given to the British government; a sum of £10 million to be paid and he leaves the country, or all information is given to major criminal organisations around the world, causing a massive economic collapse in Britain.
A hacker is hacking into major banks across the globe, stealing large sums of money for personal gain. The police are actively hunting him down, but he is constantly on the move. As police raid where places he’s been staying previously, their computer systems are also getting hacked as the anonymous hacker removes their files on him. A victim – now homeless – is interviewed, describing the effects of losing everything. After a long and desperate hunt he is cornered and police prepare to invade his last hideout. Then, things take a turn for worse when the hacker has stolen all information from British banks, including personal information of customers and accounts. A choice is then given to the British government; a sum of £10 million to be paid and he leaves the country, or all information is given to major criminal organisations around the world, causing a massive economic collapse in Britain.
Thursday 21 November 2013
Preliminary Task Complete!
Jack insisted on some Reggae music at the end whilst the credits scroll, which I couldn't exactly argue over, and for a task like this, it's not going to get us marks down.
On our Opening Titles task, we are considering linking it with this short 2 minute film as it fits with the requirements of a 'fictional' theme, and would seem nice to have a constant theme throughout our coursework, but we probably will go with another idea for the opening titles to at least show a wider understanding in the thriller genre as a whole rather than sticking to a particular theme.
Here's a link to the video on my personal youtube channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSokcnxlHNo
I think we have a good understanding of the 3 cinematography rules, but due to a few technical difficulties and time we didn't show a lot of the switching-between-shots within the 180 degree rule.
Wednesday 20 November 2013
Filming Progress 4; Preliminary Task
In the time of a week, I have finished my section of the editing and have left my 2 other peers (Sam & Jack) to finish the final stages which we all agreed on; improving the lighting in order to make it feel more dark and distressing.These snapshots show Sam cutting down the exported video of my edit and adding particular brightness settings to a certain shot.
We considered at one point to reduce the volume of the music I used in my edit that I had gotten from some media resource folders on my school's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), but in the end we agreed the music level fitted the tone of the film anyhow.
Last but not least, the my other peer Jack is going to be adding on the credits to the end of the lighting edit, and then we will be moving onto the Opening Titles task.
I'll be uploading the final video in one of my next posts.
Tuesday 19 November 2013
Speed (1994) Review
From reviewing the 2 films ‘Psycho’ & ‘The Birds’ which come into
the sub-genre of a Psychological thriller, I've now watched a film that comes
into the Action Thriller sub-genre which I tell from the wording that this will
use active, tense situations to drive suspense in the audience e.g. some sort
of high action, hugely tense/ nerving car chase of some sort which I could tell
Speed would be similar to by looking at the italic-like typography of the title and the bus flying through an explosion behind the main actor/ star of the film; Keanu Reeves.
From what I've seen, Speed and its respective sub-genre seem much more
realistic and use realistic events/ possibilities in turn are more effective
than ‘The Birds’ as you could imagine yourself on the bus in Speed, and what’s
frightening is how it’s much more likely to happen in terms of terrorism than
birds that have become interested into killing humans.
What me and my peers should try and do for our Opening Titles task is
to attach the audience to the concept of the film, so that it makes them strong
feel like they are/ could be the character in the situation of the film.
 |
The Opening Titles of this film have you descend down a lift shaft, as a way of keeping the audience interested whilst the opening credits appear from behind lift frames as you descend and disappear as another frame flies past the camera, which we could try to incorporate into our opening titles if we were to have an opening scene; especially on the move.The good thing about this 'classic'-considered film is that the story line is very simple as it is obviously an action- thriller in which most of the film is targeted at delivering high paced action scenes in Los Angeles. The Story starts off with an old, clever man/ terrorist planning to make money by killing/ threatening lives in an attempt to blackmail the authorities (i.e. the police) to pay him a very large sum of money. This man targets a lift shaft in a building where small explosives have been set onto the lifts which could of sent dozens of people falling to their deaths, but the L.A.P.D (Los Angeles Police Division) special ops are contacted quickly and get the citizens out of the lift before it plummets where they find the armed, old man in a unused lift who runs off into a room whilst being chased down by 2 of the special ops. From what they see, they see the old man walk into the room and explode from the explosives strapped to him around his torso.
Somehow he survives and seems to have a plan B, where he contacts one of the L.A.P.D members on their time off duty and sets off an explosive on a bus down the road and warns him that the same explosion could happen to a bus nearby (a km or so) which is heading for a highway where if it reaches 50mph, it will explode if it drops back down below 50mph. The man also tells him that the bus will explode if anyone tries to get off, where you see shots of the man in his base with screens showing CCTV, news channels, helicopter cameras to see the amount of work he has put into doing his terrorism, and his control. So the rest of the film simply takes this police officer onto the bus where he tries to outsmart the old man in order to get the passengers off safely without falling below 50mph.
The pacing of this film is very constant luckily, as there isn't a moment in the film (maybe except the L.A.P.D presentation scene 30 minutes in) where I got really bored/ peered away from the screen, as when the bus phase of the film arises, it doesn't settle down in terms of suspense and action until the closing credits. The pacing of the film is helped by the gimmicks/ parts in the story where when you think some of the minor problems have been solved e.g. the highways/ roads being cleared for the speeding bus, more small problems arise to keep the viewer engaged i.e. sharp turns the bus has to make or even an extreme situation of jumping over a 100ft-ish gap on a highway interchange. So I can say the writers/ others behind the film definitely thought out well how they were going to keep the audience entertained with this speeding bus and what obstacles are going to arise on its journey.
Overall, for what the film is (an action- thriller), I really enjoyed it and would agree with reviewers on sites like IMDb who would regard this as a classic. Thinking about it, I cannot think of anything really wrong with the film as a whole, as the pacing is well made, the characters/ actors are believable in the tense atmosphere of the film. I would give this a 4.5/ 5.
Sunday 3 November 2013
Filming Progress 3; Preliminary Task
In the last week, I have produced an almost finished 2 minute long thriller-crime themed film for the preliminary task. All we need to do as a group is agree on whether the film is decent enough to leave aside and move on- as it is after all only to get the grasp of 3 basic techniques in cinematography.
Our film is meant to be a mystery, crime thriller in which a cold/ dark detective (played by me) is interrogating a suspect who for unknown reasons, kills him off blatantly but by unknown means- the only clue the audience has is this briefcase he has on the desk in the room which he opens just before the suspect falls to the ground dead.
To edit the video, I used Sony Vegas Pro which is similar to using Adobe Premiere except that it includes more ways of personalising visual effects installed on the software, which we may use in the next task.
One of my friends had done a quick draft of the film beforehand which we all liked, and all it needed was some cuts at the beginning to show the Detective enter the Interrogation room.
To make it better for I personally & hopefully for my friends acceptance, I've added some music pretty much to the whole video except for the majority of the interrogation to present and atmosphere of suspense and focus on the detectives dark voice.
I used a lot of cutting between shots where the camera view is at a different angle, so that you end up with a smooth professional flow of shots of me (the detective) walking down an corridor.
The cutting technique helped on a key part of my audio where I stammer on a line, so that in this (hopefully) final piece, the dialogue flows as if I didn't make a mistake. I could of also fixed this dialogue problem by using audio from another take which I decided not to.
I used this function of fading audio in/ out so that the atmosphere made with audio doesn't suddenly fall flat when the audio has finished playing.
What is also useful on this and any other video editing software is the ability to easily change the volume on particular audio rather than all the audio together, but on this video the audio doesn't seem to be a problem.
There's some shots at the start in the corridor seen where no audio was accidentally not recorded, but thanks to the mystical/ horror/ thriller- like music, you don't really recognise it as a big fault when watching as the sound is still flowing in the form of music and it can give the sense of isolation the corridor shots give, but now we've sussed out how to make sure the HD cameras are recording.
Sunday 20 October 2013
Filming Progress 2; Preliminary Task
In the recent takes, we've learned from our older takes in how to pick up better audio by moving the mic closer to the actors but out of shot; sounds very simple which it is, after you get it into your head.
So far, our group has produced a first draft edit of the whole piece- which only uses the last few takes given that they were probably the best as said at the top.
In the next week or so, we plan to edit the piece with a mix of group work in lessons and individual tinkering at home- in order to get this part of the coursework over and done with as quickly as possible, and maybe do the final most part of the filming if we are unhappy with our cuts.
Monday 14 October 2013
Filming Progress; Preliminary Task
The image to the left is the TV/ Filming Studio which includes a blue/green screen behind on the wall, a computer specialised in film editing on the left hand side, 2 decent HD cameras, and a set of mics and lightning equipment.In terms of health and safety, we moved all unused wires and lights in the TV studio to aside to avoid tripping over during filming and setting up.
On the 1st day in the studio, we did a little read through a little script (thriller, crime based) that my peers and I came up with to bring some enthusiasm into the task regardless of its simple and easy targets we will have to meet, as well as testing the lighting on the left image so that the lighting shines dominantly on the suspect in a room which would almost be considered 'dark'.
For the short task, we planned on doing an interrogation scene of a suspect and a detective (me) in line with the 'Thriller' theme we aim to present through our coursework. It's a simple scene where I enter a room and try to get the suspect to admit something to which I am then handed a briefcase to which I open up and after a flash of darkness the suspect is lying on the floor with the detective saying a few last words and exiting the scene with a suspense of mystery to how the suspect died and what was the investigation? What was the suspect accused of? A series of unanswered questions that gives thriller films like 'The Birds' an interesting ending of mystery.In these 2 images, we are setting up 2 cameras so that one is behind me and the suspect in a 180 degree essence. We were also setting up the briefcase as our dominant prop where we experimented with trying to light it up from the inside with our phones to give the impression of something important an valuable inside. We dropped this idea after the effects not catching up the cameras, but it's worth considering this method of lightning in the post- production/ editing stage.
To keep with the continuity aspect needed to pass the task, we've made sure as a group that the room stays as it is and that we keep constant in our outfits in shots especially as we end up filming over one day easily. It's fortunetly a locked room in which our teacher has the keys for, so it only involves going to his office and asking for his keys to get in the room filming.
So far we have filmed most of the task inside the TV studio with enough shots (and bloopers for that matter) to give us enough choice of best audio/ shots when editing sooner or later.
Monday 30 September 2013
Psycho & The Birds Review
These 2 famous films going back to the 1960's brought the sub-genre of Psychological Thrillers into being; showing how scary a film could be without the use of much gore, but a very good use of suspense to keep the viewer entertained and interested in the films.
Source: IMDb (Internet Movie Database)
PSYCHO (1960)
The Director Alfred Hitchcock chose to make Psycho in black and white (low budget) although colour was available, because he wanted to prove a good film could be made without the use of colour compared to other movie rivals, and filming in black and white allows shots like the house of the character Norman Bates to look darker and mysterious at the right time of day, especially when giving the semiotic contrast of the house and the innocent looking motel.
Hitchcock is known for his story twists such as planting the roots of a typical story of 2 lovers wanting to get married but can't for financial reasons, so the woman, Lila Crane steals 40, 000 Dollars from her Employer who she's meant to bank, but instead goes on the run to meet up with her lover with a lengthy journey in front of her from Phoenix, Arizona to California, but on the way she stops at a motel which delves into another story in itself.
Before Lila gets to the motel, Hitchcock does well in keeping the audience fixated on the film for 30-45 odd minutes by adding in that on her way to California, she is being followed by a policeman who she suspects knows about the 4,000 dollars she stolen. The musical soundtrack in these scenes of the movie keeps the audience on their tones and gets us recognizing the significance of the policeman following Lila means she's in trouble.
I'm happy to now know where the famous thriller soundtrack is from; in the shower scene where Lila is stabbed to death by an unknown killer; to start of with the killer's unknown...
Watching the scene a second time, there's a quick shot where the Killer exits the bathroom where you notice the clothing the killer is wearing is very feminine and must be connected to Norman's Mother who's voice is heard by Lila from the Motel as both Norman and his mother argue.
In the Opening Titles task my peers and I will be doing after the Preliminary Exercise or even the Preliminary task itself, we might consider shooting a part of a scene where you notice something you didn't see before the 1st time round in a matter of seconds/ frames e.g. the killer who runs out of shot in a few frames which shows the killer to have blatant female clothing; a dress.
The pace of the story flows well with each victim of the killer, as every time a victim dies you are coming up with solutions to who the killer is and makes you want to finally find out by the end.
In terms of the plot twist ending, Hitchcock does well in revealing the killer to be not Norman's loud, angry (seemingly psychotic by characters like Lila from her voice) mother, but Norman himself; dressing up as his mother hence having a very deep psychological split personality that houses his mother after living on his own after killing his mother and her partner who he thought had stolen his mother away from him. The split personality reminds me a lot of the character Gollum from The Hobbit & Lord Of The Rings who develops a way of talking to himself as there's no one else to talk to, hence why Norman Bates carries on his mother's voice, actions and thoughts through loneliness and a dark, unfortunate history, and every time he meets someone like Lila (a woman), the jealousy of his 'mother' side of his mind dominates him and turns into a murderer.
I like the way in which the film ended with a freaky Norman staring into the audience as if breaking the fourth wall (breaking the barrier between film and reality) with the mother's voice being played on audio to give the idea that it's Norman's/ his mothers thoughts running through his head.
For our filming tasks, we could incorporate the idea of getting something in the film that sticks with the viewer long after the film has finished such as Norman's evil grin at the end, or even a piece of dialogue; probably with some philosophical meaning to make the viewer think about what they've just seen/ heard.
To conclude, I enjoyed the pacing of the film, and found the ending to the film satisfying in finding out everything about the mysterious disappearances/ murders, and I like it how the victims are all connected to each other and not like the Birds (the next film) which a film seems to be invaded by another over halfway through. For what its worth, a classical psychological thriller, I would give it a 4/5, and also because I'm happy this film was captured in black and white for the dark, distressing, villainy feel of the Bates House and films' general atmosphere.
THE BIRDS (1963)
With this film, I find watching the build up to the birds attacking quite dull as it lasts for almost an hour as if its own separate typical romantic film odd build up in terms of a bird clawing Melanie Daniels, and a dead bird on a doorstep, but it wasn't that special and it felt tiresome until the birds begun attacking. Regardless of the length of the film's start, the characters are interesting in how Melanie is brought into Mitch's family and how the mother and Mitch's sister are taking a liking to each other which grows on and on especially when the birds start attacking and right at the end, they have become a family trapped in their house dedicated to survival.
In this film, it defers from Psycho as it uses no music in scenes of suspense and threat, such as the scene where crows begin to gather outside the school of the girl Cathy Brenner who's much older brother Mitch is falling in love with Melanie. In this scene, the kids are signing in class and with each verse, more crows join the pack in silence growing on the suspension. The lack of sound makes the birds look very deadly and dark.
I find it annoying when certain films end without any proper conclusion such as this film although I do feel satisfied in character development terms e.g. knowing that Melanie and Mitch's mother are becoming close (family-like) after having a conversation earlier in the film about how's the mother is unsure whether she wants to like her given her husband died and she doesn't want Mitch to leave her all alone. I guess the uncertain ending is a cliffhanger that will never be resolved, but allows the audience imagine what might happen, and I guess this also allows explanations of the film (to friends/ family, or others who haven't seen it) to be spoiler free in a sense, as spoiling a film is usually informing on how the plot is resolved, and it isn't resolved in this film, hence why I would call it spoiler free.
In our filming tasks, we could use the idea of frustrating the audience with an unfinished/ unresolved ending at the right play in terms of tension/ build up to give a good after effect from the film in which you want to know more and find yourself imagining a lot of what could of happened after instead.
The opening titles of this film, just like Psycho, present themselves at the start of the film in Hitchcock style as if this is an ordinary romance film of some sort, which we are thinking of incorporating, but one thing we are thinking of using is black and white for the text e.g. when the white film titles appear, the screen is darkened or black to give a retro, eerie thriller feeling; even to represent the contrasting of good and evil in the characters.
Overall, this film I find is bit awkward how it seems that the Birds have simply invaded a dull romantic story
that has no relevance to the coming of the birds; which you would expect a story like this to be about a scientist of someone in relation to some sort of scientific experiment which sends killer birds on the loose, so i would give it 2.5/ 5.
Source: IMDb (Internet Movie Database)
PSYCHO (1960)
The Director Alfred Hitchcock chose to make Psycho in black and white (low budget) although colour was available, because he wanted to prove a good film could be made without the use of colour compared to other movie rivals, and filming in black and white allows shots like the house of the character Norman Bates to look darker and mysterious at the right time of day, especially when giving the semiotic contrast of the house and the innocent looking motel.
Hitchcock is known for his story twists such as planting the roots of a typical story of 2 lovers wanting to get married but can't for financial reasons, so the woman, Lila Crane steals 40, 000 Dollars from her Employer who she's meant to bank, but instead goes on the run to meet up with her lover with a lengthy journey in front of her from Phoenix, Arizona to California, but on the way she stops at a motel which delves into another story in itself.
Before Lila gets to the motel, Hitchcock does well in keeping the audience fixated on the film for 30-45 odd minutes by adding in that on her way to California, she is being followed by a policeman who she suspects knows about the 4,000 dollars she stolen. The musical soundtrack in these scenes of the movie keeps the audience on their tones and gets us recognizing the significance of the policeman following Lila means she's in trouble.
I'm happy to now know where the famous thriller soundtrack is from; in the shower scene where Lila is stabbed to death by an unknown killer; to start of with the killer's unknown...
Watching the scene a second time, there's a quick shot where the Killer exits the bathroom where you notice the clothing the killer is wearing is very feminine and must be connected to Norman's Mother who's voice is heard by Lila from the Motel as both Norman and his mother argue.
In the Opening Titles task my peers and I will be doing after the Preliminary Exercise or even the Preliminary task itself, we might consider shooting a part of a scene where you notice something you didn't see before the 1st time round in a matter of seconds/ frames e.g. the killer who runs out of shot in a few frames which shows the killer to have blatant female clothing; a dress.
The pace of the story flows well with each victim of the killer, as every time a victim dies you are coming up with solutions to who the killer is and makes you want to finally find out by the end.
In terms of the plot twist ending, Hitchcock does well in revealing the killer to be not Norman's loud, angry (seemingly psychotic by characters like Lila from her voice) mother, but Norman himself; dressing up as his mother hence having a very deep psychological split personality that houses his mother after living on his own after killing his mother and her partner who he thought had stolen his mother away from him. The split personality reminds me a lot of the character Gollum from The Hobbit & Lord Of The Rings who develops a way of talking to himself as there's no one else to talk to, hence why Norman Bates carries on his mother's voice, actions and thoughts through loneliness and a dark, unfortunate history, and every time he meets someone like Lila (a woman), the jealousy of his 'mother' side of his mind dominates him and turns into a murderer.
I like the way in which the film ended with a freaky Norman staring into the audience as if breaking the fourth wall (breaking the barrier between film and reality) with the mother's voice being played on audio to give the idea that it's Norman's/ his mothers thoughts running through his head.
For our filming tasks, we could incorporate the idea of getting something in the film that sticks with the viewer long after the film has finished such as Norman's evil grin at the end, or even a piece of dialogue; probably with some philosophical meaning to make the viewer think about what they've just seen/ heard.
To conclude, I enjoyed the pacing of the film, and found the ending to the film satisfying in finding out everything about the mysterious disappearances/ murders, and I like it how the victims are all connected to each other and not like the Birds (the next film) which a film seems to be invaded by another over halfway through. For what its worth, a classical psychological thriller, I would give it a 4/5, and also because I'm happy this film was captured in black and white for the dark, distressing, villainy feel of the Bates House and films' general atmosphere.
THE BIRDS (1963)
With this film, I find watching the build up to the birds attacking quite dull as it lasts for almost an hour as if its own separate typical romantic film odd build up in terms of a bird clawing Melanie Daniels, and a dead bird on a doorstep, but it wasn't that special and it felt tiresome until the birds begun attacking. Regardless of the length of the film's start, the characters are interesting in how Melanie is brought into Mitch's family and how the mother and Mitch's sister are taking a liking to each other which grows on and on especially when the birds start attacking and right at the end, they have become a family trapped in their house dedicated to survival.
In this film, it defers from Psycho as it uses no music in scenes of suspense and threat, such as the scene where crows begin to gather outside the school of the girl Cathy Brenner who's much older brother Mitch is falling in love with Melanie. In this scene, the kids are signing in class and with each verse, more crows join the pack in silence growing on the suspension. The lack of sound makes the birds look very deadly and dark.
I find it annoying when certain films end without any proper conclusion such as this film although I do feel satisfied in character development terms e.g. knowing that Melanie and Mitch's mother are becoming close (family-like) after having a conversation earlier in the film about how's the mother is unsure whether she wants to like her given her husband died and she doesn't want Mitch to leave her all alone. I guess the uncertain ending is a cliffhanger that will never be resolved, but allows the audience imagine what might happen, and I guess this also allows explanations of the film (to friends/ family, or others who haven't seen it) to be spoiler free in a sense, as spoiling a film is usually informing on how the plot is resolved, and it isn't resolved in this film, hence why I would call it spoiler free.
In our filming tasks, we could use the idea of frustrating the audience with an unfinished/ unresolved ending at the right play in terms of tension/ build up to give a good after effect from the film in which you want to know more and find yourself imagining a lot of what could of happened after instead.
The opening titles of this film, just like Psycho, present themselves at the start of the film in Hitchcock style as if this is an ordinary romance film of some sort, which we are thinking of incorporating, but one thing we are thinking of using is black and white for the text e.g. when the white film titles appear, the screen is darkened or black to give a retro, eerie thriller feeling; even to represent the contrasting of good and evil in the characters.
Overall, this film I find is bit awkward how it seems that the Birds have simply invaded a dull romantic story
that has no relevance to the coming of the birds; which you would expect a story like this to be about a scientist of someone in relation to some sort of scientific experiment which sends killer birds on the loose, so i would give it 2.5/ 5.
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