brainstorm continued

In the end we disided to move away from conspiacy thrillers and are doing a psychology thriller.
We are planning it on being about a man who liked a women and kid naps her after going on a date with her.

possiple titles/typography:

brainstorm

above are our idea for the genre of our film and a possible shot list of what we would like to use.
we have now updated it and will be including:
1)Dolly zoom-to show fear or shock.
2)Panning shots-To make our charcter to seem as if shes being followed/watched.
3)Reverse shot-signify a flash back,build up suspence.
4)crab shot-use a super wide angle lens(fisheye) on the door to create a peep hole effect.

We have then continued our genre brain storm on another peice of paper.

final editing task

below is our final edit:

Today we finished our editting of our first scene of our opening. This is the scene where the girl is tied up in the chair. This was filmed in the school in the art department in a isolated looking room, which is vacant and plainly decorated. We haven't editting in the establishing shot of the house or the graphic match of the moon to the pearl necklace. We found that this went smoothly however we have realised, despite the fact we have spent about 50 minutes doing the filming, the actual scene came to about 15 seconds. This is a big realisation for us as we need to take into consideration how much time we do need to complete our 2 minutes.

Moreover it was a struggle to find a time when our characters would be able to come for filming as if they do not have the time to take out to help us/ act for us then it will push forward filming to another time. Moreover it is difficult with actors as we need to use the same actors the entire time, therefore if they are not able to act then we cannot film as it wouldn't work to just incorporate a new actress/ actor randomly. Therefore we need to make sure they are available well in advance.

As well as this we are filming in a darkroom at the start- but we didn't have night vision camera with us therefore we used the torch on our camera as a way to light up the room and shine on the girl's face- this actually worked really well as it ended up looking like something out of "quarantine". Quarantine is filmed entirely by a camera man therefore making it more believable for audience- almost like a real life documentary (true story).

We then decided on the idea that the girl would be being filmed by the man, therefore being a point of view shot from the camera. Therefore when we go to shoot the scene again, this is the idea we will try out and see if it works effectively. 

Thriller opening research - mise en scene

The strangers

In this clip we see a character who would be similar to the girl playing the role of the victim in our opening. From this we can see she is wearing average, plain, dull clothing along with bland make up, this is used to take the attention away from the girl is dressed and instead the attention on what is happening in the opening. Alternatively it could be used to show that she is an average girl- making it more relateable to the audience, making them feel as if it could be them in the position. The character at the start is loud and angry which is binary opposition to her apprehension at the ending. 

From the setting we can take that it is a large and vacant house which would heighten the tension in the opening by making her looking isolated and more alone. The decoration of the house is very bland, with the plain white/grey walls and the lighting used is dim and eerie.

Within the opening there is a main focus which starts and concludes the opening. The TV playing white noise. This prop is used to heighten the tension to the audience as it is frantic noise. We could incorporate a prop like this in our opening as it is symbolism for her being anxious/ nervous which is what the girl in our opening will feel.

The strangers

There is only two characters in this opening which do not match the sound of the voice on the phone at the end this is used for the audience to be left in the dark on what has happened which will build up the tension as they are on the edge of their seat to see what is to follow for the rest of the film. Moreover the character who are in it are two average looking boys who are dressed in again bland clothing. This is interesting as throughout our brainstorming we imagined the male and females costumes to be significant of their characters- this is something we will need to look into.

Similarly with The Ring, in The Strangers we can see that the houses used are large and again very spacious. This could reflect upon the idea of the despondency and isolation of the character. Moreover when moving to house to house they use a slow motion effect on the shot which creates dramatic tension which is very effective in this opening- we could use this in our opening as our establishing shot is of the house.  Yet the lighting used is light and calm which could represent the idea of "the calm before the storm".

The opening has some titles at the start which is spoken over. We are particularly interested in the title sequence itself- the significance of the colours used. The black background could be connoting the darkness and scariness of the story with the deep orange/ red writing on top used to represent danger. In our opening we plan to use a background with writing over it for our credits- therefore this is something we could take to influence the way ours will look.

The Women In Black 

With this opening the characters used are young and innocent looking, although it is obviously set in an earlier time these children are representative of average looking children at their age at this time. Moreover their change in facial expressions from the start to end is binary opposition of them playing happily to them suddenly being overcome by something. This is similar to The Ring. 

Moreover similarly to the other two openings, which appears to be a convention of horror thrillers is the open rooms in large looking houses. The lighting used in these houses appear to be dim and dreary, within no unnatural lighting throughout- this maybe to make the audience feel cold and reflect the dull atmosphere.

The props used in this is a stereotypical horror film prop- dolls these are used as they can be made to appear creepy.

Summary:

From looking at the mise- en- scene in thrillers I have learnt that the houses used are large, open and dimly lit. Therefore our group will need to find rooms which are plain, with not much colour and film at a time when it is not too bright (midday/ morning) therefore creating the cold atmosphere for the audience. As well as this we can learn that the characters in the openings appear to be wearing average, dull  yet typical of the person clothing in order to not take away the attention of the storyline throughout. Therefore we may need to re- think our costume ideas. Finally throughout the openings there appears to be props used to enhance the tension of the opening which again is something we should consider when making our opening.

Thriller opening research - camera,sound & editing

Anatomy of a Murder

The opening of the film uses cartoonised body and uses close ups on different parts off it. This is not very graphic and its quite simplistic which gives the impression that the film isn't going to be extremely violent even though it is about murder. We get an impression that it could possibly be quite light hearted. Also using the body it makes it clear that the film is going to be about people being killed as we are shown all the body parts seperately. This clearly links in to the title. The font they use is a white sans-serif font. This makes it quite informal which links into the sense that the film could be lighthearted. Using white subverts our expectations. White connotes to innocence and purity which is not something that is at all related to murder. However, it is written on a black/grey background which relates more to murder as black can connotes to death and danger. The music used is quite upbeat which is contrapuntal. It yet again subverts our expectations of a film about murder, it is quite disturbing that the music is so happy when the film is going to be about people getting murdered.

Se7en

The establishing shot of the film is a close up on the pages of a book. This suggests it will be quite a significant item in the film as it is an image used constantly throughout the opening. Also throughout the opening they use quite a few close ups on the hands which suggests they are also quite important. They are busy doing things and they grate off their own fingertips which adds a sinister mood to the film almost immediately. The music used goes really high pitched at some parts of the opening. This adds to the tension which is being built by the sinister images being shown. It is quite jumpy which adds to the impression that this film is going to be scary. It is parallel sound, we would expect this music to be used in a horror film. Lots of sharp silver objects are shown throughout the opening like the scissors and the needle. This adds a sense of danger and helps to build the tension, also the implements are very clean which could show that they are well looked after or that they are new either way they are going to do their job properly and professionally. Just like in Anatomy of a Murder they use white font on a black background. The white stands out on the black which juxtaposes, it gives the impression that innocence doesn't belong in the film and that purity isn't going to be shown. This emphasises the horror genre of the film.

Grand Prix

They uses a sound bridge right at the beginning of the film the lion roarign turns into the sound of a car reving. This instantly lets us know the film is about cars and racing. It also flows smoothly straight into the film which gives it a sense of continuity. The establishing shot of the film is a close up of the car exhaust. This confirms to the viewer where the reving sound came from. They also use close ups on the tyres and other parts of the car which shows that everything is new which makes it look like this is a professional race. One of the drivers is in a white tracksuit which gives the impression that this character is quite innocent and he will race fair. Compared to drivers in black tracksuits which could be implied that they will be more relentless to win. Yet again the film uses a white font on a black background(this appears to be a common feature of thriller films) which makes the writing stand out so all of our attension first of all is on who is going to be in the film. They clearly thought that telling people the actors and film producers was the most important thing to start the film with.

For our thriller we intend to do some opening credits on a background. For this we will need to research the reoccurring themes for credits in a horror film opening sequence. Here is some research I did looking at clips to see the type of typography they use.

Here we see the black background with white writing on. The typography is block writing which is capitalised.

Similarly to the previous video, the font is block and capitalised. Moreover the background to the majority is black. The font appears on the screen by fading on in each one which shows mystery. Moreover when the font is on the screen you can see the font flashing which could be representative of the lights flashing on in the movie- therefore reflecting some what on the story line. As the lights appear on the screen the who screen seems to flash up which will bring attention to what is on the screen more so. The sound matches when and how the writing appears on the screen- for example when the writing "saw II" appears on the screen there is a dramatic crashing sound which appears from the continuous eerie sound throughout.

Similarly to the rest of the title sequences to horror films we can see a black backdrop with block, capitalised writing on. Red writing is reflective of the story line of death. As the writing starts to melt away in the same way as blood the sound matches it changing to a different type of sound, when new writing appears on the screen, similar to SAW title credits it makes a up beat abrupt sound.

From this we can see that we need to make sure the writing that we put on the screen is in time to sound we choose to use. We can see that the reoccurring theme in horror thrillers openings block and capitalised font which isn't over complicated by being on a straight black background, or something that reflects the storyline.

Analysis and reflections of our first cut continued

Below is our first cut:

The film above is our first edit that we shot.
we realised we had chopped some heads and didn't do a real over the shoulder or include a match on action.
for our second shoot we will keep this in mind while shooting.
we will also edit it smoother as some clips ran on longer than they shouldn't making the edit not flow as smoothly as it could.

Depicted above: Georgina is shown entering the room through the door, and eventually exits to the left of the frame. The shot itself is fine - Georgina is within the confines of the frame and the camera is at a suitable height/angle - however, it is the following shot that demonstrates our poor use of match on action.

Subsequent to Georgina walking past the camera, the clip cuts immediately to this shot which defeats the object of match on action meaning, arguably, there is no match on action whatsoever in our clip. Match on action is designed to gradually reveal a person's journey from one point to another through a succession of three or so shots. Georgina's walk on the other hand, is conveyed through two shots and makes for a very disjointed scene. At this point in the scene, Daisy (sitting) instructs Georgina to sit down. Immediately, the camera cuts to Georgina sitting down and manifests no match on action at all which, again, causes the scene to look disjointed rather than a consistent piece of film comprised of smooth transitions.

In essence, the scene does not show Georgina's walk to her seat smoothly and is very 'jagged', and does not represent time elapsing.

However, one positive than came of our filming was our ability to adhere to the 180 degree rule.

Overall, the following improvements must be made to our clip:

• Match on action must be clearer, representing time elapsing
• Ensure subjects are kept within the confines of the frame
• Demonstrate a shot reverse shot
• Vary our range of camera angles - low/high angle shots/mid shots to emphasize superiority etc.

Analysis and reflections of our first cut

[First Cut Displayed Here]

During the filming of our clip we encountered many problems that have resulted in a number of ramifications during the process of editing. For example, during many of our extreme close-up shots we have attempted to incorporate the eyes, nose and mouth all within the confines of the frame, causing a very distorted and untidy shot. We have since learnt that when using an extreme close-up, it is important to focus specifically on one area of the face: this can be either the eyes and nose, or the nose and mouth - as depicted below.

An extreme close up of the eyes and nose.

An extreme close up including the nose and mouth.

It also occured to us that this principle remains important in the context of a thriller, by not fully disclosing the identity of the person it builds suspense. Whilst we did not successfully capture the extreme close-up, they were also scarce throughout our clip - after analysing our first cut through the resources on the iMac we noticed that segments involving dialogue were often rather boring due to the use of a single two-shot (establishing shot) recording the entirety of a conversation. We agreed that in order to keep an audience engaged in the clip using close-ups/extreme close-ups to capture facial expressions would improve our feature considerably. Furthermore, a succession of shot reverse shots where considered as a viable solution to the problem as this would allow the audience to observe the emotions of the characters and understand the situation. During the latter stages of our clip two girls are shown running - one chasing the other. We noticed that after analysing this scene our clip manifested lax camera work, at some point throughout the clip at least one of the girls did not feature in the full frame of the camera. It was also noticable that our use of match on action was very poor, as match on action refers to the process of time elapsing through a succession of different shots, usualy around three or four to show smoothly how our character got from one place to the next almost tricking the viewer to feel as if they watched each step with there own eyes.

editing research:180 degree rule

Editing: 180 Degree Rule

The 180 degree rule is the principle by which the camera can only film two characters on one side of an imaginary axis that is situated through the centre of both characters, assuming they are sat opposite one another. Breaking the 180 degree rule can cause confusion, it creates the illusion that the two subjects are facing the same direction, causing a scene to appear distorted. Depicted below is an illustration of the intangible confine of the axis that governs the 180 degree rule.

In more complex cases, when characters are moving, the order/direction in which they enter the frame of the camera is imperative in order to ensure the audience comprehends the sequence of events. For example, if the director wishes to convey an extended amount of time passing, a character exiting the frame on the left before entering the frame from the left in a new environment will give the effect that an extensive period of time has passed. The video below explains the concept behind the 180 degree rule in further detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdyyuqmCW14&feature=player_embedded

editing used in thrillers

Editing: 

To create tension thrillers use pace. Fast cutting can help to create suspense. The pace of the shots usually go in unison with the music. Cross cutting is a common editing technique used cutting between the victim and their threat. This sequence normally ends when the two individuals or groups meet in a final climax. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmptU7vEkNU . This clip from inception is an example of cross cutting. The editing creates tension in the film because we see the same character in two different places going through dangerous things in both places. His life is in danger in both places which creates tension for the viewer because we don't know if he is going to survive in both of the situations. Motivated cuts are often used in thrillers to make the audience want to see what happens next. A motivated cut is when a character is looking out of shot with an expression on her face that makes the audience want to see what she is seeing. This is a very good technique to use and an example of this is in the film The Silence of the Lambs when the women is looking at the board and it makes the audience want to see what she is looking at. 

editing research

Today was about examining the process of editing film and why certain editing techniques are employed to engage the consumer. One of these film techniques is called parallel editing - also known as cross cutting. To analyse these methods, we were shown an extract from 'The Godfather: Part II' (1974), in which Michael Corleone (portrayed by Al Pacino) is midway through the conduction of his baptism. Intermittently, the camera would cut to scenes of hit men fulfilling organised murders on Michael's behalf. The ideology behind Francis Ford Coppola's desire to utilize cross cutting is to create an element of juxtaposition that shocks the reader: Michael is at a baptism - his baptism, and in conjunction with him swearing on the bible and announcing repent for his sins and all evil, people are committing murders on his behalf, which paints Pacino's character as ostensible and insensitive. Parallel editing often happens when two events taking place simultaneously but in different location, the two scenes usually connect which results in the culmination of the scene. This creates tension building up to a climax - one notable example of this is when Jonathan Demme decided to use cross cutting in the acclaimed thriller 'Silence of the Lambs' (1991) when the FBI aim to capture protagonist Buffalo Bill. Primarily, parallel editing is used to create suspense to scenes that would otherwise be perceived as boring if shown separately.

Parallel editing (cross cutting) is fundamental in building suspense, imperative in culminating a scene despite the fact that an audience most likely know what is going to happen, although they are not entirely sure when.

Above is a good example of parallel editing in an extract from "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991).

questionaire - audience

Please fill this from out so we can find our genre and target audience
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Lzs7puLkAQZaZik529zuiyoql98rUSvNu8XAOoobpSk/viewform?usp=send_form