What is the purpose of carrying out your meetings?
The main purpose of our group meetings was to discuss exactly what necessary changes had to happen in order to make our thriller codes and conventions effective. We all understood what areas we wanted to cover with the editing of our thriller, but it was important that we constantly discussed this as we may lose focus with the end product.
These is the list of when our group meetings took place:
I feel our group worked really well on this project, and ended up with a really good final piece. A lot of the success was surely due to the constant meetings we held
Whilst filming our thriller opening, there are many dangers that we may need to consider and be aware of. This so we can make sure everyone involved in the production abides to the health and safety rules, so no one gets hurt.
The first of these risks would take place within the forest. One of our scene consists of a chase scene in the forest, which means running. The dangers we have to be aware of here is that there may be tripping hazards. As there could be fallen branches, and roots laying on the forest floor, we must take caution when running through, and also do our best to free the path that the actors will run down, to prevent injury.
The second risk is a vital one, and also our most dangerous. Most of our opening is filmed in an old, burnt down gym that has been abandoned. Parts of the ceiling has caved in, and there's no easy way to determine just how sturdy the whole building is. Some of the ceiling is on the floor along with an old basketball scoreboard. We must be careful not to make too hard an impact on any of the buildings foundation, to prevent any further falling of the ceiling, and we must be careful when maneuvering around the gym, as things could be sharp, or simply in the way when walking.
Another risk would be the clip in which we use the lighter. In this clip we must be careful for the obvious reason that we are playing with a pyrotechnic and must be careful not to burn ourselves, or start a fire that is not under control.
The last of our risks is to do with the camera. If we are filming with the camera on charge,we must be careful that when moving about the set, or filming fast moving scenes, that none of the crew trip over the charger. The same can also be said for the tripod we are using, as it covers a fairly large surface area.
I believe our filming may be a little too short to last a whole 2 minute intro, so we may need to use credits in between images, rather that alongside them. Changing to a black screen, and putting thriller font writing in white, may be the best option to help lengthen our opening, and give more of a suspense effect.
I think straight cuts will be the best transitions, as it seems straight forward and will not deprive the scene from suspense. We do however have a clip that starts with the effect of eyes opening, which may work as a transition from a screen with credits on, back to real images. Another transition that we may use is a 'fade'. This will be used very little though, as different transitions could make our opening seem cheap, and will ruin suspense.
Plenty of the sounds we are using throughout our opening are completely natural sound, but we also plan to have some non-digetic background music playing throughout. It will continue to get louder as the film progresses and become more violent. Added sound effects may be needed to finalize critical suspense moments in the opening, and help create the atmosphere needed.
The credits that seem most fitting, are white edgy effect writing, and a black screen placed between different clips of images we filmed. Colours of the images may also be change as we may need to alter brightness and contrast to create the conventional 'night-time' thriller opening.
The background music we have decided to use will be based on music that has already been produced, but will be changed slightly by Devante and myself as we will be performing two different genres to create a classic mood change in a thriller.
Now that the editing has been finished, we used many different techniques to help create a good thriller atmosphere, and also to help improve the plot and on screen images. Our biggest piece of editing was more than likely the sound. There were several occasions on which we either recorded the sound purposely to be separate from the images, so the sound was clearer and more effective. There was also a scene in which on screen there is a flashback taking place, and I did a voice over which was edited and fitted perfectly for the time signatures needed.
Another piece of editing that we used throughout the opening was math-on-match action. Its a skillful piece of editing that fits seamlessly into our film, and its a skill that would also go unnoticed by someone that didn't pay attention to different camera angles. It creates more of a 3D visual perspective that makes a scene appear more realistic.
Our opening narrative includes only 2 characters. Our group felt that having less characters would make it less complicated, and easier to follow the conventions of the thriller genre.
We had a classic thriller villain. he was unidentifiable, but hints are given with things such as his face being in the shot, but out of focus, so we cannot tell exactly who he is. This is our unidentifiable menace.
The other character in our opening, is the cliche thriller genre helpless woman. The so called 'damsel in distress' is the typical vulnerable woman victim, that apparently can't fight back, but simply run. We feel these characters were the best fit to an achievable effective opening sequence. The male villain character shows dominance from the start of our narrative, as all the camera shots show the man as being at a higher level looking down on her. The victim is also tied to a chair, and has duct tape on her mouth, therefore she is not only scared and vulnerable, but she is unable to help herself in anyway.
Our opening scene has influences from each of the different theories. Theory #1 (Vladmir Propp) fits in with our narrative because there are 2 of the characters included that fit in with Propp's idea of the different roles in the characters. It then fits in with Theory #2 because of Todorov's idea of an equilibrium, and a disequilibrium. The equilibrium is seen in the planned flashback, and the disequilibrium comes when the villain abducts her. The narrative then fits theory #3 because of the idea of an antagonist/protagonist. The protagonist in our story is the unidentifiable menace.
The opinions we got from our target audience (15-30 years old) was that the film should contain more gore than necessary within a conventional thriller film. Although the idea behind the interviews and questionnaire's was to take opinions and comments and apply them to our thriller opening, I feel the gore element of our film should not exist, as our thriller is based heavily on audience assumption, and that the story line should not be over described with visual effects.
We were looking for answers to our questions, as ones that would provide us with a greater knowledge on how to enhance more psychological factors into our opening. Things such as use of focus, and off screen sounds would help to produce some effects we may have been looking for, although I feel our questions were too broad for this, especially as some of the younger ages in our target audience were intent on seeing every gory detail.
The interviews proved more effective than the questionnaires, as we were able to let the participants elaborate further into their answer. Sometimes their answers were too vague, so through more of a cognitive typed interview, we were able to help guide them in a direction that may be of some use to us, and a way in which we could adapt our thriller opening. Between these questions, and some peoples comparisons to other thriller films, we feel that our thriller opening shall benefit greatly, from a range of different ideas that we may not have initially thought of.
The scene we watched from the strangers shows many different editing and sound skills to cause tension and suspensse as we empathise with the main character.
The film uses Non-digetic sound by using background music to help boost the tension because of an eerie feeling in the atmosphere that helps the audience to connect with the woman.
Also, the camera does not cut whilst the masked menace is watching her. She is unaware, but the establishing long shot shows us exactly what is going on, filling the audience with suspense and fear. It puts us on edge because she does not realise what we can see. This is very conventional of a thriller, as it builds anticipation for an audience, and creates the very adrenaline that makes people watch the genre.
The villain is masked, which also creates tension as we are unsure of who he is, and the power he may possess. It also creates a mystery as to what they may want, and if they are there to cause harm. The conventions used in this thriller do a very good job of making the audience empathise with the main character. The masks that are worn by the female villains are very unconventional, as they are both white faces. White is not usually a colour associated with danger, or violence, it is a much more innocent colour that is usually used when someone is given hope, or has escaped. A reason this colour could be linked to the film however is through the idea of heaven. The colour white often represents heaven, and this could be the idea behind it. The male villain however is wearing a sack typed mask which appears to be quite conventional to thrillers, as it has been seen on a few other occasions, such as the Spanish thriller 'The Orphanage'.
The whole way through this film, each setting is lit by low key lighting. This prevents the audience from becoming too comfortable as we do not know where the villains may be, as a explained y the plot. The fact that the house is secluded it would seem from any other houses or neighbours, means that the lighting may also show a sign of no hope, or no way of telling neighbours that there are people home, but may be in need of assistance. This is one of the most popular thriller conventions - use of setting. They use the idea of isolation as a way to not receive any help, the fact they are unable to contact anyway, makes their escape that much more important, and also attracts the audience to be empathetic towards the characters, as the audience should start to think exactly how they may react in the said circumstances.
When the clips do appear to make a transition to another clip, it is a simple straight cut from one scene to the next. This makes it look more professional, and also allows it to not loose the momentum of the suspense to the audience, by using a cheap fade effect from one part of a chase to another for example.
Alfred Hitchcock is perhaps Britain's most famous and highly regarded film director, yet he is best known today - even in Britain - for the films he made after he left the country in 1939 for a career in Hollywood. Films like Notorious (1946), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963) attest to a skilful filmmaker who thoroughly deserved his reputation as the 'Master of Suspense'
"The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema" - Alfred Hitchcock
It is important to remember that Hitchcock began his career in the era of silent movies. His first nine films as director - between 1925 and 1929 - were all silent, and even his first sound film, Blackmail (1929), was begun as a silent, and was released in silent and sound versions.
The limitations of the silent form led filmmakers to develop a visual language to enable them to say with images what they could not using dialogue or sound. By the time of the arrival of sound in 1927 (later in Europe) this filmmaking language had become so sophisticated that sound was felt by some to be almost unnecessary. Others - including Hitchcock - felt that the arrival of sound meant that something was lost to cinema. Directors were no longer forced to tell a story using images alone, and cinema's distinctively visual storytelling suffered as a result.
Throughout his career, Hitchcock continued to believe in cinema as a visual medium. For him, dialogue and sound should remain secondary to the image in telling the story. This is not to say that he was completely uninterested in dialogue - he worked with many fine writers, and many of his films have excellent dialogue sequences. But it's true that when we think of Hitchcock we tend to remember images - the shower scene inPsycho (1960) or the handcuffed Robert Donat and Madelaine Carroll inThe 39 Steps (1935) - rather than lines of dialogue.
Hitchcock has clearly influenced near on every thriller director to appear after his most iconic work. Directors such as Christopher Nolan and Martin Scorsese have both looked up to Alfred's work and have formed their own style from some of the elements that originated from Hitchcock.
Alfred Hitchcock is one of the first names who comes to mind when talking about auteur theory. His most famous films are Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds and Rear Window. Hitchcock’s story telling techniques were renowned for their intelligent plots, witty dialogue, and the smattering of mystery and murder. He has been attributed with revolutionizing the thriller genre. The reason for his success, however, was not the genre that he was working in, but rather the skill which he exhibited in the film-making. ie his treatment of the subject in terms of the shots he uses and how he combines them are more important than the genre. One of Hitchcock’s best-known screen moments is the terrifying shower scene in Psycho. This shot features 70 distinct shots in less than 1 minute. They are fused together in such a way that it is difficult to distinguish between the Montage and the Mise-en-Scene.
M. Night Shamyalan
In this clip here, possibly the most iconic of any in the history of films, Janet Leigh's character is in the shower and is killed supposedly by Norman Bates' mother. This uses a different type of background music to Shyamalan's clip below, as Psycho's music enhances the intensity of the murder, as it seems to fit the heartbeat of Leigh. The similarity between them both however is the amount of different camera angles shown in each. Psycho does however use them a lot more quickly as it shows over 70 different camera angles within the short shower sequence.
M. Night Shyamalan (born Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan) is one of the few blockbuster directors who lean in the direction of horror/suspense. Although his films often feature supernatural and otherworldly phenomena, they generally are not considered horror movies -- in part because they're relatively family-friendly affairs, focusing on plot and interpersonal relationships rather than explicit content. This clean, "classy" style of fright film-making has drawn comparisons to legendary director Alfred Hitchcock.
After his financially disastrous feature film debut, the comedy-drama Wide Awake, Shyamalan made his first foray into horror/suspense with 1999's The Sixth Sense. The modestly budgeted film about a child psychologist treating a boy who claims to see ghosts exceeded all expectations, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of the year (after The Phantom Menace) and garnering six Academy Award nominations, including Best Director.
The Sixth Sense established Shyamalan not only as a master of suspense, but also as a blockbuster filmmaker. It established his style of dramatic, personalized thrills, shaped by both his direction and his writing. Perhaps most notably, though, it established his slight-of-hand storytelling, which culminated in one of the most infamous "twist endings" in cinematic history. The twists would continue through Shyamalan's next few movies, becoming a trademark that would characterize his early career.
Studies that use focus groups have shown that Shyamalan is not recognised as a director, but he is for his films. This therefore does not give him auteur staus' as people are only really able to identify his pieces of work, not him in his own right as Hitchcock would be known.
In this clip from Shyamalan's 'The Village' we can clearly see a distinct style of thriller that differs greatly from Hitchcock's Psycho. In this clip, non-digetic background music is used as an additive, that promotes feeling within the scene, not just suspense. The suspense in this clip is aminly created simply by the images, and the reactions by the actors.
