Characters in our thriller;

Produced and Directed by - Georgia Wigley and Hannah Sharples
Edited by- Georgia Wigley and Hannah Sharples
Starring;
Psycho boyfriend - Kieran Cobb
Ex-girlfriend - Harley Mason
Party people - 
Friend who sends text -
Music by - Georgia Wigley and Hannah Sharples

Our Thriller idea;

StoryBoard

This is the story board for our thriller, and it shows the main ideas and the different camera shots and angles we will be using.

Treatment For Our Thriller;

Outline of ideas;
- Boy wants to seek revenge on his ex-girlfriend.
He kidnaps her and she is left tied to a chair.

Resources we will need;
-Actor
-Actress
-Chair
-Tape/Rope
-Dark room
-Hainault Forest

Justification Of Ideas In Relation To Genre;
We hope to keep the audience of the edge of their seats building up to the kidnapping and leave them wondering and asking questions about what will next happen o the girl.

Research For Our Thriller Coursework;

Conventions Of The Genre;
- Solving Crimes
- Villains and innocent victims
- Immense suspense and tension
- Adrenalin

Research into real films of the genre;
.....

Research into potential Target audience;
Vox Pop
-Cliff hangers
- Suspense and Tension

Proposal as to how our project would appeal to the target audience;
- Our target audience is teenagers and young adults.
They will be able to relate to the film.

Brainstorm;

To ensure me and my partner Hannah were clear about our ideas for our thriller we created a brain storm. This then help us to decide on a final idea for our two minute thriller opening.

Music;

For our thriller film we are going to need background music, however as we are now allowed to use signed bands due to copy right, we will have to search for a song that is from and unsigned band and ask them for permission. Me and my partner, Hannah, have signed up to the music website called moby gratis and hopefully we will be able to find a song that will suit our thriller.

Titles;

During lesson we dicussed the order in which we think that the titles should appear, this is the order we decided;

• Production Company IDENT or logo
• Directors name
• Main stars (2/3)
• Title of the film
• Other actors (3/4)
• Camera Man
• Set designer
• Music
• Costume designer
• Editor
• Producer
• Director

artofthetitle.com

Vertigo

In my opinion i think that this title sequence is quite boring as there is just a lot of text. However i found the beginning very interesting with the face of the woman. What makes this effective is the music as it is quite strange and the titles were appearing in time with the music.

Panic Room

I think the titles in this opening sequence are quite dramatic as it adds to setting the scene. The titles are in a 3D bold metallic font and it fits in with the settin as there are clips of lots of high rise buildings. I think that this give it a futuristic affect.

Se7en

I like the way the font on the titles in this title sequence, i think it fits in with what is happening in the first part on the film. It shows someone peeling the skin off their fingertips and this is obviously to hide their identity from a crime they are going to commit, and the font is scratchy small handwriting that looks like it could be a criminals.

Sabotage;

During our lesson we watched a scene of sabotage called "lord mayor show" that is a perfect example of why Alfred Hitchcock is called the master of suspence.
In this scene Alfred Hitchcock uses dramatic irony very cleverly. Dramatic Irony is when the audience knows something that the character doesn't and this gives the audience an erge to scream at the screen to try and inform the character. During this scene Verloc (a terrorist) give a package to little stevie who has to carry it across town. However, what stevie doent know is that the package is a bomb that will go off at 1.45. Whilst Stevie is carrying the package he is distracted many times during his journey and the creates great suspence as we want stevie to deliver the package so he isnt harmed.

Shadow of a doubt;

Shadow of a doubt is a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1943.
During our lesson we watched the opening of shadow of a doubt and we annalysed it taking into consideration all elements of mise en scene;
Hair, Make-up & Costume
Uncle Charlie is well presented in a suit with immaculate hair, this contrasts with the setting as he seems to be in a slum
Facial Expressions and body language
Uncle Charlie and Charlie are both first seen lying down on a bed, this could show their personalities are similar and that they have a very close relationship.
Colour & lighting
The film is in black and white so not alot can be said about the colour. High key lighting is used as the light looks natural.
Settings & props
The props that are used are money and cigars and this shows that charlie is upper class. However the money is on the floor and this shows that money doesnt mean much to him which could suggest that he has a lot of it.
Position Of elements in the frame
...

Mise En Scene;

Mise en scene is french for 'what is in the frame'.
There are five things to consider with mise en scene;
- hair and make up
- setting and props
- sound
-lighting and colour
-compostion of objects in the frame

Survey Results;

Soviet Montage;

During lesson we learnt about soviet montage; this is when many clips are put together to make the audience assumes something is happening when in fact it isn't. An example of soviet montage is seen in the film 'Psycho' during the shower scene, we are shown several different shots of the woman scream, the knife in the murderers hand and blood dripping into the bath, this makes the audience assume that the woman has been stabbed even though we did not actually see it happening.

Montage;

 I put some images together to create a montage that would portray our initial idea for our thriller; 

The Manchurian Candidate;

During our lesson we watched the film "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962) which is an American Cold War political thriller film. The general plot of this film is that a former korean war POW is brainwashed, a couple of the characters have reocurring nightmares; they see some of their colleages killing other colleages, this is as of a brainwash set off by a unknown person. The Brainwash is triggered by the character dealing a set of cards, they are brainwashed in and out of the nightmare.

Past Students Work;

Today in class we watched past students thrillers and had to discuss their ideas  and techniques they had used. we then gave the a mark out of ten, focusing on these main areas;

• Idea
• Cinematography
• Sound/Music
• Performance

These are the marks i gave it; 

Idea - 8/10
Cinematography - 7/10
Sound/music - 8/10
Performance - 8/10 
Grade - B

Preliminary Exercise (:

In order to get used to using the cameras, we had to produce a video that consisted of several different shots. we attempted to use over thge shoulder shots,  close ups, pan, point of view and mid shots.

After filming we had to edit together what we had filmed using final cut express, this helped us get used to the computers and how to put together the clips that we wanted and take out the clips that we didn't want. I was difficulf to graps at first but i think we eventually got the hang of it and below is our outcome:-

Storyboard;

Before filming our preliminary exercise we created a storyboard to help us plan what we was going to film;

My favourite thriller;

After watching the opening of 'Children of Men' during class, I really wanted to watch on so me and my friend went out and purchased the film to watch.
In my opinion I think that it is a great thriller as there are many scences filled with tension and suspence. I think the opening of this film is evidently effective as it left me wondering what was going to happen next and i really wated to watch on.
The film is set in the future. All women have somehow becom infertile and the youngest person on earth who was 18 has just died. However during the film, to our surprise, a pregnant woman is discovered and therfore, for the rest of the film the main character (Theo) is trying to protect Kee (pergnant woman) from the violence of London so she is able to deliver her baby safely.

Survey Monkey

In order to get some more infomation about what poeple like about thrillers i created a survey on surveymonkey.com

From my survey i hope to find out what things people look for in thrillers, however a disadvantage of this is that it is gonna take a while for me to collect the information as i will have to wait for people to do my survey. However i have posted it to my Facebook;

 Hopefully many of my facebook friends will tkae my survey, so i will have broader results so i know more about what the audience like about thrillers

Vox Pop

During lesson we learnt about Vox Pops and we created our own. 
Vox Pop (Vox Populi) comes form the latin meaning of voice of the people.  Vox Pops are interviews of many different people that all get asked the same question, this allows us to get a varied range of answers and many different points of view.

Creating our own;
To make our own Vox Pop we asked several people the same three questions, these were;

• What is your favourite thriller?
• What do you like about the thriller genre?
• What makes a good thriller

Unfortunately whilst carrying out our interviews there was a technical difficulty and our camera didn't pick up any sound whilst we were filming so when we watched our video back we couldn't hear what was being said ):
So during our next lesson we re-filmed some interviews and thankfully they came out successfully (:
What we learnt;
During our interviews we found out what people like about thrillers, we learnt that people enjoy cliff hangers and a LOT of tension & suspense and we will be sure to include them in our final film. This exercise also helped us get used to the cameras and help us avoid problems in the future.

Analysis of Film Openings;

Children of men

During the opening sequence of this film we hear a news feed reporting the murder of the youngest boy who was 18. This already gets the audience wondering why the youngest boy in the world is 18. Many people are crowed around a small t.v in a coffee shop, the camera follows a man who orders coffee and walks out of the shop, as hes walking away a bomb goes off which admittedly made me jump, this then leaves the audience to wonder even more about why the bomb went off. This opening keeps us on the edge of our seats and definitely makes us want to watch on!

A History of violence

The opening of this film has three murders straight away, I think this is effective as it show the audience what kind of people the two men are as they kill the people very calmly , this shows that they have no remorse. There is very little sound in this opening sequence except from a screeching noise that is continuous until the little girl is killed and there is the ear piercing sound of a girl screaming; i think this makes the murder dramatic as the change in the volume of sound makes the audience jump. I like the opening of this film as it leaves the audience with great enigmas and makes the want to watch on to find out what will happen next and who the next victims are going to be.

Memento

The beginning of this thriller has a twist to it as it begins to tell the story backwards; there is slow non diegetic music playing throughout and this give the film a tense opening. The main character in the film has no memory of what happens in life since his wife died so he takes pictures of things to help him remember.He then kills a man with no explanation and this therefore leads the audience to wonder why he killed him, this is a great use of an enigma as it makes the audience want to watch on to find out the answers to the many questions it leads us to wonder.

Camera Shots;

ECU; Extreme close up
Long shot; when the camera is placed far away showing the whole of the characters body
Midshot; is when the camera is midway, showing half the characters body
Pan; when the camera is at a fixed point and moves horizontally following the action
Tracking shot; camera is on tracks and follows the action
Tilt shot; when the camera is at a fixed point and tilts either up or down
Crane; camera is lifted to a high angle.

Low angle; makes the character look big and powerful
High angle; makes the character look small and vunerable

Sound;

There are different sounds within the film;
Diegetic Sound - This is the sound that is linked to the film. It can be on screen or off screen. e.g. sounds of making tea.
Non-diegetic Sound - This is the sound that is not coming from the film itself. For example: backing music or narator.  
Parallel sound - this is music that fits into with the mood and atmosphere of the film.
Contrapuntal sound - this is when the music doesn't fit in with the mood and atmosphere of the film
Sound bridge - when sound is carried from one clip to the next.

Lighting;

In lesson we look at the different types of light that are used in films. These include;
-Key lighting
Giving the image a natural effect
-Back lighting
Creates a silhouette, giving the character a mysterious effect
-Top lighting
Creates a glamorous effect on the character
-Low key lighting
Creates high contrast between the shadows and the light 
-Filler lights
Softens the shadows

North By North West;

North by Northwest is a classic thriller produced by Alfred Hitchcock starring Carrie Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The film is a tale of mistaken identity of an innocent man, Carrie Grant, who gets caught up in organization of agents who want to stop his interference with their plans to smuggle microfilm containing government secrets.North by Northwest is a highly exciting, Fast paced, action thriller filled extreme scenes of suspece, tension a mcguffin and cliff hangers, literately as the end of the film has Eva Marie Saint literally hanging off the edge of a cliff; this final scene of the chase sequence across the faces of Mount Rushmore is an extremely exciting and tense scene and definately kept me on the edge of my seat!
A famous scene in North by North west is the crop-duster scene;
This scene is best know for it's brilliant use of tension and suspense, and is viewed as the best sequence in the film.The scene begins with a high angled, extreme wide shot, setting the scene. This infoms and gives the viewer an idea of where the action is taking place; a desseted place, where only a few cars pass occassionaly making it seem eerie. Instantly, the audience become suspicious, and gets us asking questions such as- 'Why would our protagonist meet someone at such a strange, deserted place?' This therefore makes the audince want to watch on to find out whats goin to happen next.

 

Alfred Hitchcock;

Alfred Hitchcock was a well known Thriller film producer who was the "Master of suspense", he became the benchmark for 'psychological' thrillers. He believed that should "always make the audience suffer as much as possible"

Hitchcock used three main devices "Maguffin", "Enigma" and "Red Herrings"

-A Maguffin is a device that is used to motivate the character and advances the story, however has little or no relevance to the actual story line.

-Enigma referes to a mystery or a puzzling occurrence that the protagonist commonly has to find out or solve before the narrative is resolved and the film ends.

-Red herring is usually used to divert the audience from the truth or an item or significance, it can often work with other devices to create suspense.

Research;

I done some research to find out exactly what a thriller was, I started by looking on wikipedia where i found out that a "Thriller is a genre of literature, film and television that uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements"

In our lesson we spoke about what things we think make a thriller, we concluded that a thriller is usually made up of a twisted plot that includes violence, menace, crime, murders, dramatic sounds, anticipation, suspense and tension that gets the audience wanting more! We also discussed the characters that usually appear in thrillers such as the villain or femme fatale, innocent victims, psychopaths, stalkers, assassins and many more twisted personalities. However thrillers aren't all bad as they more than likely result in a happy ending where the villain is either killed or arrested giving the audience a sense of relief.

'No Country For Old Men'

During our lesson we watched the first 5 minutes of the film "No Country For Old Men", This is a perfect example of a thriller. At the start of the film we are shown many empty deserted places, this gives the audience a sense of mystery and also fear as if anything bad was to happen, there would be no one to help.  The villains identity is hidden at first; only letting us see his silhouette causing us as the audience to become very curious of the mysterious character. However when we do finally see the villain, we see him killing his first victim with no remorse, followed by his second victim who he dragged into his trap by leading him to believe he was a police officer then solemnly committing his second murder.  This is interesting as it shows that this character has a very twisted personality and makes us wonder what kind of things this man will do next, keeping us on the edges of our seats. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQNvn4eb8LQ

Coursework Brief;

During this term I will be producing a two minute opening sequence of a thriller. My blogg should hopefully show the process and progression of my thriller film and i will be researching all about thrillers, camera use and lighting to ensue that i know all the best techniques to use in my thriller.

Hello (:

Welcome to my blog (:

Here I will be taking you through every step of my media project which is to create a two minute opening sequence of a thriller, however I'm not quite sure of what it's going to turn out like but I hope to get some ideas soon.

My blog will hopefully consist of text, videos and photos and I'll try and keep it as up to date as possible. Enjoy!