Props

Now its down to sourcing our props, which i was incharge of in the group.

In the shot where the President walks down the corridor with his Administrator she needs to hand him a top secret folder, if this doesnt look the part it will bring down the whole thriller. I have found a realistic looking Top Secret stamp from Amazon (see photo below) which i have ordered.

Now we have the proper looking stamp next I need to find the right colour and sized Manila file.

The final prop we need to get hold of are desk flags to inform the audience who is which country.

It is key to think over all situations so you can be prepare with props for all scenes.

We have now be set out filming date, so now we need to double check our actors can do a time on that date and start organising our set and that we have all the props for that day

This is a photo of me and team mate Will Barlow working on our script and creating a time line in our spare time. We get set at least a couple of lessons a week to work on our thrillers in our groups but it is also important to put in the extra time which will raise the standard of quality and the chances of it all working out smoothly and well.

This is the email sent to my teacher to recruit him as the main president role in our thriller. It is very important that we cast the adults that will look the part and be comfortable enough to be filmed. Casting the right actors is crucial that they can play the role prissily so the sequence is believable, and we also had to chose fairly quickly so we could confirm the teachers as our actors and as they won't be getting paid we need to persuade them to spare us some of their time. We got sent pictures of all the staff at Hurtwood House and came up with a long list of who we could ask to get involved. From that we spoke to our teacher in charge about who would most likely get involved.

After confirming with Roy we asked Alison to be our administrator as she has an official look and is a professional actor and as the administrator has the most dialogue the whole thriller working out depends on who we cast for this role. And luckily for us she was happy to join.

Now we knew how to get the actors we wanted to sign up we completed our cast. Our French and Russian leaders (two on left) took a while to decide who we would ask but we are happy with who we finalised on. Our Prime Minister we had to do a lot of thinking and work on but we finished with Ted Jackson (far right) and as he now wears his hair shorted then when the photo was taken we even had to ask if there was a chance he could grow it longer over the holidays before we film because even those little details are very important for the mise-en-scene.

location

We struggled a lot a the beginning with where our location would be. Our initial idea was to have an office looking set like this image or a plain grey office wall, but as we began to look into these kinds of locations we realised the difficulties with it. Firstly would be finding the right location that looked how we wanted, but within an hour from Hurtwood. Secondly was having actors that we could have at this location as we wouldn't be able to use our teachers at an off site like that.

So we took another look at possible sets at Hurtwood and decided on a corridor underground which works perfectly with the idea that the President is walking to a top secret conference in a hidden location.

We would obviously be able to remove the bin and would only show the side with the blue pipes. the corridor is thin so we will use different shot types to get around that.

These are the steps leading down to the corridor. They obviously don't like very top secret official President location but by only using one or two steps at the bottom we will be able to use them to show that he is going under ground emphasising the secret location.

This is an example of the type of shot we would use.

This location is at my house and we would use it as the door to the bunker, conference room. Its a real safe door so is perfect for a secret conference call.

The type of conference room we want is a cross between the US bunker and his meeting room

Different types of title sequences

The title sequence to any film is key as it is what the audience first see so you need to be able to hook your audience with the opening 2 minutes.
The normal order for the tiles is :

1. the Logo of The Production Company
2. the Logo of the Distribution Company
3. then The Title sequence
4. (the Directors name usually comes last)

There are FIVE different types of layouts for an opening titles sequence.

• Bog Standard ---> begins with a black screen and the text (working title/directors name) then the film begins. This technique emphasises the sound being played with the titles.
• Film Starts ---> this is when the film begins straight away and the titles fit in around it or over the top. For example like in The Stepfather

• Discreet Sequence ---> is when the titles are completely separate from the film, so they will have been edited differently.

• Stylised Editing ---> is when the film starts and the titles are edited in a flashy way amongst the action of the beginning of the movie, it draws attention to the type of editng and can give clues to the genre. An example is The Taking Of Pelhim 123

• Animated Editing ---> is when animation is used to begin the film, the animations may not relate directly to the story. An example is the opening to Casino Royal

Props

Props is the next eliment we need to look at. Although probs may seem like such a small part that they arent important because its just a few objects in the blackround but actually props are vital to complete the mise-en-scene and they are needed to make the set realistic.

The sort of props we will need are to have the right table  layed out in the conferewnce room with maybe some papers and a glass of water and an American flag.

These will complete the offical/presidential look.

We will also be using the props to inform the audience of who the characters, like flags for the different country leaders. And giving the secutary and adviser the stereotypical costumes.

storyboarding

Storyboarding is a very important part to preparing for creating a filmed sequence. You use it to place each individual shot, who you can see, what you can see and the different angles.
It helps film producers visulise what their scens will look like and notice potenial problems and prevent them.
Each of the four Mise-en-scene, Sound, Editing and Camera work can be annotated and involved in the drawings.

Here is a picture of our storyboard:

Results from our questionnaire

I took the task of asking the age rang of 15-18 our questionnaire, these are the results i gathered:

4/5 chose Comedy as their favourite film genre, from that i feel it would be important to include a section of comedy in any type of film as another way to entertain the audience.

Inception and Paramormal Activity were the most commenly watched of the this of thirllers from the questionnaire. Both films have a sense of unrealism to them and are able to grap the audience very well.

This is a list of the describing words of the feelings people get while watching a thriller: scarey, erotic, addrenaline rush, terrified, jumpy, intreeged, scarey, jumpy, addrenaline,exciting, confusing, suspended, scarey, on edge and exciting.

Questionair

Name:

Gender:         Male    Female

Age:            15-18          18-29          30+

About Films

1) What is your favourite type of film? Please list 1-5, with 1 being your favourite and 5 being your least favourite:

Action/Adventure    Documentary    Drama/Romance    Comedy     Thriller/Horror

2) Which of these thriller films have you watched?

Shutter Island (psychological)                      X-Men First Class (action/sci-fi)

Scream 4 (comedy)                                      Saw 3 (horror)

Paranormal Activity (supernatural)  Inception (psychological)

Fair Game (political/conspiracy)                 The Ghost Writer (supernatural)

State of Play (crime)                                     Rise of the Planet of the Apes (action/sci-fi)

Contagion (disaster thriller)

3) Of the thrillers that you have recently watched which did you enjoy the most and please sum up the experience and pleasures of watching it ?

Favourite recent thriller ________________________________

Three words that describe the experience of watching that film

1. _________________   2 _______________  3 _______________­

Costume research

We now have set what our final idea is and have created the image in our heads what the title sequence will go like, so now onto the detailed research.

We don't have extremely complicated costumes luckily.

American President:

• navy coloured suit
• white shirt
• simple blue tie
• a same badge pined onto his jacket collar of the American flag

British Prime Minister:

• male
• navy coloured suit
• white shirt
• red or light blue tie
• UK flag badge

French Leader:

• woman
• smart, not bright coloured suit
• french flag badge

Russian leader:

• male
• black suit
• white shirt
• black/white tie
• Russian flag badge
• short hair
• 60s

Chinease leader:

• male
• black suit
• white shirt
• block red tie
• chinease flag badge
• glasses

General:

• male
• army combat uniform
• badges/medals
• short cut hair
• big black boots

my synopsis wordle

this wordle shows that camera and sound are common but editing and mise-en-s aren't as big so i may need to concentrate more on them.
other big words are wires, device and computers which are the bases of the cyber sub-genre.
wordles are a good technique that can be used to see what has been written about and what needs more writing about.

Title sequence synopsis

Working Title: ‘Call Me’

‘Darkness Falls Upon Us.’

The opening sequence of our film will begin with the pounding sound of footsteps up a floor. Shortly following will come the sound of non-diegetic orchestral, eerie music. A cross cut to a room with a series of computer screens one of which showing someone coming online. The diegetic sound of a computer making transactions would then be heard. The camera would then cut back to the walking in the hall way, but this time the camera angle would be a low angle shot of the man making him look large and powerful. The beating of his feet would continue building tension. Jumping back to the organised business room with computers, the screens would show the next two people from the group video call have come online and the last one is just switching on. Cutting back to the corridor the camera would be tracking forward behind the President and General. Ahead of them two brawny body guards would open the double metal doors. The president would then give the nod as if to say, ‘thank you’ and ‘its safe’. We will then have an ellipsis technique of editing to cut from when the doors are opened to when he sits down. He starts to address the other world leaders in a political format and informs them the entire dark situation that he fears the world will plunge into. While the President is talking the camera tracks down along the wires connecting the computers, into the wall until it gets to a big bundle of wires crossing and placed in the nest of wires is a tracking device flashing red. The non-diegetic music would be building tension as the camera moved along the wires and it would climax when reaching the hacking device.

The scene will create a ton of suspense because the audience won’t have a clue about who the character is, where they are or what the importance of the characters or the situation is. The shots of the computers will bring forward the importance of technology in the thriller, signifying the sub-genre of cyber. The non-diegetic music will be used to convey the suspense and seriousness of the situation despite the fact that the audience is given very little else to play on. Finally when the camera shows the President and General the audience will know that they are watching a cyber/political sub-genre of thriller.

The title sequence with holds the information of where the location is although they will be able to work out it’s the American President and other leaders of the world. The audience will hear that there has been some sort of disaster but won’t find out the details and the withheld information about the tracking device should hock the audience as they will have to know who is listening in and why they are.

Presentation

Thriller Ideas 2

The pit went quiet well and we have now settled on the Cyber idea. But the idea has changed now, i don't think that's a bad thing , changing your idea as you go along is all part of the process of coming up with a great idea.
the title sequence in now beginning with the video conference of the leaders of the world. we wont be hearing all the conference as it's best not to include lots of the dialog in the first two minutes but better to keep things simpler. the sequence would end with a shot of wires with a tracking device enbeded in them showing the audience that more is going to go wrong as such an important conversation is being listned into by unwanted ears.

watching

We recently watched a documentary called 'Watching' on the open sequences of thriller movies. It looked at the title sequence of movies such as Seven, A Touch of Evil and The Shinning. Important people like Thomas Sutcliffe, Director Jean Jacques Beineix, Stanley Kauffmann, Kyle Cooper and Orson Welles spoke about their opinions of title sequences and what they think is important. 

I learnt things like how a film beginning needs to "seduce their audience into long term commitment." 


"A good beginning must make the audience feel that it doesn't know nearly enough yet, and at the same time make sure that it doesn't know too little." this means you want the audience to understand the nature of the film but to also keep them interested, but without telling them too much so they aren't interested. You need to audience to not be able to take their eyes off the screen.


"A favorite trick of Film Noir" is when the beginning of the movie is like and ending.


I hope i will be able to inject some of the information i learnt from watching this documentary into my thriller title sequence.

thriller ideas presentation

We designed a presentation on Microsoft PowerPoint to present to the class and our teacher, and to explain our 4 thriller ideas.
The four ideas were :
1. Shellshock - following a solider just come home from war and sufferers from post traumatic stress. He comes home to no welcoming party or family and friends, just him, isolated in an apartment where he gets flash backs from the war explaining why he is so messed up.(a physiological sub-genre )
2.Cyber - is the break down for society in the not so distant future. Because of a world wide disaster humanity retreated into their own homes only to communicate via the Internet. The streets are empty, leaving it to the leaders of the world to try and fix the disaster by getting people back outside. (a disaster/political sub-genre)
3.the Egyptian boat - this idea evolved from the story in the news where an Egyptian boat set alight. It is based around Egypt and Iran having a business meeting about oil. the Americans didn't want this to happen so sent an undercover man to stop the deal from going ahead by burning the boat. ( a political sub-genre)
4.Snowstorm - This idea came from our brainstorming session on the news story about the shocking snow storm that hit the East coast of the U.S. the movie is all set in an isolated house with one man living alone in it. the storm causes him to become trapped in his home eventually riving him crazy until he dies.

We each had one idea that we were going to explain to the class ( i had the cyber one). The set up of PowerPoint worked really well for how we wanted to present each idea. We could use one slide to summaries the whole thriller movie idea, not writing everything but the main points so when we would talk through them we wouldn't just been reading it off the screen. Then we used another slide for the opening 2 minutes sequence. Making each slide clear and easy to read is important for appearance but they look better with some colour and images as a blank back round with just writing can be too boring.

more thriller ideas

Our group came up with a few final ideas that we presented to the teachers, but none of them were quite right. We needed a story that was more original and that could grab the reader within the first 2 minutes but not be too much.
Over the half term i was away in Mexico and New York. New York is a very popular location for films, and obviously it would be pretty difficult to film our thriller title sequence located there, but it was a great place for inspiration. I wrote a list of ideas when ever i saw one. But another good place for inspiration is in the news. It can come from Internet websites or from reading, but a lot of the subjects in the news could be turned into very good stories. As i was on holiday it was difficult to access the Internet but i managed to a few times.
On Monday 31st's lesson as a class we chose the topic of 'The 7 billionth person being born'. From that we went around the room bouncing ideas of each other and we must of come up with around 20 ideas. Using each other is the best way to come up with great ideas, as it isn't just in your head and you can develop the idea together with the help of others ideas and opinions.
We later spilt up into our thriller groups to come up with some new ideas for our title sequence. Using a technique of bouncing ideas off each other with news headlines as the main topic really worked well for our group. This is what the class as a whole had done earlier. We generated lots of little story ideas from this and have selected a few good ones which we think we could develop well and use to present to our teacher. 
We learnt a lot from these lessons of generating ideas and there for are about to develop them better and linking that with the essay work we are also doing we are able to represent the few characters in a lot of detail about their age, class and gender. 

my thriller ideas

We have now been put into groups for our thriller title sequence, i am happy with my groups and hope we can work together well.
My first idea for a Thriller movie is to have a schizophrenic character (most likely male as they are the stereotypical villain). One side of him would be just an average man, friendly and smooth with the ladies but he will have snaps of a deranged man who will harm anyone near by. There would be no telling as to when he would switch between the two different characters and for how long he would be them. He has never been caught for the injuries he has inflicted on people because the bad side of him would escape before anyone found out.
The title sequence could consist of the man going out his normal day to day business but there's a hint of secrecy to him. Then it will show him going out in the evening with his guys friends and he will end up dancing with a girl. when hes alone with the night it will be going well until he snaps, then the sequence will finish in suspense.
The second idea is one that developed within the group. There's a man, lives alone in a dark place, isolated.
He killed a young girl and it seems her 'spirit' his haunting him when he sees his reflection.
For the title sequence it would begin by showing you the young girl happy and playing. And then there would be a dark scene and we could see a close up of a mans raging face. In the final part of the title sequence it would show the man looking depressed and then he sees himself in a reflection with the little girl covered in blood standing behind him.
Tomorrow we will talk through every one's ideas and decide which one will be the best.

its all about thrillers

what is a thriller?

a thriller is a type of genre that creates emotions in the audience like terror and suspense. The  book or film is designed to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. People enjoy the sensation of fear with not actually being in harms way.

what is a genre?

a genre is a category to group media arts that have similarities.
the thriller genre is very large with smaller sub genres in it. examples if sub genres of a thriller are :

• action - These films are fast-paced, hero-centered full of action and excitement
• psychological - The ones that mess with your head.
• supernatural - The character (the hero or villain) has some sort of supernatural power that must be called upon
• mystery - where the murder has to be uncovered
• disaster - These films deal with some type of disaster, either natural or man-made

the parts to a thriller movie that the audience can expect are such things as :

• action
• drama
• murder
• a hero
• villain
• tension
• mystery
• suspense

there are genres for films so that the audience can chose to see a movie from the genre they enjoy, there is an expectation of what they will find in the movie.

Alfred Hitchcock is a legend in the thriller industry, he was nicknamed 'The master of suspense'.
He defines the difference between mystery and suspense,
"Mystery is an intellectual proses like in a who'd done it, but suspense is essentially an emotional proses there for you can only get the suspense element going by giving the audience information"











Going back to sub-genres, we did an exercise in class of writing down what type of characters and locations we would expect to see in different sub-genres. When each group said what they had written down it turnewd out that the whole class had thought of the same characters and locations. In thrillers as a genre there are certain things that make you know it's a thriller, going deeper in that there are even specific props, people and locations that you can definatly link with a sub-genre.
Supernatural thriller:
         charaters - zombies, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, devils/demons or witches
          location - creapy old house, graveyards, fields/woods, derlict buildings, anywhere that makes the           character trapped or isolated so no one can help them

Analysising an American thriller

The second movie trailer I will talk about is 'The Fast and Furious'. It is about a street racing action film where an undercover police man infiltrates the street racing world trying to catch a hijacking ring.
the music begins quietly as a sound of cars. The quick shots shows cars driving round in the evening with a big crowd watching. This trailer also has words blacking in and out between shots, its a very common form of editing in trailers used to draw a brief picture of the movie for the audience. As a wide, location shot of on a street is shown and the cars are all driving up into a line the music rises. Then all music stops and a man is shown with a black back round and wearing a black top so all seen is head and neck, and he says "lets go for a little ride" which creates suspense. Then there is loud metal genre of music played with a montage of fast action, violent shots. There is car racing, shooting, fire, fighting and general action clips with a man and woman kissing thrown in the middle to have a hint of romance added into the thriller. the clips are all edited together quickly an playing fast to show the action packed scenes and building to the end of the trailer where a car crashes into the camera.
This trailer is exciting with all the high speed shots and mad loud music getting you pumping.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63tg_R4qi2k

Thrillers

Thrillers is a movie genre, it includes tension, excitement and suspense to entertain the audience. The movies stimulate strong feelings of uncertainty, anxiety, anticipation, tension and terror.

I personally don't watch Thrillers because I don't enjoy the feeling of terror, but I am going to analyse two Thriller movies' trailer. Trailers are like montages of brief clips from throughout the movie.

The first trailer is from a German dubbed film called 'The Wave'.

Straight away the trailer makes you jump with a big bang to start. There is some sort of native echoey music a quite heart beat which always put an audience on edge.

They have edited each quick shot to come from black and to dissolve to black, this can signify to the audience that the film is very dark.

The camera work shows some close ups and 2 people shots of characters that are obviously going to have some importance to the movie.

In between a few shots, some words appear in front of a black back round with some sort of drawing in red which you can't see the whole of yet.

5 very impacting words that appear are 'based on a true story'. These impact the audience hugely because they suddenly begin to relate to the movie, maybe some of the places of characters, and it will allow them to think its more realistic.

The sound builds the tension as you hear the marching feet and then the school bells rings repeatedly alarming the audience. The banging and bell gets louder building suspense as the audience can feel something coming.

The action of the movie builds as it becomes more violent and you see blood, the police and fighting. The speed of the shots has quickened to make it more exciting and difficult for the audience to follow exactly.

It finishes with a final buzzer and the whole red drawing of a wave. The last shot is of the male lead panting out of breath and looking around worried. If the main man is worried it cares the audience as he seemed to be a dominant leader in the trailer so the film is obviously full of terror.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HbsHatqKqc

More Editing

Continuity editing is very important to make the sequence flow and seem realistic. Continuity is when everything from one shot matches up to the next, like all the props are in the same place and the characters haven't changed position hugely.
When putting together our scene, we had to chose which different shot types to use for which part of the scene. If we wanted to have the main character as me, we would chose to see all my speech and some of my reactions, i would have the majority of the screen time. We copied and pasted the mini film to experiment with different editing ways and seeing more of the second actors part.
For an example of choosing shot types, we chose a wide shot of one of Freddie's speech as he also did an action (pointing to the door). This informed the audience of Freddie's body language.
It is important not to jump from one shot type to another, and to then keep alternating between similar types as it will just make the scene repetitive and boring.

We worked we as a team and with the help from our teacher we learnt what each person should be saying behind the camera and what they should be paying special attention to.

Editing

Last practical lesson we filmed our little scene which i have already written about below. So now we are onto editing it all together. Unfortunately 2 of the members of our group were unwell for this lesson, this meant the 2 of us left had more to do.

We used a program called Final Cut Pro (the picture above). I found it quick and easy to use, and enjoyed learning about how to cut the right shots together making sure that it was at the exact right time and that the sounds fit. 

i also learnt how to do a sound bridge, which is when the sound continues over a different image. this makes the film feel continuous.

We didnt quite managed to finish all the final touches but im proud of what we did and think its come together nicely.

The Stepfather - opening 3 minutes

This is the first shot of the 3 minute clip. the mise-en-scene tells us the time of year, as we can see snow on the ground, a large snowman in the front of someones house. We can also just see a small farther Christmas oh the side of the next house along. these props tell us the time of year as in winter at Christmas. Christmas is normally thought of as a happy, family time of the year but the eerie, non-jolly sound contradicts that thought.

This shot begins with him walking towards the mirror out of focus and when he gets close he comes in focus, this is joined with a drumming climax of the music. This is a low angle shot which gives the man power, he is in control of what is coming on. A man wearing glasses has become a stereotype of that person being intelligent. With his intense stare and concentration he looks clever as well. He has a strong beard which is an easily changeable feature.

In hind sight this is a happy shot  with all the smiling faces of the children in the photographs, and the Christmas decorations. But the low pitch, eerie non-diegetic music that goes with it makes the audience feel uneasy while seeing the happy faces. this is a contrapuntal image, where the image signifies a different meaning to the sound.

This is the last shot we see from the opening 3 minute sequence. The well kept kitchen shows us the family have money, because of the clean and modern look. From the flowers by the window we can see that its not been abandoned as they are colourful and healthy so someone must have been around to water them. But there is still no sign of another person being around, no plates of glasses left on the side from any ones meal. leaving the audience confused and in suspense.

Preliminary scene

On Friday 23rd September we split into groups of 4 to film a short scene between 2 actors. One walks into a room and they each say a few lines. There was around 5 different shot types we were told to do.
We began by setting up the camera, just like how i explained to in one of my previous blogs.
I was chosen as one of the actors and we had a friend step in a play the other part.
The first shot we filmed was the wide shot. we did each angle all the way through twice. We did this because some shots came up more than once, so instead of filming each little bit and having to move round lots, we can just edit out the bit of that angle we are using at a different angle. It is important to do the scene twice each time at least in case there is something wrong with one of them and you didn't notice while filming.
I think our group did well, we had one person working the camera, a director calling out what we should be doing and when the camera is rolling and a continental girl making sure we did it the same each time like by putting little objects down telling the actors where to stand.
I really enjoyed doing the work that goes into filming a scene and am looking forward to editing our clip on Thursday 29th  September.

second lesson - camera work

One of the first things you need to do is to focus the camera. You have to zoom in very far on an object, preferably in the center of your setup, and turn the focus wheel till the image is clear, this means when you zoom out it will still be in focus.

The next thing for you to check is the white balance so the scene does not turn out completely the wrong colour, you need a white object to hold up in fornt of the camera filling the screen and then you simply press the white balance button on the left hand side of the camera. 

Also to make sure the shot is not too dark or bright you need to check the aperture. The shutter speed is important to be set at around 50 so the image doesn't come out all blurred.

Finally I learnt the most important rule of filming, the 180 degree rule. When two actors are being filmed there is an invisible line between the two and the camera can not cross from one side to the other. There can be lots of different camera shots but they must be on one line otherwise it will be like the characters have magically changed side and it will not make sense to the audience.

first practical lesson - setting up the camera

In my first lesson i learnt how to set up a camera on a tripod. There are 3 legs to a tripod and you can adjust the hight of each to your choice.
Once setting up the hight, you can put the camera onto the tripod is fairly easy as all you do is loosen a nob and hold down a button to slid the camera on and then tighten the nob back up. Next comes bubbling the camera to make sure its flat, where you hold the camera and turn a nozzle on the tripod moving the camera untill the bubble is in the circle.

I also learnt what all the different numbers on the screen of the camera mean, for example the white balance, shutter speed, battery power and the time code.

This is a photo of a camera almost the same as the one we used, and a tripod.

First Blog

Welcome to My blog. I will be using this for the next two years to record my thoughts and developments in my Media AS course :)
I am looking forward to studying Media and creating and developing a thriller, and learning how to blog as i havent ever before.