Location

In our group with location we have come across many issues, one of the main issues being that we all live too far away from eachother, so we came up with the idea of all of us meeting in town to do most of the filming in about two weeks, and too find counrty side space there, and then for the other two group members, (Connor and Adam) to do the last section at Connors house the following day because they live nearest to eachother.
As well as this we chose to locate our film in the country side becuase although it doesn't meet a Thriller convention, it would work rather well in our opinion because it plays on peoples fears of isolation.

Feedback after pitch

How do you show the killing of a chicken?


Answer: We would buy some raw meat /a frozen chicken and using close ups and high angles, to make it look like the real chicken but dead. To kill it we would have the camera on the chicken, then drifting upwards towards the sky, then the camera would shudder and go back to dead chicken lying on the floor.


The storyline is confusing?


Answer: The narrative would explain the story mysteriously, maybe misleading the audience into a false sense of hope.

Mood board for thriller opening

Pitch blog

The inspiration for our idea comes from the  psychological thriller, the Prestige. In the opening to this film,  a pile of top hats is occupied by a black cat. A symbolic reference to magic and magicians. Our piece is slightly different, in the sense that its revolves around hypnosis. We figured we should create something similar, yet replace the cat with a chicken and the top hats with ticking clocks. These are symbolic references to the underlying theme of the opening.

The opening to 'The Prestige' 

The sub genre for our opening would be psychological thriller, because it revolves around the theme of hypnosis which is related to psychology. The font we would use would be block typed writing because it symbolizes the neutral element of the film. When hypnotized, your thoughts are dismantled and we feel the font expresses this neutral feeling. The title of the film is 'Premeditated' as it is all happening in the mind and joins well with the theme of hypnotism. 

There will not be an exact antagonist or protagonist as our opening will be more symbolic than conventional thriller openings. We figure that this will highlight the element and mood of mystery we plan to incorporate into the film. We plan to also have a voice over with the opening, so that the narrative isn't always unclear. 

We plan to film in a country location, where one of our group members keeps chickens we can use in our film. The countryside location also highlights the isolation theme of the psychological thriller. We want the sound to be eerie, so it un-nerves the audience and influences them to ask questions towards the film. We also think the digetic sound of ticking clocks fills the viewer with anticipation.

Ideas for thriller opening

Idea 1
The theme of the thriller would revolve around hypnosis
Chicken in a forest
floor covered in clocks
chicken pecks at the clocks
camera moves up towards the sky
dying chicken noise
look back down to see dead chicken
in between this, there would be a pendulum
slowly zoom out on the pendulum


Idea 2
Circling peoples faces to show kill off
The protagonist walking, close up on feet
People talking, camera taking pictures of them
transition into grave yard
explosion
sounds of people crying


Idea 3
Montage of pictures
Flashy editing
nothing clear
smoke effects
lit fire, slowly dying out

Panic room opening credits font

The font in the opening credits is typography which is used as a silver bold writing, embedded in the scene and buildings of the city being shown through establishing shots. 

Thriller Logo - Lionsgate

We looked at two versions of the Lionsgate logo and compared each.

This logo represents children's films or family firms such as Alpha and Omega.

This version of the logo on the other hand, represents more graphic thrillers and films such as the Saw franchise. The logo is dark and uses complimentary colours to represent the dark themes portrayed in the majority of their films. In the Saw films, there is a lot of darkness and blood which shows the obscenitys of the production corporation which can be seen in the logo of Lionsgate with the bold writing and dark colours. 


Making our own logo 

 

We chose to do our logo this way because it was original, We also liked the idea of have a tornado at the  back round as it suits the genre of our film; thriller. The use of the tornado image also symbolizes the thriller having a non-linear narrative, in addition to this, we liked the contrast of the destructive tornado and the image that it has created, the love heart, this mean this image if edited can be made into different specific genre's. 

If we were to animate this image, we would have the sound of a tornado, and the two tornadoes coming together to form the heart image, and then have M.A.C productions and have it twist into the image, in opposite directions until it got to the center of the image, and then have it slowly fade out into the opening sequence. 

Sound Research - The Descent

Watching the film trailer without sound firstly, created a sense of disturbance through the images shown. At the start of the trailer we are shown a group photo of young girls. The photo is shown to us in black and white emulating a typical psychological thriller convention, memory. The use of the black and white effect on the photo imply the torture of the group of girls by a traumatic memory. We are shown various shots of the girls lowering themselves into a cave and climbing through holes and crevasses in rock climbing gear. While these play we are shown certain phobia's and dark elements of pot-holing and abseiling. These include claustrophobia, disorientation and hallucination. A final word is highlighted with a shuddering motion, 'Fear'. The 'shudder' motion on the title mimics the viewers reaction to it. All the words are written in scrawny and scratchy writing creating a sense of unease in the viewer. Part of the film is then filmed in a handheld/night vision style questioning the audience's perception on reality. A view from the handheld camera makes the events in the film seem more realistic, particularly when a disturbing figure is highlighted behind one girl. These images make us feel fear for the protagonist and creates mystery as to what the antagonist could be.

After watching the trailer again with sound, I find that the trailer doesn't contain any form of a soundtrack. This brings the viewer out of their comfort zone as all they have for sound are strange, reversed noises. These sounds link in with the black and white photo and the concept of memory. The rest of the trailer is filled with echo-like noises to reflect the atmosphere of the cave in which they are trapped. This creates an element of isolation not just for our protagonists but also for the viewer. Towards the end of the trailer the pace of editing speeds up, thus the tension in the sound rises. The use of volume within the sound effects the viewer's anticipation as the rising sound makes the viewer feel almost threatened by the amount of information being thrown at them. Thus making us feel the character's fear within the scene.

After watching this I feel the main aim of sound within a thriller opening is suspense and surprise. It needs to reflect the pace of the editing and make the viewer feel what the protagonist feels to signify their weakness in the film. This creates a sense of fear within the audience as it means the characters and events in the film are real and believable. This forces a viewer to be involved and play a part in the story.

Sound research

We watched the clip 'The descent - theatrical trailer' without any sound, to see how the images in the clip made us feel. The images made us feel distressed as they are sudden and the pace of editing is slow which makes the images discouragingly long. The brightness messes with the audience as one minute it is dark, the next minute it is bright. The effect it had on us was, that we fear for the protagonist and want to know what/who the antagonist is as it is unclear because of the confined location of the caves. It also made me ask a lot of questions of the thriller as the story-line was shown but the antagonist was not and the escape from the cave appears impossible.
One can relate to the characters as they go through a lot of stages of fear, like claustrophobia and hallucination which the audience know of but it is put into an extreme concept where most people would not be able to cope, but the protagonists, in this case a bunch of girls try to cope. 

Then we watched the clip again, but this time it was with sound. The sound had a much bigger impact on the trailer, and is uses empathetic sound.
The trailer has a combination of both diagetic and non-diagetic sound, at the beginning of the clip there is the diagetic sound of one of the girls talking and taking the pictures, then soon after there is a sharp sound that appears when cutting to the next scene to build up the suspence of the film. This has an effect on us becuase, it makes us feel trapped almost and contorolled.  The sinister music in the back round ties in with the thriller convention, which makes it a thriller/ horror, the dark none diagetic scream  every now and then in the trailer also helps to portray the genre, of the trailer.
There is also the diagetic sound of the crawlers in the backround also makes the spectators unsure of what is around the characters in the film, even if there are glimpses of the creatures.
In addition to this, there is a scene where Sarah is trapped in the cave, the use of sound in this part of the trailer helps to portray the characters feelings, and also plays on the audiences fears of clostrophobia. The use of Sarahs voice, and her not being able to breath, and the none diagetic slow music in the backround helps to portray how she is feeling during that time. Then there is soon the diagetic sound on the rocks falling infront of her, and sharp music after that helps to portray panic within the character, and worry for the audeince.   

In conclusion, we have drawn that the sound is very important to create suspense before a new clip is shown in order to make the audience feel uneasy about watching the film. This makes the audience want to watch more as they fear for the characters, especially Sarah, as the diegetic sound shows her struggle. Another way in which sound is important is that the sound effects, ie breathing carry the pace of editing and accompany the clip to show that the characters are in trouble. We discovered therefore, that in our project, diegetic sound could be more important than non-diegetic as for the thriller conventions, the lack of music creates suspense which is what is needed. 

Analysis of past students work 2

The opening we watched was from group S1-21. The material used in the shots of the opening were highlighted clearly to symbolise power between the protagonist and antagonist. For example the girl trips and falls in the woods whilst the antagonist is in pursuit of her. A high angle is used to demonstrate that the protagonist has a weakness that is being exploited for the viewer. The theme of isolation was also highlighted in the opening. A shot of the girl sitting in the corridor alone showed her state at the moment. We are thus able to sympathise with her. 

Powerful editing is used in the form of changing the colours of the scene to create a sense of suspense and anxiety to the viewer as the audience does not know what is happening. It also shows the weak personality of the protagonist as she is falling apart. The shot transactions were short and abrupt and created a flash and showed mystery and a sense of urgency and emphasised that she was falling apart again. However, to improve the sound did not match the genre as it did not match the pace in which the narrative was moving. 

Analysis of past students work

We looked at group Q1-10's thriller project in which we analysed the use of thriller conventions. One of which we thought was successful was the use of an array of cinematography such as high angles and close ups as these showed the protagonist and antagonist differences instantly. The close up was used at the end to show the fear in the eyes of the protagonist as a gun was pointing in her face, while a high angle was used when the protagonist picked the gun out of her bag to show her weakness and having to resort to using the prop. The group shot material appropriate to the thriller genre as the audience could differentiate between the protagonist and the antagonist. This could also be seen in the use of filming the tap running as this created a sense of suspense. 


The mise-en-scene was used well as the lighting was dark throughout which made the audience wonder what the protagonist was doing. The use of the gun props reinforced the genre as guns are more associated with thrillers while other weapons such as an axe are associated with horrors. The use of the lipstick introduced the audience to the protagonists personality as she needs to look good and so this could be seen as a weakness/Achilles heel.  The sound used was incorporated by being a background sound and moved the narrative along. 


However to improve, the titles could have been more mysterious as they were at a basic level and did not fit with the atmosphere. 

Marking Criteria

Marking Criteria - Video is marked out of 60.


Level 1 - up to 23 marks


Level 2 - 24 to 35 marks - Basic


Level 3 - 36 to 47 marks - Proficient 


Level 4 - 48 to 60 marks - Excellence 

• Holding a shot steady when appropriate.
• Framing a shot including and excluding elements. 
• Using a variety of shot distances.
• Shooting material appropriate to the topic.
• Selecting Mise-en-scene
• Editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer
• Using shot transactions and effect
• Using sound with images
• Using titles appropriately  

Crime thriller conventions

In a crime thriller, there is an immediate introduction to the crime so that the audience is interested in what is about to occur in the film. The crime then becomes more disturbing through out the film and there may even be more than one crime committed. Silence is used to keep the narrative moving by creating suspense and mystery. The setting is realistic and relatable so that the audience can feel for characters if they are in danger or envy characters if they are free riding. The setting also reflects the lifestyle of the protagonist as in a city there is a fast pace to coincide with the occurrences, while in a quiet village the pace may be slower. 


The protagonist is seeking answers as the crime committed may connect with the past of the protagonist. Also the protagonist appears normal but may have a dark secret or may appear intelligent. The stereotypes are very potent in the opening, especially women as they are seen cooking and cleaning and being eye candy for the males of the film. The settings are typical for a crime thriller as they are not typical places for thrillers to happen. The dark lighting is used in these places to create atmosphere. 

Taken - Action Thriller Opening Analysis

In the action thriller 'Taken' starring Liam Neeson, we follow the story of an over protective father allowing his daughter to travel Europe in pursuit of a rock band. One convention we found in the opening of the film that falls under the category of the sub-genre is that the linear sequence moves at a subconscious fast pace that most viewers fail to notice. The effect being that the audience gains a larger perspective on the protagonists life. 

Through this we see another convention known as the Achilles heel. We see the father figure being over protective of his daughter, whilst not realizing the significance of his mistakes he made in the past, thus having a lasting impact on his ex-wife and daughter. The protagonist is also portrayed as isolated and cut off from society. This can be seen through the limited knowledge he has on modern singers, trends and even his daughters own interests. All these factors contribute to make an effective protagonist we can all believe in. Summarising another convention that the characters have to be believable and imperfect. 

The opening also introduces us to conflicting stereotypes. We are firstly shown the protagonist with other men having a 'lads night out'. They all speak co-existtant with their stereotype, whilst the mise-en-scene influences their simple characters. The props in the scene show this with the use of beer bottles, a BBQ and cigarettes. The body language also contributes with the characters lounging around on chairs. Further into the opening we are introduced to a new stereotype, the pop star Shareeh. The glamourous life of the celebrity conflicts with the practicality of the bodyguard lifestyle. The scene where both stereotypes begin to contrast is when the pop star is greeting her manic fans, however the bodyguard protagonist insists she keep moving and get inside. Shareeh resists this and the bodyguards become more frustrated with her.   

Memento Thriller Opening Sequence analysis

The voice over of the main character is the stream of consciousness as the narrative is wanting us to get to know the protagonist and relates to his character. The audience sees that the character is confused and so the audience wants to know more about the protagonist and feels sorry for him. The theme of lack of memory is incorporated into memento as the protagonist does not know who his true self is and from the opening suggests that we uncover what his true personality is. The protagonist is isolated and vulnerable as he has a weakness which is that he cannot remember things and so his personality is lacking depth. 

The reversing of time means that the linear structure disappears and so the sense of confusion becomes stronger and more intense. This is emphasized when the murdered man is seen after the murder having coffee with the murderer adding to the distortion. There is a close up on his eyes to show that reality is not as it seems and it is powerful imagery which adds to the sense of suspense. The black and white shows that this scene is in another time and so it is a flash back. There is also a high angle of the room to show the protagonist is weak and this is backed up by the guy not wearing anything on his legs with just a shirt, creating a sense of mystery and asking questions instead of answering questions. 

The mise en scene of the pictures and the tattoos on his body make him remember what has happened in his life, this appears to the audience as unreliable and dangerous as he has a dual identity. The slow pace of editing and close ups indicates a confusion and drowsiness in the character and this is backed up by the tense non-diegetic sound track contributing to a sense of suspense. 

Thriller Conventions

Psychological Thriller Conventions.

• Central theme of identity - Mistaken identify, stolen identity ( amnesia), dual identity doppelgangers.
• Perception - Often the narrative is shown from the perspective of multiple characters.
• Reality - confussion between what is and what isn't different to the normal established within the film. 
• Memory - The torture of an individual by a traumatic search for a last memory. 
• Stream of conscience - The viewer is invited to identify with the psyche of a particular character. 
• Unreliable narrator - the person telling us the story is resolved untrustworthy, the viewers get a sense of rewinding and fast forwarding of events non-linear narrative editing. 
• Imagery - the eyes in the regular visual motif 

'The Birds' thriller opening analysis and conventions

The opening of Alfred Hitchcock's ground braking 'The Birds' portrays many of the subtle conventions of thriller films we see in the modern day.

A poster advertising the 1963 thriller

In the opening titles, there are birds on a white background flying in a chaotic manor to show the savage personality of the birds and instantly introducing us to our antagonist. This is then continued when an establishing shot of the area shows birds, spiraling above the protagonist. The antagonist appearing in the protagonists everyday life creates suspense as it makes the audience wonder why the antagonist does not commit a crime straight away, instead it is just a minor character in the protagonist's life, for now. This creates a sense of suspense within our story, building us up to a climax. This makes the truth about our feathered antagonists even more of a surprise to the audience, despite the film's simplistic title. 

The narrative of the film opening is mostly based around the social issues the characters face. The birds themselves continue to appear and perform strange actions, however they go unnoticed by the characters for quite sometime. This intrigues the viewer as the audience are let into a false sense of security. We are lead to feel as if the story is more about the female heroines mission to win over the good-looking male hero, thus shocking the audience as the birds become more and more aggressive towards humans. 

Conventions in this classic follow many of the typical thriller conventions. Its slow pace of editing creates a sense of mystery that many modern day films use today. The complete lack of a soundtrack makes the film seem more real and takes us out of our comfort zone, forcing us to take interest in the events of the story. The film as a whole forces us to ask questions, only to have them unanswered. This leaves the audience intrigued after watching it. It creates a fear of the unknown and has a profound effect on the viewer, which is the most important factor in thriller films. Not to leave a viewer feeling entertained after watching, but to leave a lasting impact of emotion.

Seven Opening Sequence.

Opening Sequence of Seven - David Finche.


In the opening sequence of Seven many of the conventions match the conventions of a Thriller opening sequence. One of these is that the narrative is around solving a crime. The audience only sees the crime scene and not the actual murder which performs to the convention of a Thriller.


Also in the opening sequence there is sinister music which builds suspense. Also during the opening sequence the titles are creative and don't perform to normal titles; the fonts look handwritten and messy which also contributes to the Thriller convention because it adds to the mysterious atmosphere of the film.


Another way which Seven follows the typical Thriller conventions is that there is a villain who performs a crime, although the audience does not see the actual villain, we know there is one because there is a crime committed.


Finally the lead character is a detective (Morgan Freeman), which is an attribute which a Thriller film has. He is also isolated, asking questions which the police officers or the other detectives don't worry about, for example, "Did the child see the murder?". Then the officers ignore this and only care about how to do it simple. The weather is gloomy and very rainy, which adds to the mystery of the film. The film is set in a city, which we can tell because of the typical city noises, for example police sirens and the rain.

Thriller Opening Conventions

• Mystery 
• Suspense
• Parallel editing/Montage
• Clips/images hinting elements of the story 
• Slow paced editing
• Obscure camera angles and movements
• Asking questions but not answering them.
• Objectification of females
• Voyeurism - Watching something without people knowing

Preliminary Task

 

• For this task it went really well, However we had to re-film the task as, we accidentally for got about the 180 degree rule, and only noticed that we did something wrong when it came to watching the video and editing. So we decided to re-film the project, and the second time it came out right, and we were pleased with it. 
• It then came to the editing and we felt as is the project didn't need much done to it, so we left the project the way it was with simple cuts. 
• And then edited the the bits out of the film that we did not need.