Props and Costumes

In this blog i am going to look at the Props and Costumes of our Thriller, first i am going to look at sam:

In our thriller opening sam is dressed very casually, yet at the same time he gives of a sense of maturity due to the colours, the gray suggests maturity and despite being dressed like a teenager you can see that  he is the "higher up" of the organisation at work.

 Michael is the next person we see in our thriller opening, he is wearing clothes that you would expect a teenager to wear in the middle of winter, this helps build upon his character as it makes sure he doesn't look like he is doing anything suspicious which, if you've seen our thriller, we all know he is.

I am the last person from our group to be seen in the thriller, my role is not important for the thriller opening and i am playing just a small part, so it is not overly important as to how my character is portrayed, despite this i think my outfit definitely helps show what i am, i am some sort of black market dealer, dressed in a thick coat and a hoody to make sure only the right, i guess you would call them the wrong, people notice me. the trainers show i am ready to run in case of emergency and the hood and thick coat keep my identity concealed.











Now i am going to look at the main props used in our opening.

this first prop is a nintendo ads cartridge , this is the mysterious item Michal was handed by my character, this is going to be the macguffin of our thriller this prop also plays the part of the enigma as michal was covering most of it with his hand so it is unknown as to what it is in regards to the world of our thriller.

this is the other main prop from our opening, this is actually Carly's iPhone, but we gave it to sam as he is supposed to be the overseer and head of this whole operation sand it would only be fitting if he had a professional looking phone with many gadgets, we see sam use this phone to communicate with Michal at the end of our opening.

Shot List

Here i am going to place the shot list from our trip into London filming our opening sequence.

First day of filming

 Here are some images from our first day of filming in central london our "primary base of filming" is the area around and the roof of the shopping mall opposite Saint Pauls

Risk Assessment

This is our groups risk assessment sheet showing some of the issues when it comes to our filming, it shows a basic overlay of some of the problems we may encounter and how to overcome them.

Third Production Meeting

At the third meeting we pretty much finalised all of our plans for our first day of filming, we wiil after that see if we need more days incase of mistakes.

Animatic

 This is the animatic from our storyboard, it is basically and animated play back of the images, in a structure that basically shows how our filming will look.all 24 of the frames are in the storyboard.

Storyboard

The storyboard is the basic plan for what we are going to do when filming our thriller opening.
it contains notes on what is happening in each scene and sketches to further show what is going on, we are going to try to follow this through step by step.

Unknown

Unkown 2011

A man awakens from a coma, only to discover that someone has taken on his identity and that no one, (not even his wife), believes him. With the help of a young woman, he sets out to prove who he is.

Director:

 Jaume Collet-Serra

Writers:

 Oliver Butcher (screenplay), Stephen Cornwell(screenplay)

Stars:

 Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones.

This thriller is unlike the previous thrillers i have looked at as it has not been directed by Hitchcock however despite this it has many similarities with hitchcockian works featuring a maguffin and other key points accosted with Hitchcock.

The maguffin in this film is Martin Harris's breifcase as this is why he goes of in the first place and is then caught in the crash and falls into the coma.this is what builds the rest of the story as he starts to believe he is martin harris which we later learn he is not and it is just a cover as he is actually an assassin.

The film also features an enigma as we are unsure as to who the real Martin Harris is, we are led to believe that it is Liam Neeson but this is confusing as his own wife disowns him, we spend more than half of the film believing that some one has stole Neeson's identity and the "false" martin is trying to kill him off and keep is wife hostage.


It is a real surprise to the audience to find out that no only is there no real Martin Harris but that Neeson, his wife and "the impostor" are all part of an attempt to kill professor Bressler who had developed a genetically modified corn that would ease world hunger, and that they plan to kill him and steal his data on the project for the money.

The trailer also makes us believe that he is the real Dr Harris.


the film also contains some well used suspense, for example when Liam Neeson is in the subway, we get the feeling that he is being followed and so he gradually get faster as does a man behind him, we can see Neeson is worried about this man and due to this so do we the audience begin to feel worried, however it appears as though the man just didn't want to be late for his train as he doesn't appear to be interested in Neeson at all.

2nd production meeting

today monday 8th december we had our second production meeting.

Titles

Titles are a key part of films, they contain all of the basic information such as main actors, producers, directors and so on.

This example is the title sequence from Hitchcock's North By North West and it even has a cameo of the director himself stepping onto a bus in the last panel.

we are going to need something like this in our thriller if we plan to look proffesional.

How To Film A Thriller

This is a short video showing how to film a thriller.
It tells you step by step what is happening so as to help others who want to make a short thriller opening, this clip contains most of the things you could include.
It includes different camera shots mixed with editing to convey the characters feelings to the audience such as fear and confusion.

The deep note suggests suspense whilst the man is walking through the bunker, the shot reverse shot shows a sense of confusion and allows us into the characters head a little more.

First Production Meeting

Today (1-12-2014) we had our first production meeting where we came up with a few ideas for our production as a group.

Rope

Rope is a 1948 thriller from Alfred Hitchcock about the murder of a school boy by two of his classmates who then go on to host a party using the chest they hd his body in as the table they serve food from to the boys family and fiancee.

The idea behind the murder is based on conversations with their prep-school housemaster who discussed with them the concepts of Nietzsche's Ubermensch (supermen) as a way of showing superiority over inferiority however this gives a moral dilemma as who decides whether some one is superior or inferior.

As the party goes on the guests grow ever weary that David (the school boy) is not present to the point where we can se the guilt in one of the main characters eyes as he continues to drink he lets more and more slip though only the housemaster notices what is truly going on.

At the end of the film after all of the guests have left the housemaster comes back "claiming" he has left his cigarette case but in reality he knows that they murdered David as he found his hat in the coat closet and confronts his two former pupils, the film ends with the sounds of sirens as the housemaster fired a gun out of the window to get attention.

The maguffin in this hitchcock film is the party, as we do not really care about the guests and the party itself but it is the party that moves the plot onwards by drawing attention to the fact that David is not present. this causes tension between the two murderers as one of them is worried about people finding out whilst the other thinks it is a game and wants them to find out so they can admire his handiwork.
 This is a trailer for the film:

This trailer give us a small glimpse into what the film is about and mainly advertises the suspense which is one of the biggest plot points in this movie.This does a very effective job of drawing the viewer in and makes them want to know what exactly going on.


This film contains a deep sense of suspense as there comes a point when the housekeeper wants to place some books back into the table and she almost opens up the lid, the whole time the audience are expecting her to find out and we are on the very edge of our seats but luckily she is stopped and we can calm ourselves down.

Studio Idents

Walt Disney: this has changed quite drastically over the years it has gone from a short animation of their main charachter to a cgi image of the castle in their main theme park.i am not clear on why these have been changed so
drastically.


Universal: a lot of this ident has changed: the colour of the text has change as well as the image, it has gone from a low quality drawing to a high definition image that makes the whole thing appear much more prominent.

Paramount:this ident has gone through roughly the same changes as universal it has gone from a sketch to high def, and the new ident makes you very aware of its 100 year anniversary, one of the clear ways of seeing the age of the ident on the left is the use of Technicolor.

Modern Thrillers

"Brick":The opening of this thriller is in my opinion very effective as it gets the audience to want to continue watching so they learn more about the characters as the sequence itself is dark and has an underlying blue tone suggesting it is cold and sad it also feels quite creepy as we see somebody crouching down and staring at the body of the girl in the stream.we then at the end see what appears to be the girl at school or at least someone withe the same or her armbands, this leads the viewer to several conclusions.



"Zodiac":this thriller opening gives us more to look at than "Brick" it begins very calmly with the 4th of july celebrations and fireworks, but as the two characters meet up we see that more may be happening than independence day celebrations we see that she is a married woman and the boy she is meeting with is not her husband, they then drive off to a deserted road, they then get shocked as a car pulls up to them but the worry is for nothing as the car ends up driving past, there is another point when a car slowly drives past them however and after reruns and parks behind the pair the boy thinks it could be a police officer but as the person walks towards the boy starts talking but we get a shock when the person pulls out a silenced firearm and shoots the boy and the woman.

"No country for old men": the first one and a half minutes of the film are just shots of the desert  and narration it is straight after this at around the 1:36 mark that we see any signs of life we see a sheriff taking a handcuffed man into a police cruiser, a few seconds later the sheriff places a pressurised air canister into the front of the car they then drive off and the narration ends at 2:15 when we see the sheriff and the handcuffed man in the police station. the sheriff is on the phone whilst the man is sitting behind on a bench, the man gets up towards the end of the phone call and then proceeds to strangle the sheriff with his handcuffs all whilst having a crazed almost happy expression on his face. he then takes his canister and the sheriffs cruiser and pulls over another man driving on the empty road, it is then that we learn what the gas tank is as he uses it to blow a hole through the mans head again with the crazed expression on his face, from the short couple of minutes of the opening sequence we can already see so much about this man and it all draws you in making yo want to watch even more.

"A history of violence": the opening of this film is relatively calm, it just appears as though two men have stayed in a motel and the film begins with them coming out and packing up, it starts to get a little odd however when one of the men mentions staying out of the big cities, it is an odd thing for the man to say, whats wrong with the big cities? however as you follow on it gets clearer, the younger man hops into the car whilst the other goes to the motel office to return the key to their room, when he comes out he is holding some fabric and puts it in the bin, at first it seems like an innocent thing to do but the younger man asks him why he took so long and he responds "nothing... i had a little trouble with the maid but, every things fine now" agin this is an innocent statement and for the past 3 minutes seem normal, however the older man asks the younger to get some water saying theres a cooler in the back of the office, the younger man goes on his way to get some water, goes into the office and looks at some postcards and it is then after 4 minutes that we see the problem, the office has the dead bloody bodies of its workers and as the young man struts through we can tell that the older man was behind it, that cloth was probably used to clean blood of his hands and when he claims the the maid was a little trouble we can see that he meant killing her was a "little trouble".

The Birds

The Birds 1963 is a thriller from Alfred Hitchcock.

The film uses all of the key parts used in Hitchcock's other thrillers such as a MacGuffin, a hero who must thwart the enemy, suspense, dramatic irony is also used.
All of this make the film such a good thriller.

In this film the external three is from nature not from a psychopath or an organisation, it is from a threat that we do not understand.

the MacGuffin in this film are the lovebirds that Tipi Hedren buys, the audience don't care about these birds but they are what takes the plot forward.
Suspense is used extensively in this film to allow the audience to get into the situation more and when the suspense is broken it affects the audience for example when Hedren goes into the top room and all is silent until the birds sweep down.
Dramatic Irony is used in the school scene when the birds gather behind Hedren we know what is happening but she doesn't this makes the audience want to scream at the screen trying to tell her.

The birds is an open ended text as their is no clear ending the threat of the birds is never explained and is never stopped from the viewers perspective. this also links to the enigma it is a mystery as to why the birds are behaving as such. it could be anything and in the film you always expect for an explanation to appear but it never does, the characters just drive of and you don't even see the birds leave they just sit as if waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

One of the films main aspects that allows it to work so well is its suspense, how that when we can feel that something is going to happen, we are just waiting on the edge of our seats the end of the film has the characters that are left leaving in a car with all of the birds just sitting, the viewer expects the birds to do something up until the actual credits role.

This is the scene where Tipi Hedren is waiting for her friend who works in the school, whilst she is waiting she fails to notice the swarm o birds who are multiplying on the play equipment behind her.
This is another great example of Hitchcocks suspense and has an almost pantomime feel to it as you just want to scream and tell her that the birds are behind her, the suspense builds up and the viewer can hardly contain themselves.

Sound Test

Here is the sound test showing that we know (not really) what to do when it comes to sound in filming.

Mise-En-Scene

Mise-En-Scene:

This is a french term meaning, "In the scene or frame"

the elements of Mise-En-Scene:

-Settings and Props

-Costume/Hair and make up

-facial expression and body language

-Lighting and Colour

-Positioning of charachters and objects in the frame

Colour:

The first use of colour, in films ,came around in 1904
to begin with, films were hand painted frame by frame, examples of this are George Melies work such as "voyage a travers l'impossible'

After this, films used Technicolor which was used from 1922 to 1952 it is notable for being used in cartoons a lot such as Original Disney cartoons.

In 1977, STAR WARS would become the last film (to date) to be printed in Technicolor.

Colour plays a big role in media as it is used to represent different things, mainly emotions, for example the colour red represents rage and anger but it could also be used to represent lust and romance.

Cinematography

This was our first piece filming as a group. Here, we used different camera angles to show what we had learnt in our first lesson on filming.We used several camera angles such as a close up, an extreme close up, a rolling shot, a tracking shot, a low angle, a long shot, a point of view shot etc. As our first piece of filming it wasn't our best. However, we have now experimented and practiced with them a bit, so next time we can hopefully improve and learn. There are camera angles and shots that we have missed out however.

Introducing our group

Here is our group, White Virgin Media:

From left to right: me (Joshua Collier), Michal Cendrowski, Samuel Hannigan and Carly Laslett.
we are the only four from All Saints and so we chose to stick together.

Psycho

Psycho is a thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock

The film follows the same base as Hitchcock's other thrillers, there is a McGuffin the $40,000 that the films main character Marion steals, this is what the audience initially thinks the film is about, meaning the murder comes as a massive shock, this makes the audience apprehensive for the rest of the film and is part of why psycho is so brilliant.

The character of Norman Bates went against the cliche of regular murderers by having him being charming this is a disguise as Norman is an odd fellow and this can be seen from when he chats with marion in the parlour of the motel where he has placed all of the birds he has taxidermied.

Throughout the film we hear stories of Norman's mother and he talks about her fondly however we never actually see her apart from when there is a murder but then we only see dark outline of what we assume is the mother in a dress, when it gets to later on in the film however we discover that Norman's mother has actually been dead for some time, we then see that Norman actually dug up his deceased mother shortly after her burial and taxidermied her and moves her around the house as though she were still alive, at the end of the film we see that Norman actually has extreme schizophrenia in which he actually believes he is his own mother and she tells the police about her "sons" murder.

The film uses an enigma as we never see who the murderer is though we can make out at some points a long dress and long hair leading us to believe it is a woman, we also hear about normans mother a lot so it is only natural that we would draw the conclusion that the mother is the murderer, this however is spun on its head when we find out that normans mother has been dead for some time and that she was buried, however when a the protagonists sister goes to inspect the house we discover that norman dug up his mother taxidermic her and keeps her in the house, moving her around and dressing her up , this also links to his schizophrenia as he believes he is his mother and so dons her clothing and murders people.

The murder scene from psycho this is the first time we see anything bad happen in the film and is one of the first times anything risky has been shown in cinema, however nothing bad actually happens it is all editing, the knife never actually touches Marion and there are no cuts or blood at all, as a matter of fact the "blood" is actually chocolate powder as Hitchcock thought it ran better.

Media Theorists and theories.

1.Barthes-enigma Codes.
Enigma=Mystery.
Roland Barthes: all texts are complex bundles of meaning.
Enigma Codes (problem introduced)-usually in 'disruption' stage.
Open texts-Not resolved at the end.
Closed texts-resolved at the end.
Polysemic Texts-lots of different meanings.

2.levi Strauss-Binary opposites.
Levi Strauss said that Narratives can be organised through binary opposition - two things opposed  - often dominant vs subordinate - e.g: male/female, hero/villain.

3.Traditional Hollywood Narrative Structure-3 acts (linear)
Three act structure- the typical Hollywood narrative = set up (25%)/ confrontation (50%)/ climax (final 25% of film time).
Linear (chronological), few, if any, sub-plots, tendency towards closure at the end of the film.

4.Todorov-narrative theory-5 stages.
In 1969 Todorov produced a theory which he believed to be able to be applied to any film.
Todorov believed that all films followed the same narrative pattern through various different stages.
Todorov's five stages:
1-A state of Equilibrium(all is as it should be).
2-A disruption of that order by an event.
3-A recognition that the disorder has occurred.
4-An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption
5-A return, or restoration, of a new Equilibrium.


5.Propp-Character types.
Vladimir propp analysed traditional folk stories and discovered that there are eight main character types: Hero/Villain/Helper/Donor(Provider)/Father/Dispatcher/Princess/False Hero. One character can perform more than one role.

6.Laura Mulvey-visual pleasure and narrative cinema.
Theory of the male gaze=
Women are viewed as objects of male erotic desire-in film and audience.
Men active/Women passive.
Women do not have agency-they do not move the plot forward.
the audience is forced to identify with the male gaze.
Cinema reflects patriarchal (male dominated) society.
Patriarchy and phallocentrism linked-phallus(penis) a symbol of power e.g. in cinema guns=phallus=power.

Thriller Conventions

Thriller is a Genre of media that usually has: Fast pacing, frequent action, resourceful heroes who have to thwart the plans of better equipped villains and Thrillers are usually villain driven plots, the villain presents obstacles that the hero must overcome.

Thrillers use devices such as: suspense, red herrings and cliff hangers, these are all used to draw the viewers attention and help the feel how the characters are feeling cliff hangers are a good example as they are what they say on the tin, for example in north by north-west there is a point where eve Kendall is hanging of of mount Rushmore and roger thorn hill reaches to help here up, this is a cliff hanger as you aren't sure whether he can reach her and if she will plummet to her demise or if roger will save her, when watching this the viewer can feel the danger of the situation.

Thrillers are a flexible Genre and can engage the audience through dramatic rendering of psychological, social and political tensions.Hitchcock himself said that Thrillers allow the audience to "put their toe in the cold water of fear to see what it is like.

More characteristics of thrillers: thrillers often take place in exotic settings such as foreign cities, the heroes in thrillers are frequently"hard men" accustomed to danger such as policemen or soldiers etc, however they may just be ordinary citizens thrown into the fray accidentally such as roger thorn hill in north by north-west as he is mistaken for someone else.while such heroes are traditionally men, women lead characters have become increasingly popular such as Sigourney Weavers role as Ripley in the movie Alien (1979).

Thrillers often overlap with the genre of mystery but can be easily distinguished by the structure of the plot.In thrillers the hero has to stop the villain from there future plans such as a major heights or mass murder whereas in mysteries the hero usually has to figure out who the villain is after there plan has unfolded murder mysteries for example. Thrillers occur on a much larger scale than mysteries such as mass murder over one person being killed in the kitchen by lady Scarlett with the lead pipe.Dangerous and violent confrontations are standard plot elements of thrillers such as the scene in north by north-west when the bad guys attempt to make Roger Thornhill kill himself whilst driving intoxicated.The climax or mystery films are often when the murderer has been identified however in thrillers the end goal is only reached when the Villains plans have been thwarted by the Hero.

Thrillers are defined by the primary mood that they create: fearful excitement.

in short, if it thrills it is a thriller.

North by North-West

Crop duster scene:

Hitchcock said that thrillers allow the audience, "to put their toe in the cold water of fear to see what it is like.

Sound: to begin with there is no noise it is silent, this is due to the fact that nothing important is happening, rarely cars will drive past Cary Grant and you can hear the crop duster in the distance, these sounds are parralel as they match what is happening on screen.
However this all starts to change as the crop duster begins to chase Cary Grant the noise of the plane gets louder and there are a few gunshots. It is when the plane crashes into the tank that the Non Diagetic music begins, the music that is not in the world of the movie the music is parralel as it portrays the danger and mystery of the situation.

Mise-en-Scene: the scene takes plae on a desert road in the middle of nowhere with Cary Grant standing alone, this is used to show that he is vunerable and has no one to help him if trouble arrises

Trailer:

I think the trailer appeals to the audience as it highlits a few key plot points and shows action, romance and suspense which will all entice the audience.

Archetypal Thriller: North by North-West is an archetypal thriller as it has the senses of mystery and suspense plus the major plot points such as a villian driven plot and red herrings.



North by North-West is a very good example of a Villain driven plot, Roger Thornhill only does things according to how the villain wants him to for example when he thinks he is meeting up with the person he is accused of being he is set up and almost murdered by a crop duster.

A Sound Test.

Recorded Sequence 1

Unfortunately i was unable to insert the clip onto blogger so i can only talk about it and the video will have to be added in later.



We have tried to use every shot given to us in this short clip such as: long shot, medium shot, close up, extreme close up, pan, tilt, following shot, over the shoulder and more. we have used these to show that we can film them correctly for use in future projects.I think most of them have been used effectively however some did not work as effectively. the shots that were filmed with the tripod however when we filmed moving shots they were not as stable as we would have liked the framing, i think, was done correctly.
The improvements i would make are : trying to keep the shots more stable and trying to get good footage for the shot, as in several different takes of one shot style and then picking the best, instead of just trying to do all the shots one after the other.

The Crew

Our Group: clockwise from left:  Joshua Collier(me), Michal Cendrowski, Samuel Hannigan, Carly Laslett

Genre

A Genre is the category of a media production be it a movie, a book or a TV series. Genres can include: Horrors, Comedies, Science fiction and many more. Every genre has certain components that make it easier to define the Genre for example Westerns are set in the west and include cowboys, indians, stetsons and horses if you see these in a movie it is more than likely a western as opposed to a science fiction film that would be set in the future or in a Galaxy far far away and would include space or time travel alongside robots or aliens.

Brief

You have been asked to produce the titles and opening sequence of a new fiction film in the thriller genre.

The sequence should last a maximum of two minutes.

You may work in a group of 2 - 4 students.

As acting is not assessed you are free to use actors that are not members of your group.

The film is worth 60% of your coursework grade.

The accompanying blog is worth 40% of your coursework grade

Together the Foundation Portfolio is worth 50% of the overall AS Level.  

Welcome!

Hello my name is Joshua and this is my blog.