Brainstorming Ideas

This is the brainstorm I completed listing some ideas that could be used for the Thriller Opening. I wrote brief notes which could help us when deciding what we are going to do and what we want to include in the film.

Production Meeting - 1

We are currently in the process of creating our opening of a thriller. Listed below is the step by step that we are going to follow to create the outline of our thriller.


Task 1 - Creating a spider diagram (on paper or in word) of potential Thriller ideas.


Task 2 - Take one idea and develop it through a second spider diagram. Consider locations, props, camera work, cast etc.

Task 3 - Write a 'proposal' outlining your idea for a thriller opening and the locations/props etc. - that you require.

Task 4 - Storyboard it.

Narrative

Structure, Formulas and Devices
E.g. Automatic use of 'continuity editing'.
The clear establishment of 'cause and effect' plotting which establishes character motivations and helps tell an interesting story which proceeds logically and steadily.

Enigma's
This refers to a puzzle, something mysterious or inexplicable, or a riddle or difficult problem.
In thrillers this is commonly something which the protagonist has to try to find out or solve before the narrative is resolved and the film finishes.

The 'Psychological' Thriller

The mind, conflict and the past
The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the others mental state.

Sometimes suspense comes from within one solitary character where characters must resolve conflicts with their own minds. Usually, this conflict is an effort to understand something that has happened to them.

Hitchcock's 'Maguffin'

A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or Maguffin) is a plot device that motivates the characters and advances the story, but has little other relevance to the story.
"We have a name in the studio, and we call it the 'MacGuffin', it is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is always the necklace and in spy stories it is always the papers."

Suspense and Shock

The suspense 'Thriller' - Hitchcock model
'Under the strong influence of Alfred Hitchcock, thrillers often begin with a crime and the accusation of an innocent bystander. Were the accused to contact the authorities, no doubt the case could be promptly solved, but instead the poor bystander runs from the law thus further jeopardising life and limb.' - Rick Altman.
Some examples:
'The 39 steps' - 1935
'North by Northwest' - 1959
"In...the Thirty-Nine steps...suspense films abandon both thrills and suspense when the falsely accused character finally reaches safety" - Rick Altman.


Suspense
Imagine a scene in a film similar to this (classroom, students, teacher). The camera reveals that there is a bomb under the table to the audience but we (the students, teacher) are unaware of it.
Will we be saved ?
Will the bomb go off ?
This is Suspense !
Rope - Example of suspense
Tells the story of two young, wealthy men, Brandon and Phillip, who strangle and murder a friend of theirs just to see if they can get away with it. They then invite other close friends (including the murdered man's parents) to their apartment for a dinner party, whilst hiding the body in a chest/box in their sitting room, just to see if they can get away with it.
The suspense is created through the body in the chest/box.
What will happen?
Will the body and two men be discovered and brought to justice ?
Do we as the audience, even want this to happen ?


Shock
Now imagine the same scene except that instead of the camera revealing the bomb under the table, without any warning, it explodes and kills all present.
This is Shock !
Children of Men - Example of shock.
A man walks into a coffee shop full of people watching the news as the youngest boy in the world who was 18 had just died. The man purchases a cup of coffee and leaves. However less than two minutes after he left the shop a bomb exploded and many people were killed and severely injured. This is an example of shock.

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. He fashioned himself a distinctive and recognisable directorial style and also pioneered the use of a camera made to move in a way that mimics a person's gaze.

Alfred Hitchcock was the 'Master of suspense where films came to be the benchmark for 'psychological' thrillers'.

Listed below are a few quotes from Alfred Hitchcock:

"The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them."
"There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."
"If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on."
"Always make the audience suffer as much as possible."
"I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach."

Preliminary Task - Analysis

In analysis of the preliminary task video I think we completed it very successfully and included all of the aspects that we were briefed to.

1. Match on Action - We successfully included match on action in the video. It was clearly shown when the character A first ran into the room and also later on when character B exited the room. Also match on action was demonstrated when character B was walking out of the room at the end of the video. There was various other examples of match on action in the video which were carried out successfully and professionally.
2. 180 degree rule - For the duration of the video we made sure we followed the 180 degree rule and that there were no instance where character positioning would seem to change. The characters always maintained the same right/left relationship.

In the video we saw a character walks towards and through a door to get inside a room where a different character was situated. The characters also exchanged dialogue and later on in the sequence a character does also exit the room. This was all stated in the brief and we have successfully followed this guideline. 

In conclusion overall in the video we fully followed and understood the brief and made sure it was clear in the video. This preliminary task shows that we can successfully include these elements in a video when needed.

Preliminary Task - The Video

Preliminary Task - What We Did

To complete our preliminary task we first created a storyboard to provide a guideline for us to follow when filming. Over a period of two days we filmed our preliminary task. We went out to the Robert Clack Leisure Centre, which was the setting for our short film, and we began to film the shots which were needed.
Myself, Nicholas, Toyosi and Edwin created and edited the film, with Nicholas behind the camera and the three of us acting out the task.
When editing the preliminary task we found there were a few unusable amusing clips. Therefore we decided to include these clips at the end of our film to allow the audience to see the process of filming which we went through.

Preliminary Task - Brief

To create our preliminary task we had to follow the brief and certain guidelines. 
It must successfully show:

• Match on Action - We see a character start an action in one shot and then see them continue it in the next.
• Shot/Reverse Shot - Where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character.
• 180 degree rule - A basic guideline that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other.

In the sequence we should see the following:

• Character A walks towards a closed door.
• Character A enters through the door and crosses a room to where character B is seated.
• Characters A and B exchange a few lines or dialogue
• Either character A or B exits the room.

Graphic Match/Match Cut

The film maker can choose to place shots in a certain order to create a smooth transition from one frame to the next. When two consecutive shots are matched in terms of the way they look this is called a Graphic Match/Match Cut. The image doesn't have to look the same, it can just have the same patterns of light and dark, or the same positioning of the figures in the shot. The director can choose to present a totally contrasting shot to achieve a different effect. An example of a Graphic Match/Match Cut is show below.

Soviet Montage

Some film-makers have played with this natural desire of the audience to make shots link logically together. Lev Kelshov, a Russian film-maker, in the 1920s experimented by showing a shot of an actor's face followed by a shot of food, followed by the same actor's face again followed by a dead woman, followed by the same shot of the actor's face but this time followed by by a child. Although the expressions of the actor never changed, when asked, the audience said he firstly looked hungry, then sad, then affectionate, as they tried to make the shots link together with some sort of logic. This placing together of images is called Montage. Also known as 'Soviet Montage' as it was a group of Soviet film makers who put forth explanations of what constitutes the montage effect. 

Editing

In the process of editing a film the editor looks at the film footage that has been shot in production and joins shots together to make a continuous piece of film. The editor has various methods of doing this and they will work with the director to decide which to use. 

Editing is the process of looking at all the footage which has been shot during the making of a film or video. When editing you place the footage in the desired order and actually joining it together. There are two main parts to look at when editing, 'Speed of Editing' and 'Style of Editing' which are explained below.


Speed Of Editing
When we watch a moving film of a fairly long duration we see the certain points where it has been joined together, where it has been edited. Each scene in a film usually lasts a matter of seconds, however there are some scenes which last much longer. The length of each sequence helps to establish the pace of the film. The speed of the editing may help to determine the mood that is occurring on screen. If the film makers want the audience to feel anxiety and suspense the pace of editing will be quick with the scenes changing frequently. If the film makers want the audience to feel relaxed and calm the scenes will last longer and change much less frequently, the film will adopt a slower pace.
   The scenes at the start of a film (not the opening credits), must be quite long as they are the establishing scenes which allow the audience to understand what it is going on. As the film progresses the scenes will most likely become shorter as the editing switches back and forth telling multiple stories at once.

Style of Editing
Some of these methods include:

• A Straight Cut - an abrupt transitions between two shots.
• A Fade Out - where the screen fades to black, this represents the passing of time.
• A Dissolve - where one image is slowly brought in beneath another one.
• A Wipe Cut - where one part of the screen moves to wipe across the other.
• A Jump Cut - where the audience's attention is brought into focus on something very suddenly.

The most used join in editing is the straight cut. We are so used to seeing these that we generally do not notice when they are used and a skilful editor will take care that the editing does not distract us from the action. The other types of edits can be used to create a certain effect; fades will often signify the ending of an episode in the film, dissolves will create a blending of the two scenes into each other in a story sense as well as in a physical sense. A wipe cut will be instantly more noticeable to our eyes as it is something that only ever happens on screen and, likewise, a jump cut will draw our attention immediately to a character or object that appears on screen directly after the edit.

 Different types of editing may appear more frequently in certain genres of film, for instance a wipe cut will often appear in a comedy feature film, or a jump cut in a thriller. However, most cuts can be used for a variety of effects and so we must not specify them in terms of genre.

  When the film-maker has made a choice about how to join the shots together they also have to make a choice about what order the shots in.

  Shots can be placed together so that one event logically follows from the next. We as the audience of the film try to make sense of one shot joining onto the next; for instance, if we see the outside of a house and then a shot of a chair, we automatically assume that the chair is inside the house that we have just seen the outside of. If we see a man locking a door and then getting on a bus, we assume he has walked down the road and waited for the bus.

Thriller

A thriller is hard to define. Many films may seem to be a thriller but have other genre's.

• Snakes on a plane
• Source Code
• Bourne Identity
• Fatal Attraction
• Phone booth
• etc.

Susan Hayward said in a book entitled Key Concepts in Film Studies... "Thriller is a difficult genre to pin down because it covers such a wide range of films. Thrillers are films of suspense... that are supposed to instil terror in the audience." 

ere are various different types of thrillers including:

• Spy thrillers
• Political thrillers
• Conspiracy thrillers
• Legal thrillers 
• Psychological thrillers

Coursework Brief

For our coursework we have been asked to create the titles and opening of a new fiction film in the triller genre which should last a maximum duration of two minutes.
The coursework amounts to 50% of the whole course.

Cinematography - Use Of The Camera

In the early days of cinema a camera was connected to a tripod stand to record. This is called a fixed camera. This meant it created an effect like going to a theatre, it would all be shown from one position and constantly in long shot, so that all of the set and characters were visible to everyone in the audience.
   As techniques progressed, film makers began to try different experiments such as moving the camera around creating a range of shots. This eventually led to certain conventions such as the use of a close up used for showing facial expressions to convey emotion or focus the audience on a particular thing.

Camera Framing
When speaking about camera framing we focus on what we actually see inside the frame of the screen. We concentrate on the distance of the camera from the object or character and from what angle the shot is taken.

The different shots include:

• Close Up (CU)
• Extreme Close Up (ECU)
• Mid-shot (MS)
• Long Shot (LS)
• Extreme Long Shot / Establishing Shot (ELS)
• Point Of View (POV)
• High Angle
• Low Angle
• Over the Shoulder Shot (OSS)

Camera Movement

When the camera moves from a fixed position.

 These movements include:

• Pan - when the camera rotates from left to right or vice versa.
• Tilt - when the camera 'tilts' up and down.
• Dutch Tilt - when the camera 'tilts' on an angle to give a disorientating effect.
• Zoom - when the camera remains still but the focus is adjusted to move either towards or away from the object.
• Reverse Zoom - when the camera focus zooms in whilst the camera moves out or vice versa.

Free-Form Camera Movement

When the camera is free to move around the set/location.

These Movements include:

• Track - when the camera moves fluidly on a set of tracks in a certain direction.
• Dolly - when the camera is on wheels so can be moved in any direction.
• Crane - when the camera is placed on a large crane arm that enables it to move around the set with ease. It also allows the camera to move quickly between different heights.
• Rolling - when the camera moves diagonally, making the image askew.
• Handheld - when the camera is held in a hand and can therefore move in any direction. The result is usually a very shaky picture.
• Steadicam - when the camera is worn on a weighted harness to keep it still and balanced, whilst allowing the freedom of handheld filming.

Film Language: Sound

Sound
Sound adds an extra dimension to films and has been extremely useful and common in films for a long while. The first film with sound is known to have taken place in 1911, however it was only in 1927 that the Warner Brothers released the first feature film with a soundtrack, 'The Jazz Singer'. The reason it took this long while to apply sound to film is because companies didn't want to invest the large amounts of money needed for it to be applied. However the next sound film 'Lights of New York' impressed so much that sound film took off and the entire film industry started to make sound films.

Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Sound
The film as we see on the cinema screen is known as the diegetic world.

Diegetic sound is sound which is actually part of the film world we are watching. This can be dialogue, music or sound effects which come from a source within the film world. The music in this instance will be from a source in the film which we acknowledge could actually be producing music, for example a CD player or jukebox.

Nondiegetic sound is sound which we do not recognise as part of the film world such as a voice-over or background music.

Sound Bridges
You will notice that sound from one scene may often continue even though the image on screen has moved from one scene to the next. This is known as a sound bridge which helps to create a smooth transition from one scene to another as the film would seem very disjointed if the sound changed every time the picture on the screen changed. In this way the sound is said to be enhancing the continuity of the film.

Parallel and Contrapuntal Sound
Normally in a film the sound we here compliments the image on screen. For Example if were looking at children on a beach, we expect to be hearing happy voices and children laughing and appropriate music for that scenario. This is what is known as Parallel Sound.
However similar to the film 'Jaws', if you see children playing on a beach but hear sinister music in the background which signals the arrival of the shark, it is known as contrapuntal sound because the sound does not match what we are watching on the on the screen.
 

Eagles Path

This is a storyboard we created in class. The story is about the opening of a film called 'Eagles Path' about a family living in an isolated cottage, set in the highlands of Scotland. The film slowly goes from the opening/establishing long shot of the mountains and clouds above and behind the cottage. As the scene progresses we see a man outside chopping wood. However the story then turns as a rough storm approaches which eventually evolves into a hurricane heading towards the cottage and as the family try to escape the hurricane strikes and destroys the whole village. This is where the opening ends. The storyboard is shown in the video below.

Opening of Source Code (By Duncan Jones)

In class we watched an action thriller film named source code and analysed the opening. The opening 5 minutes of this film gives an idea of how the pace of the film is going to be and what it will consist of. The opening shot is a long shot which shows the whole city and this is accompanied by fast paced, tension music to build up suspense. We then see the train from an aerial view most probably filmed by a cameraman in a helicopter in the air. The shots switch back and forth from the train to the city, as it gets closer in to the train. The film then switches swiftly to the next scene which is when we see the first character.
   The first person we see in the film is a man on a train slowly awaking; he seems to look lost as if he doesn't know where he is. This shot is quite a long shot in duration and lasts for about 13 seconds which allows the audience to establish that this will be the main character. However after this the pace of the shots speeds up quite quickly as there are a series of different events that happen in quick succession, such as a lady spilling her coffee, a man opening his can of drink and a man complaining about the time these all followed shot after shot and made the main character question where he was and what he was doing there.
   The camera swiftly moves from shot to shot as it allows the audience to see the mans surroundings as he is seeing it. As he moves around the train to get a better idea of his location he is moving quite frantically and looks out of place due to the fact he isn't in his version of reality. Also when the man looks in the mirror he sees a different man to himself which builds more suspicion and confusion. The opening ends with the man and a woman who seemed to know him, facing each other and talking, when the train suddenly blows up and the scene ends.

I think this is an effective opening as it allows the audience to establish where most of the film will take place and also allows them to establish who the main characters are. The director has thought about this thoroughly and made sure every detail is correct and links with the next.

Casino Royale beginning - 'Mise En Scene' analysis

In this opening scene the director uses 'Mise En Scene' to show bond's characteristics by the setting, lighting and expressions and body language. The body language in the first scene shows the old man looking around frantically, looking slightly paranoid as if he feels something is not right. However bond's body language shows he is calm and collected and has got every aspect of the task at hand already planned out. The lighting in the first scene is dark and shows hardly anything which conceals what bond may be hiding. the facial expressions in the second scene are more angry and frantic to show the intense and violent atmosphere between bond and the person he is fighting. The body language from both of them shows the struggle to gain control of the situation but at the end bond is breathing heavy as a sense of relief and also tiredness from the fight.

Film Language: Lighting

Lighting is used in various ways in films. It helps to portray a setting or mood in each scene we are watching. The lighting in a scene can help to steer the audience to feel a certain way or look at a specific area on the screen whilst keeping the other details in the background still visible but not in full focus.

In the film studio the lighting is usually provided by three main sources:

1. The key Light: this is usually the brightest light in the studio and the one that has the most effect.
2. The Back Light  this is the light that contradicts the key light therefore making the character or object on screen appear more 'rounded'.
3. The Filter Light: this light is used to soften the strong shadows created by the other two lights used. There may be multiple filter lights on the set. 

The key lighting can be moved from one angle to another to try and create the various effects in the set.

• Under lighting: this is when the lighting is provided from below the subject. This can have a distorting effect on the character or object on screen that the light is being used for, this is most commonly used in films such as horror.
• Top Lighting: this is when the main source of lighting is supplied from above, this helps to bring out the features of the character - it can be used to make the character look glamorous.
• Back Lighting: this lighting is used behind the subject of focus. if there is not much other lighting used then this light will create a silhouette.

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