Initial Ideas

Initial Ideas

Here are some of the ideas that we have come up with for our thriller. We have considered where to film it and have come up with basic ideas that we may use, but we aren't sure yet. We know that there is going to be some sort of enigma and a large sense of suspense though, as we need to make our opening very convincing.

First Production Meeting

 Today was our first production meeting. We discussed today how we would plan out or thriller, who would film, who would star in it and roughly came up with a plot. We know that in our next meeting we will discuss our thriller opening in more detail and talk about what camera angles to use.

Introducing Our Group

Introducing Our Group

This is our group in which we have decided to call White Virgin Media. There are four of us, me, Michal Cendrowski, Samuel Hannigan and Joshua Collier. Sadly, I am stuck with them to work with this year. But we'll make it work. 

How To Film A Thriller

How To Film A Thriller 

In this short video there are very typical aspects from a thriller. We watched this in class to understand how a thriller should be laid out so that we could have inspiration for when we film the opening to our our thrillers.
The start of this video is very silent and quiet, until we hear some diegetic sound fade in, the diegetic sound being the nature sounds e.g. birds singing and the breeze. To set the scene there is also a very long shot at the beginning so audiences can see the environment that the character is in. As he walks, to avoid wasting time filming the character walking everywhere there is a cross-dissolve which leaves out part of the character's journey, but audiences understand what is going on all the same. When he walks in to the deserted building, we see a quick high angle shot to symbolise his vulnerability. When we see the first shot of the building there is an eerie suspense sound to suggest danger, and the creepy deep-noted sounds continue as the man walks into the building and curiously looks around. The backlight beside the window creates a silhouette and the point of view shots also have a good effect. There is a low angle shot when he comes across the bottle on the ground, and the sounds of the water trickling also creates a diegetic sound, which is a good effect to use even if it was just added in it worked very well and sounded realistic. The eerie sounds grow louder and sharper when there is suddenly a lot of quick cuts to show a lot of panic and fright, and the shots coming from outside of the building suggest that someone or something is out there, which leads the clip to the next scene where there is a close up of the man's face to show his reaction. As soon as he runs outside, all the suspense and creepy effects stop, and the sound goes back to the diegetic nature. Outside it is light, whereas inside the building it is dark, so it gives the audience the impression that there is nothing to be afraid of and there is actually no threat there, and that they can relax. However, when the man walks away we see an extreme close up of an eye and there is ominous music, creating enigma and mystery. The audience are then left with a cliffhanger to wonder what is going to happen next.

Studio Ident

Studio Idents of Today

Universal Studios

Universal Studios was founded in 1912 as a universal film manufacturing company by Carl Laemmle, Pat Powers and Mark Dintenfass. It is one of Hollywood's biggest studios and has received outstanding box office records for films such as "Jaws", "E.T: The Extra Terrestrial" and "Back To The Future" which were all directed by Steven Spielberg. 



Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney Pictures was founded by Walt Disney in 1923. It is based at Walt Disney Studios and is based around live action movies today. It has changed quite drastically over the years as short animations created by Walt Disney Animation Studios were just the beginning. Its first feature film was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" and was animated in 1937, but their first film with live action actors was "Song Of The South" released in 1946. Nowadays, Disney is famous for films such as "Frozen" and has over 50 animated classics which are considered timeless to audiences of all ages.


20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox Film Corporation was founded in May 1935 by Joseph M. Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck. Over the years the company has become more and more successful. They began with producing films such as "Music Is Magic" which was released on November 1st 1935, and after making lots and lots of black and white movies went on to create animated classics decades later such as "Ice Age" in 2002, and more recently from then up until today, have produced very successful movies such as "The Maze Runner" and the "Night Of The Museum Trilogy".



Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures was founded in 1912 and has produced some of the well known classic movies we know today. These are all sorts of thriller genres, some films such as "North By North West" directed by the world famous Alfred Hitchcock. Paramount has developed over the years and has changed drastically as they have produced many different sorts of films with all different genres.

Titles (Thriller Examples)

Titles (Thriller Examples)

The title of a thriller, or any film for that matter, needs to include the title of the film, the production company and the producer, and also the logo for the production company as well as perhaps the music for the production company. I have looked at a few thriller examples with title sequences and have reviewed them.

Se7en
With the eeriness and the creepiness of the Se7en opening, it is easy to see that this is going to be the opening for a thriller. The music creates a lot of suspense, and the shots in between the actor's names are very sharp and fast and unclear, which creates a sense of enigma because the audience see quick shots of paper and pens and other objects but cannot understand what any of these things mean.

Past Student Thrillers

Past Student Thrillers
I have been looking at past student thrillers. By looking at these, I can compare them to the thriller opening I made and see where these people have done well and what they can do to improve. I have also seen if I could notice any typical thriller conventions that have been used in these openings.


Hunter
In this thriller opening I think this group have made a great use of sound. As soon as the detective character walks in we instantly know that something is going to go wrong simply because of the way the music builds up and creates suspense. There are a good use of camera angles in this and I think the costume choices were very good and suited each character; the detective was wearing a stereotypical inspector coat and the killer at the end was all dressed in black and held a baseball bat, like he was undercover and this was very effective. I liked the way the camera followed the main character, however, I feel like the tracking shots went on for too long and they could have easily been cut down a little.

After Eight
I really like this one and I feel that the camera angles were very accurate and you can tell that each little shot in each part of the opening was filmed very precisely and carefully. I think the music is very good and as soon as we see the male character walk in with the bag there is a sense of enigma because the audience don't know what is inside of it to start with but are instantly drawn in to want to know what is inside of it. There is also a cliffhanger at the very end, and when the guy says "are you ready for this?" and the female character gives him a very sneaky grin, we wonder what it is they are plotting especially when we see the axe and the blood on the chopping board - what was it that the girl was cutting up? I think to improve they could have used a better microphone and maybe could have limited the dialogue a little bit.

The Catalyst
This opening was very creepy and I found the whole concept of it quite saddening. But there was an excellent use of mise-en scene involved, and also there was a great sense of suspense which started up when the male lead role pulled out the sniper rifle. The music really suited the whole assassin atmosphere. I think to improve they could have added in some more obvious camera angles that you would typically see in thrillers for example a low angle as he pulled out the gun to show that he had power over everyone else.

Preliminary Evaluation

Preliminary Task Evaluation

The preliminary task we did had a lot of parts where we had improved from our last attempt at filming a sequence, such as our sound test. But there are also some parts on it that we could improve on in our next piece of filming. For example, not all of our camera angles were as useful as we could've made them and there were a few adjustments we could have made.
The rolling shot we did at one point of the video did not go as smoothly as planned. Also, in the outtakes at the end you can see that we had a few troubles doing it to begin with as the rod on the tripod didn't move the camera correctly. We also had a bit of trouble with the diagetic sound as the boom seemed to pick up more diagetic noise than we thought. So we had to put the non diagetic music in there except we turned it up louder. Timing was an issue as well, as there were some times where some members of my group didn't walk into the scene on time or spoke too soon or too late.

However there were some points where we did quite well in the process of filming. We managed to do a lot of editing at the beginning, after we filmed Michal at different angles waiting in the classroom. The cross dissolve effect made him look like he had been waiting for a long time, and also the music in the background helped make the scene look dragged out, so when Sam ran in, it looked genuine. It was interesting to film and I feel that it made a huge difference because it showed us our strong and weak areas and also how we could improve in the future, or when we film our thriller opening, for example.

Preliminary Task

Preliminary 

Here is our completed preliminary task. I was behind the camera creating the angles in which to film and hopefully when filming our thriller opening we can look back on this and see how we could improve. There are a few errors, but I will evaluate what we did will and what we could of improved in an evaluation blog. There are also some Outtakes & Bloopers included at the very end which showed what we originally filmed and how we managed to make scene after scene until eventually we got it right. This is another way of showing how we improved.

Mise-En Scene

What does Mise-En Scene mean?

Mise-En Scene is a French term meaning "in the scene or frame".

There are five elements of Mise-En Scene. These are:

1. Settings and props.

2. Costume, hair and make-up.

3. Facial expression and body language.

4. Lighting and colour.

5. Positioning of characters and objects in the frame. 

Colour 

Colour in films was first used in 1904, when films such as "Voyage A Travers L'Impossible" were released. Frame by frame, clips were hand painted to create colour.

During the 1930s-1940s, colour was often used to represent surreal situations or fantasy - something that was considered imaginative. Black and white or sepia effects were used to show basic reality. "The Wizard Of Oz" is an excellent example of this, when Dorothy is taken away from the dull reality of Kansas (which is all filmed in sepia) to the fantasy world of Oz, where everything is in colour and is emphasised strongly with cinematic effects.

Style Of Editing

Style Of Editing
We have recently learnt about many forms of editing, and looked at films and film directors who have interpreted different ways to edit films.
(This is useful for my group for when we film, because we can edit it afterwards and add some of these effects in to make it even better.)
First of all, the movement from one shot to the next is called a transition. There are many forms of these which are used throughout films of all sorts of genres.

Straight Cut: This is probably the most common form of video transition, and isn't as noticeable as others which is probably why it is known as "invisible". It happens when one shot moves instantaneously to the next one without attracting the audience's attention. They help to retain reality.

Dissolves: This transition involves fading one shot off the screen while another shot is fading in. The audience will be able to see both shots on the screen at the mid-point of the dissolve. It is used if the film maker wants to show a connection between two characters places or objects.

Fades: This is a gradual darkening or lightening of an image until it becomes black or white. One shot will fade until only a black or white screen can be seen. It is used to indicate the end of a particular section of time within the narrative. Fading transitions can also be used to show the passing of time in a film.

Wipes: One image is pushed off the screen by another. It isn't a very popular video transition, but is effective when it is rarely used in a film because audiences can recognize it quicker than they can with other transitions. Images can be pushed left of right, and it is more common for the image to be pushed off the left-hand side as this movement is more consistent with the sense of time moving forward. It is used to signal a movement between different locations that are experiencing the same time,

Jump Cut: A jump cut is probably the most effective way to grab an audience's attention because of how quick and sudden it is - it draws them in within the space of a second. This occurs by breaking the continuity editing. This is known as discontinuity. It appears as if a section of the sequence has been removed.

Graphic Match: The film maker can choose to place shots in a certain order so as to create a smooth, visual transfer 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.

Montage Theory 

Lev Kuleshov was among the very first to theorize about the relatively young medium of the cinema in the 1920s. He argued that editing a film is like constructing a building. Brick by brick (shot by shot) the building (film) is erected. Sometime around 1918, Russian director Lev Kuleshov conducted an experiment that proved this point. He took an old film clip of a head shot of a noted Russian actor and inter-cut the shot with different images.

Montage editing contains many different images quickly edited together.

Continuity Editing: Retains a sense of realistic chronology and generates the feeling that time is moving forward. It may use flash backs or flash forwards but the narrative will still be seen to be progressing forward in an expected or realistic way.

Eye-Line Match: We see a character looking at something off screen and then we cut to a shot of what they are looking at.

Match-On Action: We see a character start an action in one shot and then see them continue it in the end.

Sound Test

Sound Test

Recently we filmed our sound test. First of all we made sure we had a boom to use for the sound and also we added in some diagetic and non-diagetic sound. The diagetic sound being the natural noises from the outdoors and the non-diagetic sound being the music and sound effects that we added in. We used a lot of suspense sounds at the beginning, and we also used a lot of speech between each character in the video, with their conversation being loud or quiet. We were also able to use the camera angles we experimented with in our Cinematography video in this piece of filming to show how we have improved. However, it wasn't our best set of filming, but I feel like now we have explored how to film with both a boom and a camera with a tripod now, we can do even better when we film our preliminary and then later on our thriller opening.

Cinematography

Cinematography

This is our first task filming as a group for our AS Media Studies course. Here, we experimented with camera angles and by filming it we had shown what we had learnt through our first set of lessons. 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, now we have experimented and practiced with them a bit, our cinematography task has allowed us as individuals to know what it is we have to to improve for next time. There are also a few other camera angles and shots that we have missed out, but could put in our future work as a group.

Genre

Genre

There are many different types of genre in the film industry. 

There are a good few that a stereo typically recommended and enjoyed by a certain gender, and others that I personally prefer to others. I will be discussing what types of film genres there are and will give an example of a movie of that genre. Lots of genres are often mixed together also. I will give a few examples.

Romance (50 First Dates)

A romance movie grabs the audience and follows two people usually - and pulls them into their journey so they follow a crazy and normally very emotional whirlwind love story. For example,

"50 First Dates" starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore involves a man falling for a girl who suffers from a very rare case of amnesia where she forgets everything that happened in a day by the time she falls asleep at night. His task is to make her fall in love with him everyday because by the time morning comes she completely forgets who he is. Audiences are intrigued to follow him to find out if manages to do it - and at the same time are taken on an emotional journey like in most romantic movies. There is also a few barriers, which almost makes their love doomed (much like in Romeo & Juliet) and stereo typically most love stories have barriers that are eventually overcome by the couple so that that audience can rest knowing that their love was stronger than anything that life threw at them. This particular movie is a Rom-Com (Romantic Comedy) which means that there are some parts in the movie that are meant to be comical and laughed at, which doesn't make it the most dramatically romantic movie in the world, but by it having funny actors such as Adam Sandler in it, it can appeal to a wider audience of people who enjoy comedies as well as romance.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy (Back To The Future)

A sci-fi or fantasy film involves something scientifically fictional coming to life in a movie. A film like this may involve a vast amount of special effects in editing, make up and costume design as well as an epic theme song/soundtrack to go with it. Being my personal favourite genre of film, the sci-fi drags the audience into a parallel universe where anything is possible. An example of a very successful sc-fi movie is Back To The Future which is a three-part trilogy involving a wannabe rock star teenager Marty McFly and a previously unsuccessful scientist Dr. Emmett Brown (Doc) discovering the most impossible thing in the world coming true- travelling through time. Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd time travel in an 80s sports vehicle to the past, present and the future. Through this adventure, audiences are desperate to know if their two heroes come out okay at the end of the story, and the first two movies are obviously left on cliffhangers to make the audience thirst for more, especially when time after time something goes incredibly wrong which causes various problems. This happens a lot within sci-fi movies; the audience follow their hero (which is stereo typically a young and strong male figure in a genre like this one) and there are usually a lot a villains which he must fight and get past so that they come out victorious. Sci-Fi movies are often very expensive to make, simply because they require a lot of special effects and constant editing to bring a fantasy to life in the audience's eyes. For example, in Back To The Future there was about three or four prop cars of the time travelling DeLorean because of how frequently and quickly they had to film it over the course of the trilogy.

Comedy (A Million Ways To Die In The West) 

A film within the Comedy genre is made to make the audience feel a sense of joy - whether it be dark humour or dry humour, it is there to entertain and make the audience laugh, and even if they don't laugh out loud it is supposed to appear as amusing. A basic plot with a main character and his/her friends takes the audience on a comical adventure so that they can experience everything that the character does, even if that means the character embarrassing or making a fool out of them self. An example of a recent comedy movie that came out in 2014 is A Million Ways To Die In The West starring Seth MacFarlane, Amanda Seyfried, Charlize Theron and the well-known Liam Neeson. The plot follows a hopeless romantic, Albert, who is a sheep farmer and can't shoot a gun to save his life. He loses his "gold digger" girlfriend Louise to a richer and more socially acceptable man in the mid 1800s and makes a plan to win her back. Then he meets the tomboyish Anna, who teaches him how to shoot a gun and offers to help him win Louise back, and things suddenly seem to be going really well for him. Eventually he realizes that what he really needed was right there in front of him the whole time, and the audience follow the plot into realizing that both Albert and Anna end up falling in love, and Albert confronts Louise knowing now that he shouldn't need money to buy true love. While this movie holds a lot of laugh-out-loud adult comedy, it also forms into a love story, but at the same time nothing is taken very seriously throughout the movie and the whole concept is to make the audience laugh as well as be caught up in an interesting plot twist. Lots of other comedy movies involve plot twists which are often unexpected and make them a lot more exciting to the audience.

Modern Thriller Openings

"Brick"

The opening of this thriller begins with scratchy bells ringing and the entire outlook is all set within a blue colour. The opening is blue dominated, which symbolises the sad and sorrowful atmosphere - this is appropriate for a thriller, so this effect actually works very well.
The firs character we see is crouching next to a dead girl, and on her wrist is a blue bracelet which also mixes in with the blue overlook. The music is bone chilling and the feeling of being cold comes into it also, so audiences realise how depressing the director is trying to make the film look.















"Zodiac"

This thriller opens up with a tracking shot from a car pulling up to a house. The suspense builds as soon as the man gets into the car with the girl, and they pull up to a deserted place. It is dark outside, and the radio in the car is playing faintly in the background. The people in the car jump when a group of people have sneaked up behind them and set off fireworks. They calm down when the group drive off. But then we see a shadowed figure walk up to the car and we cannot see his/her face. This makes the audience wonder who it is, especially when the person shoots the boy and the girl, then walks off. This creates an interesting opening and makes the audience wonder what is going to happen next.


"No Country For Old Men"

At the beginning of this film, there is no music and just an opening speech. We are unsure of who it is that is speaking, but it is pretty clear to the audience that it is a grown man from the West. Throughout the speech, on screen we see a series of tracking shots of the West, and then it cuts to another scene where a police officer is talking on the phone. Most of the colours we have seen so far are similar beige and brownish colours that are quite neutral. But then there is a sense of dramatic irony when we see a dark figure size up the man on the phone in the back ground, the black clothes he is wearing contrasting with everything else so that the audience instantly know he is symbolising danger. There is dramatic irony here because he slowly creeps up behind the police officer and prepares to strangle him, but the man is unaware of this and only the audience are. When the dark man strangles him, there is a great rolling shot of his struggling to show the madness of the situation, as this is probably one of the most shocking scenes in the film.


"A History Of Violence"

At the beginning of the film there is no music and the opening is pretty basic and ordinary. There is an eerie hissing sound at the start of it, and the characters exchange words with no emotion in their voices. When the tracking shot of the man pulling up in his car is over, we see him get up and walk into the building, and this is where the chilling music slowly begins to build up. It starts off very minor and then gets louder and more dramatic. The situation falls into panic when the man reveals a corpse on the floor. The music becomes very over the top at this point, and then the man slowly pulls out a gun when he sees the little girl appear. He puts a finger to his lip and then pulls the trigger aiming the gun at her, then the gunshot is fired which triggers the screaming of a different girl in the next scene. This leaves the audience in frustration because they are left wondering what happened to that girl and the man with the gun - did she really end up getting shot?

Unknown

Unknown (2011)
Liam Neeson stars in "Unknown", a filmed directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, also starring Diane Kruger and January Jones. The film's plot involves the main character who is played by Liam Neeson awakening from a coma and discovering his world turned upside down; his identity has been stolen from him and nobody believes him when he tries to explain who he is, not even his own wife, who appears to not even know him at all. We, as an audience, are too baffled along with Neeson when we are taken with him to discover what has really happened. He sets out to prove who he is, with the help of a young woman.
The film involves a lot of tension - parts of the film have more suspense than others. For example, there is an eerie atmosphere throughout the club scene, the loud, booming diagetic sound of the music creates a disorienting and threatening feel to it. The screen is also very dark and the viewers share the main character's confusion with this effect.
In "Unknown" the males throughout are definitely the more dominant characters. But also, there is a point when the audience think that the main character's wife is a villain because she is in on the act with the people who have taken away his life (so to speak), but later we realise when she confronts him that she is being made to do it. Also, Neeson has a female accomplice when he searches for answers, so women are fairly made to look like they have some sense of authority in this film, maybe because it is a modern film. The same things may not have applied if the film was made and directed in the 20th century. However,  Laura Mulvey's theory, The Maze Gale states that women are merely seen as objects on screen, as the male erotic desire, where men are active and females are passive. They do not have agency according to this and do not move any plots forward, because cinema as a whole reflects a patriarchial, male dominated society.

The music in the film is used cleverly and at appropriate times. There is a build up of tension and suspense when Liam Neeson confronts his wife after his car accident when he wakes up from the coma, and she is completely unaware of who he is, and appears to be married to the man who has taken his identity and used it for himself. There are creepy sounds with deep notes to show the main character's confusion and terror, because the audience too want answers as to why nobody knows who he is.
Most of the film is in Liam Neeson's point of view so that the audience are discovering things with him along his quest to prove himself. Therefore, there are a lot of close-ups used to show the emotion on each character's face, because the majority of them are expressing very different emotions from one another.

The trailer shows several aspects of a typical thriller. At the beginning we see a relatively normal looking couple, but then the sound in the background makes us think otherwise when the transition changes to show a blurry vision of a doctor talking to the main character. He is disoriented and confused, and we see several quick shots of the car crashing in slow motion, creating terror and eyecatching movement. We also see a few quick extreme close-ups of Martin Harris, the main character when he is hospitalised, but when his wife calls another man by his name there is a screechy noise that gets deeper which plays in the background, as Liam Neeson and the audience become confused. The crashing noises coming from the cars and the quick scene changes to flashing luminous lights in a club make the audience feel just as confused as he is feeling, when he explains how everyone thinks he is crazy for giving himself his own identity. The constant creepy and unstable music playing throughout the trailer allows us to put ourselves in his shoes, and feel just as horrified as he does.

The Birds

The Birds 

The Trailer

The trailer contains many aspects of a typical thriller. For example, there is the main character who we hope to see survive any horrors that are thrown at them, which is the blonde woman (Tippi Hedren), a villain, which technically is the birds and the sense of tension. The trailer itself contains a build up of tension, with the blonde woman arriving into the peaceful town, and then the flock of birds build up before we see a group of children running away, terrified, with the birds chasing after them. It is ironic at the beginning because the old woman says that there is "nothing to be afraid of" and she praises birds for being such wonderful creatures. But through watching this trailer alone we learn how wrong this assumption is and let Hitchcock's version of a thriller make the audience change their minds.

Thriller Conventions

The Birds stars Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy and Suzanne Pleshette. It was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and was released in 1963. This film contains many typical thriller conventions also, such as suspense. For example, when the blonde woman waits outside the school and has a cigarette there is only sound from the outside and is no soundtrack, as there was no actual score to the film. All we hear is the sounds of children singing a song in their school, and the innocence coming from them contrasts with the terrifying reality of the birds eerily building up suspense when they all line up behind the woman. This also creates dramatic irony, as the audience know more about what is happening than any of the characters. Then of course, she eventually turns around and realizes she's about to enter a very dangerous situation unwillingly.

*The scene described when the typical thriller suspense builds up*

This film contrasts from other thrillers however. Where most thrillers directed by Hitchcock (such as North By North West or Psycho) have a person for a villain, the real threat in this film actually comes from nature. Birds, are naturally presented as peaceful and gentle creatures who would never normally harm someone. The old woman in the cafe in one of the scenes is in the film to show the audience what is usually expected from these creatures, and her character is there to assure everyone around her that nothing is going to happen and everything will be fine because they are harmless. But we know otherwise, as we have seen an attack already, whereas she hasn't.
Within Hitchcock's films, he makes it almost impossible for characters to find somewhere to hide, therefore making the terror involved with thrillers even more nail-biting for the audiences to watch. In The Birds, the family portrayed within most of the movie and of course the blonde woman return home after the little girl has been attacked at her school, along with the majority of other students in her class. There is complete silence as the family are frantically hoping and praying that there will not be another attack, as being in the house will not protect them any more than being outside. So literally, the audience get the feeling that there is no hope for any of these characters and that Hitchcock has offered them no escape.

"Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action."

There is constant fast pacing action throughout The Birds because of how much suspense there is to build up scenes where there is an attack of the birds. They start of f as little attacks, like when the blonde woman gets pecked by a single bird to begin with, and then birds terrorize the little girl's birthday party, then further on there is an attack on the whole town where the blonde woman is later trapped in a phone box. Finally, there is a huge attack when she returns home and then goes upstairs to check on the attic to see if there's anything there, but then gets brutally attacked and she is all alone. I would say that there is action throughout this film all the way through as there are lots of times when there are attacks, minor ones getting bigger and bigger until the big one at the end.

Psycho

"Psycho" (1960)

"Psycho" is a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1960, starring Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh and Vera Miles. The film is initially a shock, and was thought to be the scariest film of its time, as something this extreme was never before produced in cinema.

The fact that the leading lady in "Psycho" is murdered, it leaves the audience in shock, thinking that anybody could be killed and anything at all could happen. Hitchcock made sure that to create suspense, the audience must know that a murder can happen at any time at any place in the film. Hitchcock stressed that the apprehension increases there is less and less violence on screen.

It is safe to say that there is continuous, fast pacing action throughout the whole film, we see this through scenes of characters being murdered by the mentally insane villain, for example, the shower scene which is one of the most famous scenes in horror movies. The eerie music builds up and just as the shower curtain is pulled back, the screeching noises match the horror that is being portrayed on screen.
There was a lot of talk about the shower scene, as cinema had never before seen, at this time, a murder like this. Paramount Pictures were afraid that there may be some nudity on the screen, and that the scene was too gruesome to add in. But, Hitchcock stated that the knife being lunged towards the woman only "suggests" what is happening, as we do not actually see the knife stabbing her because there is fast cutting just to show shots of what is going on. Another interesting point is that real blood was not actually used on set to create the illusion of Marion's blood running down the shower drain, but in fact chocolate was used because it was decided that it was the substance that ran better with the water, and it was dark & thick enough to look like real blood in the black and white setting.

There is also a great amount of suspense when the police officer is murdered on the staircase, because it is yet again another shocking scene which the audience didn't expect, yet at the same time they are intrigued by suspense throughout the whole film, which makes them want to continue watching even though they are actually terrified and fear what is going to happen next.
We see techniques used in this film such as dramatic irony which is when the audience know more about what is going on than certain characters in the film. For example, we know more about the psychotic character in "Psycho" than Marion does. We know when he is about to pull back the shower curtain and murder her, because we see his shadowy figure lurking behind the curtain, but she does not realise this until he pulls it back. Another technique that is used is the McGuffin, where another event is brought into the main plot, yet audiences do not care about it. The McGuffin in "Psycho" is Marion stealing the money; we do not care about her taking it, yet it drags the plot forward and allows us to become intrigued with more interesting events such as the murders, and what is the secret behind Norman Bates and his mother?

The storyline in "Psycho" is not great, it isn't the most appealing story to intrigue audiences. However, the greatness is there but only in the true brilliance of construction, and the way it was filmed. There are two major surprises in "Psycho", and that is the shower scene which shocked audiences worldwide, and the revelation of Norman Bates' mother.
When Janet Leigh dies, as well as being in shock the audience are then confused because the point of view is then shifted to Norman Bates'. Hitchcock refused to let anybody into the theatres at the first showings of the film because he didn't want anyone to miss a single part, or walk in after the big surprises had occurred. There was also no advance screenings of "Psycho".

Film Theorists

Film Theorists

There are many theories idealised by different people based on how films are made. The traditional Hollywood narrative structure is made up of three acts; the set up is 25% of the time, the confrontation is 50% and the climax ends with 25% of the film time. It is the most common structure of storytelling in mainstream films, and is based on a three act format that organises the story, as mentioned before.

Roland Barthes: Enigmas

Roland Barthes believed that all texts are complex bundles of meaning. The enigmas codes introduce problems and usually happen at the "distribution" stage. He also said that polysemic texts have lots of different meanings. An example of a film with a lot of enigma and a large sense of mystery is in "The Birds" - because even at the end of the film the audience are still completely unaware as to why the birds attacked the people or what drove them to do it, the film ends strangely with the problem unresolved.







Levi Strauss: Binary Opposites

Strauss said narratives can be organised through binary opposition - two things opposed - often dominant vs subordinate e.g. male, female, hero or villain. An example of a film which can support this theory is "North By North West" because the villain is of much higher authority, and is a much more dominant figure than the hero, who throughout most of the film is trying to find out what has happened to him and why he was kidnapped and being accused of somebody he is not.

Todorov: Narrative Theory

Todorov in 1969 produced a theory which he believed to be able to apply to apply to any film. He believed that all films followed the same narrative pattern. They all went through stages called the equilibrium, disequilibrium, acknowledgment solving and again equilibrium. There are five stages the narrative can progress through: a state of equilibrium, a disruption.  

Vladimir Propp: Character Types

Propp analysed traditional folk stories, and claimed that in films there are eight key character roles:
- The Hero          
- The Villain
- The Helper
- The Doner (Provided)
- The Father
- The Dispatcher
- The Princess
- The False Hero
- The False Villain
He also made it clear that a single character has the ability to play more than one role. The majority of characters in all sorts of genres of film have one of these eight roles. The hero is usually the main character in which the audience wish to see succeed, and the villain is the person who is often portrayed to look like they will be victorious, however, they are usually not.

Rope

"Rope" 1948

"Rope" is a thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring James Stewart, John Dall and Farley Granger.
The opening scene of this film shows two men which have both killed a man. We know nothing about this man, but the opening leaves the audience wondering what will happen next. Through this we learn that the whole film centres around these two characters who are presumably gay (although it is never confirmed in the film, because back then the topic of homosexuality wasn't talked about in day to day conversation) trying to cover up the death of the man they have murdered, trying to not get caught. The meguffin in this film is the party that the two men arrange; audiences aren't interested in this party, all they're interested in is if the men will get away with their crime.

Hitchcock explains that suspense is "essentially an emotional process" and can only work by giving the audience the information. However, he also says that if you tell the audience everything and give away the entire plot with no surprises or twists, it's wasteful because there is no emotion to it. Stating that mystery and suspense are "miles apart" also makes it sound like he pays very close attention to the difference between the two in order to make audiences portray certain scenes in movies correctly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xs111uH9ss

"Rope" is also adapted from Patrick Hamilton's 1929 play which was said to be based on the case of Leopald and Loeb, when they killed a teenage boy back in 1924.
The master of the murder in the film, which is Brandon, says that "Good and evil, right and wrong were invented for the ordinary average man, the inferior man, because he needs them."

There is a scene in "Rope" in which the lady walks over to the chest where the body is. There is suspense here because it leaves the audience wondering if she is going to find the body, and when she is close to the chest, the audience feel the sense of fright because they know what is coming when the two men are discovered. However, when she turns away and doesn't look after all, they feel a sense of relief.
There is also a lot of dramatic irony in this film. This is when the audience know more about what is going on than some of the individual characters do in the film. For example, we know about the murder of this person, however, some characters do not, such as the people who attend the party. The party in itself is not what the audience are interested in, because it is just what is covering up the murder. We are most interested in whether or not the two are going to get away with this murder, or are they in fact going to get discovered before the movie ends?

Hitchcock wanted to film a "continuous play", and "Rope" pretends to be a one shot film, which came in 10 minute reels in 10 minute sequences. This seemed to work well as the aspect that this was originally a play was still there, for most of the film it is filmed in the same place with different characters coming in and out of the scene at different times.

North by Northwest [AS Media Studies]

North by Northwest

The Trailer

This trailer includes information about how the movie begins and ends. There is also a lot of critic quotes in it, which can encourage audiences to watch the film. It can appeal to audiences because all the audiences knows to begin with is that North by Northwest is a thriller. However, by watching the trailer you can experience hearing the theme music to the film which creates the suspense that you can feel whilst watching the movie. The trailer also shows scenes such as when the crop duster crashed into the truck, and when Roger Thornhill got framed for a murder. But, cleverly, the trailer does not tell audiences how or why these scenes occurred, because that is what the trailer is for, to make audiences intrigued to know what will happen and to make them want to watch the motion picture.

What makes this a Thriller?

This movie contains a lot of suspense and a lot of times when the audience may predict that something is going to happen, but instead there are twists. For example, Eve Kendall, the main female character is first of all made to seem like a genuine character when she helps Thornhill escape from being captured by the police. However, we soon learn that she is working with the villains, or so it seems, so the audience is fooled. This is called a red herring. Later on, whilst the audience suspect she is a wrongdoer, we soon discover that she is a good character after all, and eventually is saved by the main character right at the end. The various twists and parts that shock the audience such as when the crop duster is sent to kill Thornhill, and when it crashes, almost killing him, the audience could find this thrilling since the main character was so close to death several times in the film as well as almost falling off a cliff at the very end.

"Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action."

This quote describes the majority of the scenes in North by Northwest.

Blog 1 - Thriller Conventions

Thriller Conventions

Thriller genres involve fast pacing and frequent action. They usually have resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better equipped villains.
Unlike other movie genres, a thriller is a plot often driven by a villain. Then, the idea is that the hero is supposed to overcome the obstacles in its way which are thrown at him/her by the villain.

A thriller uses devices such as suspense, cliffhangers and red herrings.

Suspense creates an atmosphere with a build up of tension. For example, there is a suspense build up in the film North By North West when Roger Thornhill is being followed by a crop duster, and discovers it it out to attempt to kill him. The audience are unaware of this until the eerie music builds up and we see panic rush into the scene.

Cliffhangers involve a story ending with no complete close. For example, a story could end with a huge plot twist not being resolved, and leaves the audience wondering what will happen next, therefore they are very much interested in seeing a follow up movie, if there is one.

Red Herrings involve the audience being tricked by some sort of interpretation in a film. An example of this is in North By North West when audiences believe that the blonde female is a good character to begin with, then find out that she is working with the villain. The audience feel tricked here, but feel even more tricked when it is revealed at the end that she is a "good guy" after all.

Brief

 Foundation Portfolio: The Brief 

You have been asked to produce the titles and opening sequence of a new fiction film in thethriller 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 Blog

Hello I'm Carly, and this is my blog for Year 12 Media Studies :)

I am interested in music, movies and acting. I'd list the bands I listen to but that would literally take up the whole page.