Opening title

This is our opening sequence, we created this in live type on the mac computer.

Script for thriller

This is the script we will be using for the filming of our thriller. We have used minimal dialogue as we want the film to be more about the 'thrill' factor and less about the acting. As with any film, when we actually come to film it we may improvise some parts and not stick to the script fully, but this is the basic outline of what we will be saying.

'Hidden'

(Establishing shot) It is a cold night in February. Two young people are walking home from a drunken night out together. A strange shadowy figure is standing under a lampost at the other end of the road watching them. As they are walking towards the camera, their laughter and chatting is heard.

Katie: And like when Charlie tipped his drink over Sarah!

(Both laugh as they arrive at Katie's driveway)

Katie: Well, this is me.

(Camera switches to the mysterious figure moving closer - sound bridge of conversation)

Daniel: Are you sure you're going to be alright?

(Camera switches to the mysterious figure moving closer - sound bridge of conversation)

Katie: Yeah, I'll be fine. Thanks for walking me home.

Daniel: No problem! I'll see you later.

(They smile at each other. Daniel watches Katie walk up to the door and unlock it. Camera switches to the mysterious figure walking closer. Camera switches back to the front of the house. She turns back and waves before she enters) 

(Jump cut to a knife being slashed, a 'slashing' sound is heard. Straight cut to Daniel laying on the floor in a pool of blood with his throat cut)

(Straight cut to the inside of the house. Katie walks through the front door and walks to the window after setting down her coat and bag. As she goes to close the blinds, she sees something suspicious on the floor)

 (She slowly leans closer to the window to get a better view. Whilst she is looking out of the window, the reflection of a mysterious man is evident on the from the inside of the house, but Katie is oblivious to it. When Katie realises that the thing on the floor is Daniel, she gasps and spins around quickly to rush outside)

(Close up on Katie's face. She screams as she is confronted with the killer. Jump cut to a black screen)

(End credits)

Thriller story board

This is the story board for our thriller.

Analysis of film openings

We analysed 3 movie openings; Memento, Brick and Zodiac

Memento:

the conventions of this film are that there are; weapons, blood, flashbacks, mysteries to be resolved.

the camera techniques that are used are; close ups and black and white.

an editing technique that is used is that the beginning of the film goes backwards.

there is non-diegtic sound in this part of the film.

the mise-en-scene of the film is that there is; blood, weapons, cuts on face.

Brick:

the conventions of this film are that there are; dead bodies and flashbacks.

the camera techniques that are used are; hand held and close ups.
an editing technique that is used in the beginning of the film; flash back and match on action.
the sound that is used in this is; eerie music.
the mise-en-scene of the film is that there is; dark picture and dead bodies.

Zodiac:
the conventions of this film are that there are; weapons, suspense and shock.
the camera techniques that are used are; long shots and close ups.
an editing technique that is used in the beginning of the film; captions and non diegetic
the sound that is used in this is; contrapuntal music.
the mise-en-scene of the film is that there is; fireworks and celebrations.

film openings are important because it will determine whether the audience will stay and watch the rest of the film.

Narrative - structure, formulas and devices

Continuity Editing
The clear establishment of 'cause and effect' plotting which establishes character motivates and helps tell an interesting story which proceeds logically and steadily.

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

Red herrings
A red herring is the name given to a device which intends to divert the audience from the truth or an item of significance.
Can work with other devices (enigmas) to create suspense.
E.g. in SAW two characters spend time imprisoned in a room in which a third character lies dead. throughout the film, both characters appear to be guilty of a series of murders, until it is discovered at the end that the third person in the room is not actually dead but is in fact the killer.

Cliff hanger
Sometimes, although not always used.
Often feature a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma or confronted with a shocking revelation.
This can entice the audience to keep watching in order to se how the situation resolve itself.

127 hours (2010)

127 hours is a thriller about a mountain climber that gets his arm trapped under a boulder and then cuts of his lower arm in order to escape from his horrible ordeal.

Director: Danny Boyle
Writers: Danny Boyle and Simon Beoufoy
Actors: James Franco, Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara

Story line
127 Hours is the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston's remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah. Over the next five days Ralston examines his life and survives the elements to finally discover he has the courage and the wherewithal to extricate himself by any means necessary, scale a 65 foot wall and hike over eight miles before he can be rescued. Throughout his journey, Ralston recalls friends, lovers, family, and the two hikers he met before his accident. Will they be the last two people he ever had the chance to meet?  


My opinion:
i think this film was very interesting as it was based on a real life story so when your watching it you can see how much pain the man in real life must have gone through.

Hitchcocks Maguffin

A Macguffin (sometimes Mcgufin 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 the spy stories it is always the papers."

Definition of suspense and shock

Suspense is when pleasurable excitement and anticipation regarding an outcome, such as the ending of a thriller film. suspense is really when you are waiting for something to happen but you dont quite know when it will which makes you more eager to find out what happens.
Some examples of thriller that have a lot of suspense in them are; Children of Men, Sabotage and Rope.

shock is when someone is suddenly surprised either violently or it jars the mind, in some thriller films shock is the main thing that they use to make it an effective film there is an essence of shock in these films as well as there being suspense. 

Alfred Hitchcock master of suspense.

Alfred Hitchcock was legendary film director who had a career spanning over 50 years. He was known as the master of suspense whose films came to be the benchmark of 'psychological thrillers'. Hitchcock made over 50 films in his career
These are some of the inspirationaal quotes from Hitchcock himself:

- 'The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them'.
- 'There is no terror in the bang, only 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'.

And these are some quotes from some of his admirers of his work;

- 'Under the influence of Hitchcock, thrillers often being with a crime and the accusation of an innocent bystander. Were the accused to contact the authorities, no doubt the case could have been promptly solved. But instead the poor bystander runs from the law thus further jeopardizing life and limb'. - Rick Altman - Film/Genre

Examples of this occur in 39 Steps (1935) and North by Northwest (1959).

One of Hitchcock's films, Saboteur, follows this exact set up. A man is wrongly accused of murdering his best friend and so runs from the law only to be confronted with the real killer. Classic Hitchcock.

Do films follow rules?

Some film makers will claim 'there are no rules' or that' rules are there to be broken'. However, most would agree that there are certain conventions that main stream films obsrve in order for them to be acceptable to the mass audience.

In our class discussion we discussed what conventions would make a successful thriller, this is what we came up with:

• young nieve protagonist
• resourceful
• suspense
• villain with a shady past
• high tech gadgets
• mysterious phone call
• fast paced
• reason for conflict
• weapons
• flash backs
• hero wins
• cant kill children
• hero falls in love
• mystery to be resolved (enigma)
• curious character
• double agent
• maguffin
• the antagonist is more powerful in the beginning

Chuck Jones rule

As in other cartoons, the Road Runner and the coyote follow the laws of cartoon physics. For example, the Road Runner has the ability to enter the painted image of a cave, while the coyote cannot (unless there is an opening through which he can fall). Sometimes, however, this is reversed, and the Road Runner can bust through a painting of a broken bridge and continue on his way, while the Coyote will instead enter the mirage painting and fall down the precipice of the cliff where the bridge is out. Sometimes the coyote is allowed to hang in midair until he realizes that he is about to plummet into a chasm (a process occasionally referred to elsewhere as Road-Runnering or Wile E. Coyote moment). The coyote can overtake rocks (or cannons) which fall before he does, and end up being squashed by them. If a chase sequence happens upon a cliff, the Road Runner is not affected by gravity, whereas the Coyote will realize his error eventually and fall to the earth below. A chase sequence that happens upon railroad tracks will always result in the Coyote being run over by a train. If the Coyote uses an explosive (for instance, dynamite) that is triggered by a mechanism that is supposed to force the explosive in a forward motion toward its target, the actual mechanism itself will always shoot forward, leaving the explosive behind to blow up right in the Coyote's face. Similarly, a complex apparatus that is supposed to propel an object forward or trigger a trap, will not work on the Road Runner but always only on the Coyote. For instance, the Road Runner can jump up and down on the trigger of a large animal trap, and eat bird seed off of it, but go completely unharmed and not set off the trap, but when the Coyote places the tiniest droplet of oil on the trigger, the trap snaps shut on him without fail.
some of the rules that should be followed in a wile coyote cartoon is;

• the road runner cannot harm or upset coyote except by going 'MEEP! MEEP!'.
• no out side force can harm the coyote, only his own ineptitude or the failure of acme products.
• the coyote could stop anytime - if he were not a fanatic.
• no dialogue ever except 'MEEP! MEEP!'.
• the road runner must stay on the road - other wise, logically he would not be called road runner.
• all action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters - the south west american desert.
• all materials tools, weapons or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from acme corporation.
• when ever possible make gravity the coyotes greatest enemy, the coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failure.

The Thriller

The thriller is a very 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 into the audience.' - susan hayward, key concept in film studies.

there are lots of different types of thrillers some of these consist of;

• spy thriller 
• political thriller 
• conspiracy thriller 
• legal thriller 
• psychological thriller 

"when you enjoy something, you must never let logic get too much in the way,like the villains in all the James Bond movies. Whenever Bond breaks into the complex; 'ah Mr. Bond, welcome, come in, let me show you my entire evil plan and then put you in a death machine that doesn't.' "

      Jerry Seinfeld (sein language, 1993)

foundation portfolio - preliminary task

The preliminary task is a demonstration of continuity editing there are four rules to follow; match on action, shot/reverse shot, 180 degree rule and the eye line match.

Match on action
match on action is when we see a character start an action in one shot and then see them continue it into the next.


The 180 degree rule
the 180 degree rule is 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.
if the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line.

Shot/reverse shot
is a film technique 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. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.


Eye line match
a film editing technique associated with the continuity editing system. It is based on the premise that the audience will want to see what the character on-screen is seeing. The eyeline match begins with a character looking at something off-screen, there will then be a cut to the object or person at which he is looking. For example, a man is looking off-screen to his left, and then the film cuts to a television that he is watching.

This is our final and edited preliminary task

AS Coursework

marks in the AS part of the course are awarded for demonstrating excellence in the following criteria:-

• holding a shot steady 
• framing a shot 
• using a variety of shot distances 
• shooting material appropriate to the task set 

our preliminary task planning

when we planned our preliminary task we drew out a story board of our ideas and the script that we followed in the actual film

 
 
 
 
 
once we had drawn this out we could finally start filming our preliminary task then get down to editing it on the mac computers.

coursework brief

the titles and opening of a new fiction film in the thriller genre to last a maximum of two minutes
the coursework is 50% of the course