Experiment

My Montage 12/14/10 at OneTrueMedia.com

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Thriller Interviews

We decided that we would do some interviews within the group, giving everybody a turn. We came up with some ideas of where to film our interviews and some kind of story lines behind them to make them with a touch a hilarity in them. We then edited the scenes together to show our interviews. Here is the final product of our work.

Opening Scene of: Shadow of a Doubt

This film was made in 1943 by Alfred Hitchcock, from the beginning the film shows contrast. We meet Uncle Charlie first, he is lying down but he looks tense and on edge. The lighting in the room is dark, a lot of shadows are shown. He is holding a cigar dressed in a suit, then the camera shows the money laying on the table and some dropped on the floor. This shows us that he can afford the luxuries in life yet he doesn't care about the money. The area in which he lives is run down, grim and looks like a deprived area. Then we see the contrast when we meet Charlie. Charlie is Uncle Charlie's niece. Charlie is laying on the bed the same as her Uncle earlier in the film, the lighting is brighter and the area looks more up beat, and happy like they are a lot better off. Charlie looks like she is wearing just a day dress but it could be classed as formal wear. Charlie looks a lot more relaxed on the bed. This shows the big contrast in the opening scene of Shadow of a Doubt.

Preliminary Exercise

My thriller - ideas

My group consists of Charlie, Rory, Joe and Me.
At first we sat down to discuss what ideas we had for the storyline to our thriller. We thought of three storylines; a child that has been bullied in the past and a result of this he turns insane and the viewer see's the world through his/her eyes and a teenager that went on a night out with friends but when he wakes up he is in a dark celler tied up and has flashbacks of what happened the night before trying to figure out why he is there. We think we are going to choose to use the second idea.

Key things to identify a thriller

Suspence
Anxiety
MacGuffin
Red Herrings
Cliff Hangers

Sub genres
Justice vs. Injustice
Atmosphere of menice
Characters
Enigmas
Society
Literary devices
Morally complex characters
Deadlines/chases/pursuits

Lighting
Low level
Limited view/shadows
Often at night/dark
Dim colours/a lot of use of red

Settings
Isolated/deserted/exotic
Confined locations - lifts/phone booths
Claustrophobic spaces are a key.

Editing
Quick cute
Fast pace
Match Cuts
Jump cuts

Cinematography
Camera angles
Part of view shot
Establishing shot
Close ups
Frantic camera movement

Non-diegetic
Creaky doors, wind, tap running
Silence
Heavy breathing
Whispering

Characters
Criminal. assasins, dark pasts, etc.
Morally complex
Ambiguous roles
Leave audience guessing who is good and who is bad.

Profile - Anton Chigurh

Speech - Language and Tone
He is very one toned, it makes him sound serious and polite even though he truely is a mad man. As he is going to kill them he speaks politely which is a big contrast. He also asks a lot of questions which makes us aware of him and his intentions.
Mannerisms/Actions/Responses
He stays quite still when he speaks, no arm movements or gestures. He stands like he is always looking for a reason to kill, like when he speaks to the man in the petrol station.
Representation in Film

He represents Villian, Hitman, Disturbed, Gives the audience moral dilema, Mysterious, Dark, Dull facial and clothing.

What does his costume suggest?

He is dark and kind of dull like his clothing and the colour of his skin. This reflects the way he acts, dark and mysterious. He has a weird haircut that makes us very suspicious and we have no clues of his background from his costume so we are lost about his background all the way through the film.

Opening Summary of No Country for Old Men

No country for old men is an american crime thriller. A man stumbles across a huge wealth that isn't his, he is hunted down across different places. The film shows fate and consequence. Im going to use the acronym C.L.A.M.P.S to help me with the summary of the beginning of No Country for Old Men. C - Costume, L - Lighting, A - Actors, M - Make-up, P - Props and S - Setting. In the first five minutes in the opening of 'No Country for Old Men' the camera shows us a desolate 'desert like' land whilst the sheriff talks about his father and a previous arrest. It then goes to show a man being arrested and a strange weapon. We then see that the man is a stone cold murderer as he kills two people in the space of five minutes. 3 words i would use to describe Anton Chigurh would be werido, physco and brutal. When Anton murders people we see this physcotic look on his face, kind of like he enjoys it that he has done it before and like he is in a whole different world when he murders. His eyes are like a glowing red, which contrasts against his pale white skin, he wears dark clothes which make his pale skin stand out to us.

Opening Scenes of No Country For Old Men

In the opening scene to this thriller, the film already causes suspence for the viewer. The killer has killed two innocent people in the space of about 5 minutes, we start to think why is he killing these people we want to know whats in his mind. It keeps your attention to the film. The place looks very desolate and earie like if you screamed no one would hear you, it makes the perfect place for a killer to be on the loose. The murderer is seen in the opening scenes walking up to a sheriff who is on the fone, we wonder what he is doing and you want to shout out quick he's behind you, by then it's too late he has the sheriff on the floor and kills him. Three words that came to my mind were weird, physco and brutal. The killer is so laid back about killing people it makes him seem professional like he has done it before which is worrying. When he murders he has a physcotic look on his face asif he is enjoying the feeling of power he has over the people he kills. The visual of the killer automatically lets you know he is the villain, dark clothes, strange hair cut, pale skin and yet his eyes are bright red. The only downfall to the film so far is it takes too long to get to the point and has alot of action to start with but then trails off and the action dies down.

The Manchurian Candidate

There are two different versions of 'The Manchurian Candidate' the film made in 1962 and the film made in 2004. Personally i prefer the 2004 film as it doesn't take as long to start getting inside your mind and making you think about how it is a phycological film in how it affects you and what you think is going on.

A main character is Major Ben Marco, he is a man trying to regain his sanity. Representation of a 'hard man' who is accustomed to danger as he has a history with the Army. The film utilizes a range of genres: paranoid thriller, political thriller, Greek tragedy and refers to the social context and tensions. Part of the film makes us think of something we call Oedipus complex, this is because of the inapropriate relationship with mother (Eleanor Shaw).
We start to think hat is the purpose of the film, was it made to entertain? I think it has an idea of mind control and how it can effect people and what they do. The director elaborates and makes the film alot bigger, darker, stronger and twisted than real life. He exaggerates the film and what happens to the characters, this helps to keep you viewing the film. When you ask yourself who has the power and who is the enemy, the Manchurian Company, Eleanor Shaw (the mother)?  The film brings to mind the question of how far the manipulation of the human mind can go in reality.

There are two main scenes in The Manchurian Candidate; 1) The murder of Senator Jordan and 2) When Major Marco shoots Raymond & Eleanor Shaw: The final scene.
1) This scene is different from the original murder of Senator Jordan in the 1962 film. In the 2004 film Senator Jordan is murdered by Raymond Shaw, he drowns him in the remote lake. The drowning creates a dream like state by the lake. Once Senator Jordan was drown his daughter (Jocelyne Jordan) runs into the water to see what is happening and Raymond turns on her asif he is under someone elses control and drowns her too. The director wanted the scene to symbolise the fact that the main characters were drowning in all of these brainwashing they dont know who they are truely anymore. The fog on the lake represents the look of clarity within the characters minds, they cannot think clearly from all of the unanswered questions floating in their minds. Their minds are overloaded with information and their dreams are ambivalent. The music is non-diegetic and it enhances the tension as Raymond approaches the lake to kill Senator Jordan; this is a key to thrillers. The simplicity in editing and making the chots close ups reflect how Raymond is at that time brainwashed almost in a hypnotic state.

2) The films climax comes to a head when Raymond realises his soul is corrupted by the implants and stories that have been planted in his mind, therefore he decides to sacrifice his life and his mothers to eliminate any possibility of being controlled, owned and operated. There is an Undercurrent of Greek myth because there is a myth about a Greek whos relationship with his mother was inapropriate just like the relationship between Raymond and his mother. There is also a Prominent picture of Mount Rushmore on the backdrop in the final scene. It invites the viewer to ask questions about past and present leaders and the thought of corruption.

Key Elements of a Thriller

Once we watched North by Northwest, we spoke about some of the elements that were in the film that are key elements of a thriller. One of these things was MacGuffin's. A Macguffin is a plot element that catches a viewers attention, and even though we dont know what the object is the characters are willing to do almost anything to obtain it. Commonly the MacGuffin is just an object most of the time we dont know what the object is, such as in North by Northwest. Common examples are money, victory, glory, a source of power, threat and even sometimes is forgotten about in the end. Another key element is a Red Herring. A Red Herring is an element of a film/plot that diverts attention away from something that may be obvious towards something else that will lead the viewer onto another trail (the wrong one). At the end of the film it will be revealed that it was just a red herring and the correct trail would be revealed. Suspense is a big key part is a thriller. Thrillers use suspense to make it thrilling, not ordinary and boring it adds excitement, thrill and a sense of wanting to know more. This is how most thrillers keep the viewer entertained and involved in the film. One last element is that a thriller always has a Villain. The villain is the 'bad guy' the 'evil one', some say that it is a 'cruelly malicious person who is devoted to being wicked or to crime'. They mainly have a bad influence on other characters in the film.

North by Northwest

North by Northwest is a American suspence film created by Alfred Hitchcock in 1959. It stars two popular stars in his film, Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. The film is about a mistaken identity which leads  Roger Thornhill across the United States by mysterious agents that want to stop him interfering in their plans to smuggle a microfilm containing government secrets (a MacGuffin) by killing him. Everything is revealed in the end all apart from why Roger Thornhill was thought to be Mr. Kaplan.

Lesson 1 - What a thriller is?

This is the research i have done into thrillers and what they are. A is thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres. Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better equipped villains.
Devices such as suspence, red herrings and cliffhangers are used extensively. A thriller is a villain driven plot, whereby he presents obstacles the hero must overcome. The genre is flexible and can engage the audience through dramatic rendering of psychological social and political tensions. Hitchcock's said thrillers allow the audience, "to put their toe in cold water of fear to see what it's like."

Breif

In media i will be creating a beginning sequence of a thriller that will last approximately 2 minutes. I will be creating this with a group of classmates and we will be researching the best thrillers to give us a good idea of how our thriller will start. We will research what makes a good thriller, the elements of a thriller and all about how the lighting and camera angles make the film a good thriller.

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog! this is my first blog and i've created this to keep track of my media coursework. xx