Characters for our Final Idea

The characters needed: One female robber and one male robber are needed for the main part of the shoot however for the beginning of the shoot we will need a bus driver. We have thought very carefully about who to cast as they need to look reasonably old therefore we were contemplating casting A2s or teachers. We decided to cast Carlotta Benat for the female part as she is good at acting and we are either choosing Gabriel Jackson or Ben Radcliffe for the male part as they to are good at acting and fit the role. 

Props for our Final Idea

In our opening sequence we are going to need around 10 main props for the sequence half for the inside of the container and the other for outside of the container, for example:

• Duffel bags x2
• Fake money
• A pistol x2
• A white van
In the container:
• A table, in the centre of the room
• Storing cabinets
• Bags
• More guns
• Random crates (things which seems to have been left behind)

We would get most of these from the school, for example the table, van, crates but some we would have to get from online, like, the duffel bags.

Location for our Final Idea

How many locations do you have: One location, a shipping container. 

What issues can you see straight away and how are you planning to overcome them: The shipping container is filled with random items, therefore we are going to have to empty it before the shoot.

How long do you intend to be there: All day 

Where is the set: The set is behind the media studio at school.

How are you getting there: Walking from the studio.

Do you have permission: "Yes we do".

Why this location: This location is key as it is a perfect hide out for the robbers as it is slightly run down, it is a temporary place and therefore a good place to hideout and not get caught.

Costumes for our Final Idea

We are going to only need three costumes (two similar and one different) as we have three characters and one of them is the bus driver. We are aiming to order these online, in store and we are are going to need to get them quick as my group and I have been informed that we start deciding filming dates the first week back after the Christmas holidays. If we are unable to get the clothes or find them online then we are going to have to use the clothes from the actors we are using in our sequence or our clothes from our own wardrobes. This won't come to a particular high cost as we will get the Balaclava from amazon (online shopping) and others from any shop that we can get a good clothes from and cheap. The clothes below have been chosen because, traditionally, where dark clothes in order to not stand out:

I have started to look at prices for the costumes. We could use our own black socks and shoes but it seems as if we would probably buy everything else for the actors in our sequence as we would like them to have everything the same. For the balaclava I have found one which we can buy for under £5 (M&G), and the hoody and the joggers would come to around £25-30 (ASOS).

Mood Board for Final Idea

New Thriller Sequence Idea

After pitching to all four teachers (Katie, my own teacher, Mike, another teacher for the year and Matt and Luke, who are the teacher in the studio and they overall have the final say of giving my group the green light) getting their opinions and their word of going ahead with the idea. 

The idea that my group and I have come up with is:
It starts with a white van pulling up to the shipping container and two men dressed in all black get out of the van and take out a couple of sacks of money shut the van. The two men are acting quickly and open the container and go in where they are quickly trying to stuff the money into different bags. The audience realise that they are accomplices but are not exactly in this together. Whilst they are stashing away the money, robber one is getting out his gun and putting it in his pocket. Robber two at this point seems oblivious. Then they exchange dialogue where robber one says "hurry the fuck up" conveying he is anxious and robber two says "I'm getting there" reasonably calmly. Tension is built up by the guy looking from the gun to the bags of money and back to robber two. Then robber one puts up his gun to robber two who is faced away from him but seems to be smirking saying "don't underestimate me" and then shoots him quickly. Robber two then takes both the transferred bags of money puts on a jumper leaves the container with all of the bags of money and just simply walks away.
My group and I have talked to Mike and my own teacher Katie about the idea and they both really like it. All we are waiting for is a "yes" from Matt and Luke. Once we get that we can start organising camera shots, angles, sound and mise-en-scene in our sequence.

Story Board for my Test Shoot

Mood Board

The Test Shoot

The full test shoot:

We used all different types of shots and movements. For example:

Panning - Panning is moving the camera lens to one side or another. Look to your left, then to your right

Tracking - Tracking is when the camera moves either left to right or front and back, while keeping the subject centred

Close-Up - This is to show shoulders and face to focus on one thing

Low-Angle - This is to show that there is a something to be afraid of from above

High-Angle - Tis is to show a kind of birds eye view of the scene (looking down)

We started setting up for our test shoot in the classroom that we work in every day. We move all the tables and put one under the whiteboard. On the table we got a ash tray with a fake cigarette in it, a laptop which may or may not represent a typewriter (our group hasn't decided yet) and an empty mug. Above the table (the whiteboard) we made a story board of how he has murdered around 4/5 blonde girls. 

At the start of the test shoot there was a pan across the whiteboard to show that some thing has happened and something is, possibly, going to happen. There is then a long shot showing the whiteboard with all of the information of the girls on it and the main character staring and observing the wall as if he is looking at memories or as if he is visualising some sort of future.

We then move from the long shot to a close up of his hands typing on his laptop, then to another close up on his face. We then moved back into the shot of his hands and the shot rises to his face again. He looks stressed from doing what he is doing. Stressed or nervous. He reaches for a cigarette.

He brings the cigarette to his mouth and tries to light it with his hand covering the flame. The lighter seems too be broken which doesn't seem to be working, he gets more and more agitated the moe he tries and fails to light it. He throws the lighter and cigarette and walks over to the board and starts rubbing the girls face and slams a piece of paper next to the girl with some sort of information.

He then looks back at the girls photograph and crosses her face out and put his jacket on as if he is going to do something to her. After he has put his jacket on he stares at the girl, kisses his hand, touches her face and walks away leaving the audience wanting to see what is going to happen next.

The music starts to become louder making it the primary element of the sequence at this point until the title of this sequence comes up:

My Thriller Idea, The Pitch & Getting Into Groups

When we were asked to do our pitches I asked to go first and get my pitch over and done with. I got a lot positive feedback and also a bit of constructive criticism which has help me develop my idea along with helping me with doing my presentations, that I do in the future, better. The lesson after all of the presentations had been pitched we were put into our groups. There are three groups in my class and in my group there is four of us (Callum Henderson, Lola Gazzola, Anna Farish and I) and we have come up with a final idea which we can do our test shoot on. We are expecting lots of constructive criticism from other teacher, including my own, and we will take it and use it to develop our idea making it better. Our group has bonded very well as none of us don't get on and we are all quite confident in our ideas. We made a mind map of ideas for our opening sequence and came to a conclusion.

My Idea for Thriller Sequence

After being able to look over both my initial ideas for my Thriller sequence I have come to the conclusion of choosing "initial idea two":

This idea is based about a crime thriller and it starts off with a rising shot of a woman, stereotypically, in 'her' kitchen cooking some sort of meat, a very bloody meat. The shot will reach her face after seeing her bloody hands with gloves. She will hear dogs bark from outside, she will pause completely and stare up, looking blank at the camera (this will hopefully put the audience in an ambiguous situation, making them feel uncomfortable). The woman's face will then cut to a shot of the dogs back and salivating outside, through a glass door which has their spit and saliva all over it. Then the camera will pan across the room from the dogs back to the woman, who is cooking, and in the transition there will be an open cupboard or door which clearly has something inside, the thing that the dogs were making noise about. The panning of the camera will reach the woman's hands again (but they will have frozen, as well as her face (sill)).  There will then be another rising shot of in front of the woman's arms to her blank face. as this transition is happening there will be a build up of non-diegetic sound and then it will stop, when it stops the woman will continue cutting the meat. As the shot of her face cuts to a black screen you hear a gun shot a a whimper of a dog, leaving the audience thinking about what the meat was and what type of person this stereotypical housewife is.

This has been edited as I have had to to adapted it making it a lot more descriptive and powerful for the audience.
I have come up with an outline for this idea of my thriller sequence (coursework):
This woman in the kitchen is seen, at the start, to be a normal housewife cooking dinner as the usual but after the audience hears the gunshot and the whimpering of the dog they might start to question the type of meat that she is cooking. The plot of this sequence could be that she is some sort of murderer/serial-killer.

Analysis of the Preliminary Task

After filming my preliminary task my partner (Harvey) and I finalised the piece through Adobe Flash Player. Adobe Flash Player is freeware software for using content created on the Adobe Flash platform, including viewing multimedia, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming video and audio. The sequence that we made was about 30 seconds and spent about an hour doing this. We started off with the names on a piece of paper (Harvey Write, Millie Pike and I) we then moved into a shot from behind Harvey as he walked into the room whilst, aggressively, pushing open the door.as he walked in there was then a wide show of Harvey and Millie talking. We then moved the camera into an over the shoulder shot, facing Millie, showing her talking. We left the camera in the same shot as Harvey starts to speak as we didn't want the audience to feel as if they were in an ambiguous situation. As Millie started to reply to Harvey we showed a close up of Millie’s face as she try's to defend herself against Harvey. I chose to put in a shot which just showed both of them on either side of the screen, to show the slitting of each character, with just half of their body showing. Belly-button up. We then moved into an over the shoulder shot showing Harvey telling Millie that he “can’t wait for” her. Then there was a shot, which Millie chose, of his feet moving away from the conversation to the door, to leave. There was then an extreme close up of Harvey’s face, building tension, and him saying that he “won’t wait for” her. We then bought back the shot of being outside and used it as Harvey leaves the room and as the door closed. We moved back inside to show Millie’s reaction after he left. This was a close up of Millie’s face which shows her biting her nails and this represents her feeling anxious of what Harvey just said to her. This shot was also trying to show that she is thinking about what to do next.

This process it was quite challenging as Harvey and I had to do a lot of cutting and changing that camera angles to represent who to listen to at each sentence of the preliminary task. Millie wasn't apart of our group as we split up to create another preliminary task which is quite different but the same footage was used for both of our creations.

My AS Preliminary Task

Sound in Horror/Thriller Sequences

The two clips that I will be analysing sound from are A Clockwork Orange (1971) and The Purge (2013). 

In an England of the future, Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his "Droogs" spend their nights getting high at the Korova Milkbar before embarking on "a little of the old ultra violence "while jauntily warbling singin' in the Rain." After he's jailed for bludgeoning the Cat Lady to death, Alex submits to behavior modification technique to earn his freedom; he's conditioned to abhor violence. Returned to the world defenseless, Alex becomes the victim of his prior victims. In this sequence there are all different types of sound that has been used, for example diegetic sound, non-diegetic sound, contrapuntal sound pleonastic sound. At the start of this sequence there is pleonastic sound when the man is typing on the typewriter, when the door bell rings and when the woman goes to answer the door, the footsteps are exaggerated, this makes the audience feel as if something is going to happen. There is then diegetic sound when they all charge in, shouting and when one of the people dressed in white kicks the man that was sitting at the typewriter. There is then more diegetic and pleonastic sound when, what seems to be, the leader blows his whistle. There is more diegetic sound and contrapuntal sound as when the leader starts singing it is quite a happy song ("Singin' in the rain) which contradicts the aggression that they are about to show whilst singing. There is more pleonastic sound as they destroy their property like when they flip the table and pull down the bookcase, all of this sound is diegetic sound. At the end, there is non-diegetic sound, the sound track that is played in the background.

The Purge is about one night a year, in the USA, all crime is legal. This includes murder, theft, the use of weapons and even destruction of property. In this film there is a gang who try and kill a specific target each year, this can be a group or one person on its own. In this film the gang are hunting a man who fought back and killed one of them, he then ran off shouting "help" "let me in". The this families house they have a lot of technology which keeps them safe each year. The child of this family heard the shouting from inside the house and came down unlocked the "lockdown system" and tells him to come this way. The father realises what he has done and closes the gates straight away, but there is enough time for the homeless man to get in. The gang find out that he got in and they ask the family to return him but their morals hit them, so they keep him inside. When they didn't return him in the amount of time they were given they decided to go against this family as well as the homeless man they have sheltered. At the start of this sequence there is diegetic sound between the two parents quietly talking, this makes the audience that they are hiding from something. There is then some pleonastic and more diegetic sound of the shuffling of the gun and the shouting of the head of the gang from outside. There is then more pleonastic sound as the gang leader reloads his gun ready to shoot. There is more pleonastic sound as the hang get "the beast" to charge and break down the front of the house to get in, along with the actually crashing and banging of "the beast" actually doing the damage. This is all diegetic sound along with the shouting of the parents saying to "RUN!" away from "the beast". when the parents hide there is pleonastic sound when the father is breathing heavily from running the moment before. There is then a sudden diegetic and pleonastic "BANG!" from the gun that has been fired and the glass that has shatter due to the bullet going through it. There is more pleonastic sound when the homeless man, who is strapped in a chair, try's to get out by shaking and hitting the floor. More pleonastic sound is played when one of the gang members fire their gun multiple times and when more glass is broken, this makes the audience feel as if something bad it going to happen. In this sequence there is a lot of non-diegetic sound (soundtrack). It seems to change pace a lot of the time, for example it goes quite slow but intimidating to show that something is going to happen, something bad and also it goes very fast when something is in the action, like when the parents were running away from "the beast".
These two films use sound quite differently, as in how A Clockwork Orange the sound that is used it contradicting to what the scene is showing, this is called contrapuntal sound. This is effective because it makes the audience think about the scene as ti s quite an ambiguous situation, a situation which isn't normal, normally there would be quite parallel sounds, sound which links to the scene. That is the type of sound that is mainly used in The Purge. The parallel sound used in The Purge makes the sequence that little bit scarier as even though the audience can expect what is going to happen they don't know when and that is the scary part. 

Development Ideas For My Own Opening Of A Thriller Sequence

This Blog post is to include two initial ideas for my opening thriller sequence which I will commence production of later on in the year. These two main initial ideas will be looking at different types of genres for thrillers, for example a crime thriller and a psychological thriller. A crime thriller normally contains someone investigating a crime that has taken place, normally it is a murder. A psychological thriller is a suspenseful movie emphasising the psychology of its characters rather than the plot. 

Initial Idea 1:

My first initial idea is a psychological thriller where a man has just got back to where he is staying (a really nice hotel room), and looks roughed up but he is in a new suit, this is due to something  he has done, which cannot be revealed as that will be the plot therefore the reason that people will want to continue watching (making it a good opening sequence), because they are confused by the abnormality of the main character. In the main characters room he has a few black bin bags filled with clothes (which are dirty, seen by the sight of blood on white shirts having out of the bag), newspaper articles and weapons, these are revealed by the rips in the bag. The sequence will end with him going into the bathroom of the hotel room and he will come out in a brand new, unripped, black tie suit. He will then go over to his news article bag and get out one sheet of paper and put it on his bed, then he goes over to his gun bag and collects a pistol and a larger gun. After he leaves the room and goes to do something that the viewer would have to continue watching to find out but after he leaves there is a close up on the news article that he had put on his bed earlier leaving the audience to want to find out that this man does and why he does it.

Initial Idea 2:
My next idea is based about a crime thriller and it starts off with, what seems to be a house wife as the camera starts off at her feet and goes up her body going to her waist, then panning across to see that she has gloves on her hands, holding a knife, covered in blood. This shows that she is cooking/cutting some sort of bloody meat. She will hear a dog bark pause completely and stare up, looking blank at the camera (this will hopefully put the audience in an ambiguous situation, making them feel uncomfortable). There will be a cut to a shot of dogs salivating and pouncing at a glass door (from outside), looking at something and barking at it inside the house. Then the camera will pan across the room from the dogs back to the woman, who is cooking, and in the transition there will be a bloody arm hanging off the side of an old armchair (like a zombies arm), trying to show it is some sort of dead body, and the object that the dogs were making noise about. The panning of the camera will reach the woman's face, making us stare at in to her eyes, she is still paused. There will be a build up of non-diegetic sound and then it will stop, as it stops the woman will continue cutting the meat.

Studio Lesson #4, The Preliminary Task

On Thursday 8th October we went to have our fourth studio lesson. We started off by going up onto the Edit Suit. This is where we got given a debrief as a class, this was about what we had to do and and who we would do it with. In my group (Millie Pike, Harvey Wright and I) we did our preliminary task in a media class room whereas others did it in the studio and some in the Edit Suit. The preliminary task was two people having a conversation with person coming through the door (Harvey Wright) saying "Do it, come on" and the second person (Millie Pike) being very defensive saying "I can't".

The Camera We Used and How We Filmed:

In our group we used the Sony NX5 (which I used, as I was the camera man), which is a very large and heavy camera and it is also a very good quality camera too. We started off filming the whole sequence with a wide shot which typically shows the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surroundings. Then we moved into a close up of person A, then a close up of person B, in this a certain feature or part of the subject takes up most of the frame. A close up of a person usually means a close up of their face (unless specified otherwise). Close-ups are useful for showing detail and can also be used as a cut-in. After that we  decided to mov into a mid-long shot, we used this to go from the wide shot to this, this shot shows person A and B in the frame of the image and only up to their waste. We did this to make the viewer feel more involved, we also did this to build tension between the two people. After this we had filmed everything that the story board asked us to do so we decided to take the camera outside and set it up so we can see person A come in through the door and leave. We also did an extreme close up on person A's face as he leaves the room, we did this to create tension and focus on exactly what person A was saying, which was the final thing, "I won't wait for you". After this we decided to add a bit more to this sequence, we came to the conclusion of filming person B before person A enters the room. We got her to pace before he comes in along with biting her nails. We did this to show that she was nervous to talk to him and thinking about what to say towards Person A.

Thriller Sub-Genres

A Genre is a category or ‘type’ of film, characterised by similarities n form, style, or subject matter.

Genre can be an important factor in influencing audiences when selecting films to watch. If an audience can identify the genre of a film they will establish certain expectations about whether or not they will enjoy the film. A sub-genre is a subcategory within a particular genre. For example, the academic mystery is a sub-genre of the mystery novel.

Sub-Genres for a thriller:

• Action Thriller (Olympus Has Fallen):

• Crime Thriller (Silence of the Lambs):

• Conspiracy Thriller (Angels & Demons):

• Disaster Thriller (San Andreas):

• Psychological Thriller (Seven):

• Spy Thriller (The Bourne Identity):

• Supernatural Thriller (Ghoul):

Studio Lesson #2

On Thursday 24th September we had our second studio lesson and we learned about the 180 degree rule and how to film sequences, along with some studio "lingo" for example "Stand By", "Roll", "Rolling", "Action" and "Cut".

The 180 Degree Rule:
In film making, the 180-degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene. An imaginary line called the axis connects the characters, and by keeping the camera on one side of this axis for every shot in the scene, the first character is always frame right of the second character, who is then always frame left of the first. The camera passing over the axis is called jumping the line or crossing the line; breaking the 180-degree rule by shooting on all sides is known as 'shooting in the round'.

How To Film Sequences (The Five Shot Sequence):
1) Start with an extreme long shot:

2) Then you move into a long shot:

3) You start to zoom in to the action with a mid shot:

4) Then you move closer in with a close up, which normally shows a face:

5) Finally you focus on part of the body that is being focused on, for example the eye. This is called a big close up:

Learning about the studio

On Thursday 17th September 2015, my class and I had our first studio lesson in Media Studies. In that lesson we used three different types of cameras along with tripods and additional lenses to go onto the cameras we used. The cameras that we used were the Sony NX5, Sony FS100 and a Canon 5D. Now I am going to talk about each one in detail and separately.

The Sony NX5:

This camera can cost up to £3,000 which is a lot of money, but the main purpose of this camera is that it will be used when filming big, high budget films, due to it very high quality and power the camera holds within, which can definitely be seen by looking at the size ant the weight of this machine. This Sony camera is quite heavy for a camera but you can expect it due to its size, due to its weight it is normally put on a tripod. Unless you are looking to do big budget and incredible filming then the next best camera to have is another Sony camera called the Sony FS100. 

The Sony FS100 & The Cannon 5D:

This camera is not as expensive as the Sony NX5 but it is also a very good camera as it shoot in very high definition and it is also quite heave and it would normally be put onto a tripod to hold a very steady shot as that is what it would normally be used for. The Cannon 5D is a light weighted camera which can very easily be held by hand but when this is a camera for a low budget film then this is the camera as it is good quality at a reasonable price.

The Tripod:

A tripod is a three-legged stand for  supporting a
camera and keeping at a horizontal level so it can stay on a straight line, you check this by "bubbling the camera" (this is where you stabilise the camera to make sure  that it is straight), you bubble the camera by a small spirit levler in the shape of a circle. The tripod holds each camera securely at different heights adjusted by the user by locking and unlocking the hooks which securely keeps the tripod in place without falling over.

RED (2010), The Poster

RED Poster:

The Genre of the film can be seen through the poster due to the text type, colour and the images on the poster. I will analyse all different types of sections which can figure out the genre along with the target audience of the film.

Text type:

The size of the text is extremely large as it covers almost half of the poster to make it stand out, this size of text along with it all being in capitals makes it very loud and clear that the genre is an action or adventure film as it make the viewer of the poster feel very ‘en medias res’ (in the middle of the action) which straight aways gives the viewer that thrill and adrenalin rush of being in that environment. There is a Sub-heading which is “Still Armed. Still Dangerous. Still Got It.” which doesn't make a lot of sense as this is not a sequel to any film, this line intrigues you despite the text size it is in, however it is also in capital letters, which does make it feel as if it is important to read, but the title Red does stand for something and that is Retired and Extremely Dangerous.

Colour:

The colour of the poster is primarily RED, this links to the title Red and how it is the colour of blood and fire and it is associated with meanings of rage, anger, danger, malice, wrath, stress, action and determination. All these feelings and thoughts come to the head of the observer of this poster when it is seen. The colour red stands out a lot especially with a black background. The colour black in the poster doesn't make it feel any less dangerous and exhilarating, if anything it improves and strengthens those feelings towards this film and its poster.

Images:

The images on this poster are all in red and black, causing the feelings expressed in the section where I have spoken about the colour in the poster, and are all close up shots of different actors and actresses in the film. Two of them seem to have guns and weapons in them drawing more people to look are it and some to look away which leads to the target audience which I will talk about in the final section of this blog entry. These close up shots of the actors and actresses draw attention to the way they are feeling due to the way they look, for example you can see the genre of this film through their facial expressions as there are two serious images and one quite funny/intense image (this has tow side as it can be seen in two different views).

The Target Audience:

The target audience of this film (with evidence from the poster) would be those who enjoys a crime and an action film with a bit of comedy and it could, possibly, have explicit language meaning that it wont be suitable for children under the age of 12 when they are not accompanied by an adult (in the UK). 

Conclusion:

In conclusion the genre of this film poster “RED” can be identified through the colours used, the text sizes and font which is used along with the images that have been put into the poster, like facial expressions and props that they hold.

The Opening Sequence Of Inception

At the start of the clip there is a very dramatic music playing which features lots of loud sudden noises. These noises help to build tension before the audience are introduced to the main character. As the music stops there is a quick and loud sound of waves clashing against rocks this helps set the scene for the audience know and tell them that the film is set in the present day. The audience is then introduced to the main character who seems to have woken up after being washed up on shore. Also there is the sound of children playing and he also sees them after looking for them, which shows that he recognised them. The Inside of the, what seems to be, bad guy base is a very traditional Chinese looking building which goes against the typical ideas someone would have of a Sci-Fi film. The props that are featured are 21st century style weapons which once again goes against the stereo typical Sci-Fi film style weapons. Immediately the audience will be asking questions who is the man that was in the water? Who is the Asian man? Why is the main character there? What does that spinner do/mean? The scene suddenly jumps back in time with no indication of how long ago but the main character is there with a different Asian man and it is set in the same room. Suggesting that time plays a big part to the plot of the movie, maybe time/memory traveling? The characters talk about "the dream state" this tells the audience that the film is about dreams. This suggests that the film may have quite a dark and mysterious atmosphere. The rattling of the table and the sound of Mr Cobb's watch ticking suggests that the place they are in may not be reality.

How Tension Is Created In Detachment

First of all, the up close camera shots of, what seems to be, the main character really shows how he is thinking a lot and they also show his feelings, for example how he is seen to be stressed also because of the shouting in the background. It is a very dark piece which reflects on the genre of the opening sequence which is obviously a thriller piece. They show that this opening sequence is a thriller by using a lot of sounds, like aggressive shouting which seems like an argument between two people as well as the shouting at the door, which links to how and where he lives, for example he seems to live in a very messy house which could be in a council estate. The main character seems to be on edge most of the time, for instance after the close up camera shots of the character at the beginning of the sequence he tries to light a cigarette which shows the stress the is feeling and when his lighter doesn’t work it makes him more stressed which puts the audience on edge as well, this also leads to the Hip-Hop music in the background which doesn’t seem to help him relax especially with the people shouting in the background.