G321 Evaluation (ROUGH) - Notice!

All posts from the ‘G321 Evaluation (ROUGH)’ label have been moved to the official ‘G321 Evaluation’ label with improvements included and feedback comments still intact.

Question 7 of Evaluation - "Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?"

Over the past several months of taking Media Studies as an AS level, I have learn’t about a lot of different things from camera angles, shots and intertextuality, to film editing techniques and skills.

Back in September of 2011, I carried out a preliminary task, from which I feel I have gained may skills from. I was in a group with Austen Nuttall, Jessica Moy, and Mandy Edmondson, something of which I wasn’t aware I had to do before I started the course. At first, I was slightly apprehensive about working in a group, however, I feel that in the long run, this has greatly improved my social skills and my ability to work as a team. Throughout the preliminary task, I learnt about the basic five types of camera shot - extreme close up, close up, medium shot, long shot, and extreme long shot - these seemed very difficult for me to get my head round at the beginning, however, now, it’s basic media knowledge. I also learnt three types of shots used in the film making business:

Shot reverse shot - the camera cuts from one shot to another shot to show one character looking at another character, and then back to the first character. The creates a sense of opposition and that the two (or more) character are facing one another.

180 degree rule - two or more characters, or even possible objects or elements, in the same scene should always have the same left to right relationship with one another. A basic explanation of this is the imaginary line - if the camera passes over that line, the audience will see the shot from a different perspective, thus possibly confusing or disorientating them.

Match on action - the camera cuts from one shot to another shot that matches the pace and/or action of the previous shot so as to create a sense of continuity.

During the filming of our preliminary task, we took about an hour’s worth of film because of shots which went wrong or we didn’t want to include. Before this, I was unaware of just how much film needed to be recorded before we could get an ‘appropriate’ shot to use. Further, and after one days worth of filming, we came in the next day in a completely different costume, something of which we didn’t think through - this caused us to re-shoot the entire film again because there would be a continuity problem if we didn’t - this would have confused the audience if there would have been a change in costume.

After filming the preliminary task, I realised just how important research and planning was into the thriller genre, and the importance of mise-en-scene has taught me a lot about the construction of films. I then moved on to the actual opening to a thriller film production for which I was in a group with Austen Nuttall, not so much a bad thing because we both attended the same high school and knew each other reasonably well.

Research and planning has both been a very different experience for me - the research side of things was a challenge because of the sub-genres aside of the thriller genre itself. One thing of which is sometimes confusing to me is the difference between the thriller genre and horror genre because of their similar characteristics - thriller and horror films alike display a suspenseful atmosphere. One film which still baffles me slightly is “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991) because of it’s thriller and horror elements. It displays generic conventions of a thriller film due to the suspense and claustrophobic mise-en-scene, but also, to me, represents parts of a horror film due to the gory scenes.

Planning has been more of an eventful journey than research because of the use of different technologies - before I started my AS Media Studies course, I would use word processing as the main form of planning in anything I do, however, over the past months, I have shown my ability to use PowerPoints and embedding YouTube clips to my blog.

Austen and I originally decided on the use of a shipping container in which our victim gets trapped in. This dark mise-en-scene really represents generic conventions of a thriller film and the victim would be shown as a dark silhouette, similarly like the shadow of Harry Lime entering the sewer in the scene from “The Third Man” (1949).

Question 6 of Evaluation - "What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?"

First and foremost, my blog is a technology which, over time, I have learnt to use. I knew very little about blogs before hand but have gained much confidence is using the blog over the past several months. As well as this, I have learnt how to embed YouTube videos to my blog, and PowerPoints and Prezzie’s.

Before taking Media as an AS Level at Sixth Form, I had very little experience with camera and how to perform specific camera shots. Throughout the filming of the preliminary task and the opening to a thriller film, I have learned how to add effects to the camera even before the editing stage, and much more. For the opening to a thriller film, we used the Cannon 600D camera, capable of recording HD video. I done most of the filming, but because the camera belonged to Austen, I had little to no idea on how to operate it. I soon gained knowledge, and throughout the filming, we used a clever feature called “rule of thirds” which allowed us to display 9 boxes on screen so that we could accurately position our characters.

I have also learnt a lot about editing. Although I have been used to editing footage on my home computer, using iMovie on Mac, we used Adobe Premier Elements in class to edit our footage which was a whole new software interface for me. I soon got the hang on it, however, and learn’t how to add some very interesting effects. From the outset, Austen and I wanted to produce our film in black and white and so this was easy for me to achieve on the software, simply by dragging the “grey scale” bar on top of the clips we wanted in black and white. Furthermore, I learnt how to embed the “dip-to-black” effect on a selected clip which would fade out that clip. This was achieved much like the “grey scale” effect simply by using a drag and drop motion.

Not so much a technology, however, I feel this needed to be added. Austen came up with a great camera shot idea called the Dolly Zoom which would dramatically reinforce the victims facial expression as he is about the get attacked, therefore increasing tension amongst the audience. Austen and I attempted the Dolly Zoom, but Austen said that I had the better shot, and so we used that one. The Dolly Zoom combined with the effects of Adobe Premier Elements would create a very impressive shot.

In terms of distributing our film, we have used one very popular site called YouTube. All of our rough shots, edits and final edit have been uploaded to this site because of its ease of use and accessibility. I have been using YouTube for a few years now but have never used the upload feature to upload videos. This is something I learnt to do when uploading my version of the opening to a thriller film edit. On YouTube, I found out how to use a feature called “unlisted video” - this basically means that the videos are not viewable to the public and just for mine and Austen’s eyes only. Moreover, I have learnt to embed my uploaded videos from YouTube on to my blog.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDB), which was shown to me by my class teacher, has helped to strengthen my research because this website is great to find information about any film. I have learnt how to navigate around IMDB and find relevant information about a film. I can view reviews, ratings, general film information, and even related films based upon my searches! IMDB really is a great site and has helped my massively over the past few months.

Question 5 of Evaluation - "How did you attract/address your audience?"

Austen and my opening to a thriller film, ‘Death Watch’, primarily is targeted towards 16 to 18 year olds, both male and female.

One way in which Austen and I attract our audience in our opening to a thriller film is by use of soundtrack - the soundtrack of our film instantly grabs the audiences attention because of it’s fast paced style. The soundtrack has a very clear drum beat which appeals to the younger generation because of how music has changed over the years.

Further, we addressed our audience simply by use of questionnaires - these were carried out by students of age between 16 and 18 at City of Norwich School. This was a great way to address our audience as, not only did it allow the audience to engage with the film, but also provided myself and Austen with a lot of feedback which, ultimately, we used to produce our final edit.

Moreover, the film itself attracts and addresses our audience in terms of shots - the closeup shots help to position the audience with the films characters. Also, the use of suspense in the tracking shot as the figure is walking down the long pathway with a vanishing point attracts the audience, the over the shoulder shot of the figure really helps to raise the sense of menace because the audience foresee a violent ending.

The audience who view intertextuality in films will also be attracted to gritty British thriller film because of what they expect from a traditional thriller film - the suspense and mystery, cliffhangers, good against bad and, above all, a sense of apprehension, which is what our opening to a thriller film displays.

Opening to a thriller film - Final edit

The above video is of Austen’s and my final edit to our opening to a thriller film. Over the past few weeks, we have made several edits to our film based upon personal preference, along with the help of our teacher in class. This is the final edit and we have used feedback from questionnaires which were filled in by various people of different gender and age so that we can make even more improvements.

Austen and I implemented many suggestions from the questionnaires which we edited together. One suggestion to note, and possibly a very important one, was the use of titles in our opening sequence - many people thought the titles were too big and so we adapted to this feedback and reduced the size of the titles, adding more transitions between clips along the way.

We both think this feedback was very important whilst carrying out the final edit and believe this has improved our opening to a thriller film greatly.

Opening to a thriller film - Group edits

Below are two videos of our opening to a thriller film - the top video is Austen Nuttall’s edit (group member) and the bottom video is my edit.

Me and Austen have explored and used different techniques to editing our clips and the outcomes have been very unique.

From the beginning, we both decided that it would be a good idea to create seperate edits so that we could compare our outcomes and have a choice over the final video to present to the exam board.

Personally, I prefer Austen’s edit over my own, simply because Austen has used some fast cuts and fading shots.

Question 4 of Evaluation - "Who would be the audience for your media production?"

The target audience of my opening to a thriller film would be 16 to 18 year olds, simply because they would enjoy more the kind of traditional gritty British thrillers, something of which my film displays aspects of. Teenagers of contemporary Britain would enjoy the kind of gritty thriller and their use of violent scenes, much like the opening scenes from ‘Essex Boys’ where Jason beats up his victim and dumps him in the swamp.

I carried out around 20 questionnaires, around 14 of which were males. They all said they enjoyed the slightly violent ending scene of my edit of the opening to a thriller film, however, our final edit did not include this. Much like ‘Essex Boys’ our thriller film follows a male protagonist, something of which males of between 16 and 18 can associate with.

On the site Amazon.co.uk, me and Austen could get a feel for who purchased a similar film to ‘Essex Boys’ simply by searching ‘Essex Boys’. Ironically, and after searching in to these films, the majority of these similar films contain a male cast and suspenseful/violent storyline – my group’s thriller includes these characteristics and I have used this data to come to a conclusion on whether or not there is an audience for Austen and my thriller – there is.

As mentioned earlier, myself and Austen distributed questionnaires so as to gain feedback on our rough edits before making a final edit together which contained improvements. These improvements were suggested by the people who filled out the questionnaires.

On the other hand, however, our film could appeal to an older audience, possibly between the ages of 30-40 because they may like the cinematography that our opening to a thriller film contains. Moreover, intertextual references from our thriller film may appeal to them. An example of this would be the classic extreme long shot of the pathway with a vanishing point from ‘The Third Man’ (1949). This idea originally inspired myself and Austen and we went on to include this in our production.  

Question 3 of Evaluation - "What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?"

Austen and my opening to a thriller film, called ‘Death Watch’, is an independent thriller film. Austen and I discussed the kind of media institution which would distribute our media product and very quickly realised that our thriller film is of non-mainstream culture.

Our film, I believe, would appeal greatly to the likes of ‘Warp Films’ because of its original feel and very straight-to-the-point narrative. On the other hand, I do not believe that it would appeal to the likes of ‘Working Title’ for many reasons - funding from ‘Working Title’ would be very hard because our film would appeal to a niche audience, who, generally, would watch very original cinematography with a younger generation of actors and actresses.

Further, our opening to a thriller film does not include mainstream actors or actresses, something of which ‘Working Title’ films are very much inclusive of. Popular ‘Working Title’ actors and actresses would include the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch and Colin Firth from the 2011 film ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’.

Going back to ‘Warp Films’, this company may be more interested in the funding of our thriller film, unlike ‘Working Title’, due to non-mainstream cast. Both myself and Austen are actors in the film, but have also directed and produced the entire opening, an entity of which ‘Warp Films’ may be intrigued in.

Moreover, social networking sites across the internet are a very powerful way of gaining fans or to advertise ‘Death Watch’. Many people sign up to sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and even YouTube to view and watch online activity. By publicly broadcasting our thriller film across these website, we can interact with the general public to find out what they think of our media production. Much like the questionnaires which were completed by people for our final edit of the thriller film opening, we can gain public opinion which could influence our production and make it more of a success. Online advertising is the best way to go for a non-mainstream and very low budget independent film like ‘Death Watch’ because of the costs involved otherwise.

In terms of distributing our film, Cinema City tend to show independent films at low budget. Not only this, but they specialise in showing films with irregular genres. An example of a reasonably low budget film is the 2010 science fiction film ‘Monsters’, directed by Gareth Edwards which had less than a £300,000 budget. This film was distributed by Vertigo Films, a UK Media company who distribute commercially driven independent cinema. What’s even more impressive, is that ‘Monsters’ used YouTube to advertise their trailer and gained nearly 2 million views - these sorts of statistics just goes to show how powerful free internet advertising really can be!

What’s more, the 2006 film ‘This Is England’, directed by Shane Meadows, shows aspects of anti-social behaviour from young, troubled men - not only this, and just like our film, ‘Death Watch’, ‘This Is England’ contained some unknown cast members and improvised scripts. In a way, this is very reflective of our opening to a thriller film - it has similar characteristics and is aimed more towards the likes of ‘Warp Films’.

Question 2 of Evaluation - "How does your media product represent particular social groups?"

The two characters in mine and Austen’s opening to a thriller film are Austen and James. Austen is the victim and James is the menacing stalker/figure. The names are our own names, thus creating a very simple and easy to understand narrative because it increases the believability of the characters within our opening.

James is wearing a black coat with a very big collar to protect his identity. James and Austen both wear jeans and casual shoes which match todays fashion sense and shows modern day clothing.

Our thriller, ‘Death Watch’, represents and reinforces dominating males in today’s society. Several thriller films display male dominancy – take ‘Essex Boys’ for example, Jason and his apprentice are the two dominating males within the first few scenes of the film. This kind of male dominancy can be seen as wanting to commit such a crime as the stalker, James, does in ‘Death Watch’ – with decreasing activities for people of James’ age to do, young men can result to violence and crime as a past time, completely representative of contemporary Britain.

Question 1 of Evaluation - "In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"

First and foremost, many thriller films have inspired a lot of different characteristics of my media product - the use of these characteristics all differentiate from film to film which is what makes my media product unique and shows my ability to use characteristics from across a wide spectrum of films. From first sitting down and planning my thriller film, right through to the shooting, editing and then publishing of it, I have really thought hard about the costume, location, camera angles, lighting, soundtrack, and other vital attributes. In question 1 of my evaluation, I will be discussing the above entities and how I think they have made my opening to a thriller film a success.

Costume

I sat down with Austen, my group member, and discussed a variety of costumes we could use, but most importantly, which costume would fit our thriller film the best in terms of reinforcing generic thriller conventions, or possibly even challenging generic thriller conventions. After much deliberation, me and Austen decided on our characters wearing modern, and possibly even fashionable clothing - in a way, this challenges generic thriller conventions because of the generic use of costumes in thriller films - take ‘The Third Man’ for example - black-market opportunist Harry Lime wears a classic thriller film costume which reinforces the genre. His costume consists of a top hat with dark clothing and an overcoat, something which me and Austen wanted to differentiate from in our opening.

Although many films i’ve watched do indeed reinforce the thriller genre in terms of costume, for example, ‘The Third Man’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’, our characters are young - in the modern day, people are wearing more modern, colourful, fashionable clothes and so our costumes reflect that.  

I watched the 2000 film ‘Essex Boys’ and took great note of the clothes which Jason (Sean Bean) was wearing when beating up the man - he is wearing a yellow and black patterned shirt and trousers which is not reflective of the thriller genre at all and so, ultimately, this is where the inspiration came from.

Location

Our location was very important - we wanted to take inspiration from as many films as we could. For location, we really wanted to stick to generic thriller conventions as, in my eyes, the location ultimately sets the scene of a thriller film and how it’s going to pan out - if the location isn’t intriguing or gripping enough, it wont grab attention. First off, ‘Essex Boys’. Towards the end of our opening to the thriller film, very near the shipping containers, is a swamp area - the ground is wet and muddy and the atmosphere is very cold, much like the marshes from ‘Essex Boys’ where Jason dumps his victim. 

Further, at the beginning of the film, there is a long pathway with a vanishing point - this was inspired by the film ‘The Third Man’. Anna walks down the pathway towards the camera and away from the vanishing point. In our opening, we altered this idea slightly and made our character walk down the pathway away from the character and towards the vanishing point. This shot is the very first shot in our opening and is at the beginning for a reason - it added a sense of mystery as the audience wonder where our character is going. Is he walking in to the unknown? What’s going to happen?

Camera angles and shots

Camera angles and shots have been inspired from across the board and from many different thriller films, including ‘The Third Man’, ‘Jaws’. As mentioned above, the long pathway with a vanishing point which was originally inspired by the film ‘The Third Man’ contains a low angle shot with just the the feet of the character in view - as the characters slowly walk away from the camera, more of the person is shown. This creates a sense of mystery and builds suspense as the audience wonder who the character is as he comes in to view. To add even more of a twist on to this, we positioned the camera is such a way so as to create a horizontal tilt effect. This effect slightly disorientates the audience which makes the shot even more of a mystery and very intriguing for the person to watch. We have used many tilt shots throughout the entire opening of our thriller film for this very reason.

Close up shots also feature a lot in our film. Close up shots are a strong generic convention amongst thriller films - this is used to build a great deal of tension for the audience and to restrict their view of external angles. This forces the audience to concentrate on a particular part of the shot - this part of the shot could be important for the rest of the film or it could just be to add suspense.

Over the shoulder shots are used also in our film, mainly as the the camera follows one character and the other character is in front - this is a very effective way of showing both characters on screen from the same angle but can also reflect how the character is feeling or acting because the camera is situated from his/her point of view. I done some research in to thriller films using the over the shoulder shot and came across the scene from the 1997 film ‘Jackie Brown’. It is the Robert De Niro and Bridget Fonda scene where Robert shoots Bridget and then gets back in his car. He drives away and the camera is held in an over the shoulder shot for around 30 seconds - personally, I thought that this puts the audience in the characters shoes and so this is where the over the shoulder shot was inspired from.

Another great shot we used was the very unique dolly zoom - after seeing this shot from the film ‘Jaws’, we decided to give it a go during filming and it paid off! This shot is used in our film towards the ending as the victim turns around and sees the figure standing in front of him. We used this shot as it shows the expression in the victims face as he sees the figure. Not only this, but I personally think that the scare in the victims face is reflected on the audience as they watch and experience the same feelings as the victim at that specific moment.

Lighting

From the outset, me and Austen had plans to make our thriller film in black and white, however, this wasn’t set in stone as we hadn’t even started to shoot yet and there was still room for change, but more importantly, we wanted to experiment with the colour filter and the black and white filter and the editing stage. We ultimately decided on black and white and added a black and white filter to our edit. It was very noticeable that the film, even after changed to black and white, was indeed still quite bright, something which we really wanted to change, and so we dramatically lowered the brightness of our edit and it looked far better. This change reinforced generic thriller conventions because our film looked very dark and murky which is how we wanted it to look.

Moreover, at the filming stage, we decided to film in the daylight. Me and Austen didn’t want to film at dusk because of the risk of it looking too much like a horror film - we wanted to strengthen the genre conventions by filming during daytime hours. Because of this decision there was no need for any lights to brighten up the scene.

Referring to ‘The Third Man’ once again, the long pathway with the vanishing point looks far more mysterious in the light as the surrounding scene is visible. We thought that having a scene without the surroundings visible to the audience would dramatically reduce the suspense because of the restricted view. If the surroundings are visible to the audience then this will make them more intrigued as to what is going on, in turn, building up that all important suspense.

Soundtrack

After much deliberation and countless hours of thought about the soundtrack, we decided on one track which lasts just over 2 minutes, plenty long enough to last throughout the opening to our thriller film. This particular piece of music is a very thriller like soundtrack which combines a sense of mystery and suspense to really grip the audience and build curiosity. The soundtrack is of a piano which is reinforces generic thriller genre conventions - the piano starts off playing very lightly and slowly builds throughout the opening to a strong, forceful and, in a way, frightening ending where the victim is attacked. We purposely chose this soundtrack so as to create this effect and build the suspense gradually rather than banging out the soundtrack straight away which would not build any tension whatsoever.

The ‘light to strong’ sort of soundtrack was originally inspired by a children’s film I watched many years ago, ‘Finding Nemo’. Although this may sound quite childish, the soundtrack is used very cleverly so as to build that all important suspense which fundamentally keeps the audience gripped and titillated.

Soundtrack out the window

For a few weeks now, me and Austen (group member) have been debating which soundtrack to use. First of all, we started looking at possible soundtracks on popular websites amongst free play music - we came across the site http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ and found two great soundtracks which we were almost definitely decided on. However, after reading the Licensing page, we weren't too sure if we could use the music.

So, we emailed the website support to enquire about using the soundtrack on our "opening to a thriller film sixth form project" - here is our reply:

"Thank you for your e-mail inquiry received below. As per our Terms of Use, we offer free use of our music for home, personal, private, non-commercial use and student educational use for in-classroom projects, non-broadcast. However, most other uses, including on the web, require a paid license. We make every effort to keep the rates for personal use minimal. Our standard rate for one year of personal web video use is $25, per music title, per 4 minutes of use, per URL. In addition, we have a rate of $50 if the video will be viral (i.e. YouTube)."

This idea is now "out the window". Because me and Austen only wanted to use the soundtrack once, we decided it wasn't worth the $75 (around £50) and so we went on to search for another website which could provide us with a sufficient soundtrack - we came across another site whereby the soundtracks are truly FREE and would not cause us the hassle of contacting the website's support.

This soundtrack is now decided, we found a great thriller soundtrack which lasts just over 2 minutes long, plenty long enough to cover our entire opening which is what we were really looking for! It’s from http://www.incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/ and all of the soundtracks from there are under a CC license which are all royalty free.

Editing

We have now finished all our shooting and our editing is going well! Me and Austen have both made seperate edits, so that once we are finished, we can compare and decide which one is the best (in terms of cuts, suspense and general edits).

We added (tried) several effects to our edits to see what it would look like - we applied a black and white filter so as to give an old feel to the opening to our thriller film. This also creates a very gritty theme and shows a dark mood in the mise-en-scene.

We have since recorded more footage of scenes filmed in the snow - this has been added to our edit and increases the duration from 1:20 to over 1:50 - just the right time.

Here's a screenshot of my editing as a work in progress:

What we though would be a great idea!

During filming, myself and Austen (group member) attempted to recreate the well renowned camera technique, the Dolly Zoom.

It was originally Austen’s idea – he came up with an inspiring idea which would replace the view of the murderer. As of now, we will have a Dolly Zoom focussed on the victim’s face to clearly display his tension and fear as the ‘murderer’ is about to hit.

The Dolly Zoom creates an enigma by allowing the audience to create their own interpretation of the ‘murderer’, instead of the original idea of just showing the face with no camera techniques used at all. This will ensure that the entire opening scene is more threatening to the viewer, just as if the figure is in front of them.

I originally saw this camera technique used in ‘Jaws (1975)’, whereby the lifeguard is in view of the Dolly Zoom which shows his fear when he sees the shark attack:

Below is a practice Dolly Zoom shot which was shot whilst we were filming.

Opening to Thriller film - Preliminary edit

After filming the majority of the raw footage, I had a go myself at a rough and preliminary edit of the opening to our thriller film in black and white.

We still have more footage to film, partly because the rough edit is quite short, but mainly because of the shaky camera - this is something both me and Austen need to concentrate on when are filming again.

Also, the soundtrack used here is just a temporary overlay. Although we may use this particular soundtrack, it needs to be synchronised more accurately to the main video to build suspense and keep the audience hooked throughout the entire duration.

Both me and Austen agreed that our preliminary edit looked far better in black and white than in colour - this creates a far more darker and mysterious atmosphere, and because of this, we can relate our opening as a strong intertextual reference to the film, "The Third Man". This is where our inspiration for the use of good noir lighting and a vanishing point with trees originally came from.

Note: the final edit will be of higher quality than displayed here.

Below is the rough edit of our opening to the thriller movie:


Colour Version:

Black and White Version:

Evidence of opening to Thriller film shooting

Filming date: 23/01/2012.

Filming location: Outside of The Hewett School (situated on Ipswich Road).

Actors: Austen Nuttall (group member) and myself, James Kent.

Filming assistance: Abi Skinner (from Hewett) and Sam Barker (from Hewett).

Filming time period: During a Media Studies lesson (periods 1 and 2 from 9am till 11am).

Weather on the day: Clear early in the morning, low sunrise and rainy afternoon.

Credit goes to Abi Skinner and Sam Barker for assisting me and Austen during the filming - with only me and Austen working on our own, it was great to have some assistance.

On subject, we captured the following still images as evidence of our filming:

 

Opening to Thriller film - Practice shots

The following clips are some practice shots which were filmed prior to the actual filming. Note: the following shots do not contain our actual costumes and the whole compilation is just a trial run.

Opening to Thriller film - Storyboard

Here is my storyboard for the final shot list and plot for the opening to our thriller movie:

See older blog post for final shot list and plot or click here.

Note: click the images to view full size.

Once upon a time in America Analysis

Information:

Film title: Once upon a time in America

Release date: 01/06/84

Genres: Thriller, Crime, Drama

Director: Sergio Leone

About:

Once upon a time in America is a gangster thriller genre film made in 1984. It is about a Jewish gang in 1930 and the narrative goes back and forth between past and present.

The first shot is of the women, Eve, walking into a room with chiaroscuro lighting. There is an immediate signifier in the opening sequence whereby the sound is non-diegetic - the song is ‘God Bless America’ and as the silhouette of the women comes through the door in to the shot, the sound diversifies to diegetic.

The first shot shows the generic character straight away. The noire lighting puts the women in the spotlight and the pears around her neck along with the makeup and costume shows she is very glamorous - the pears represent tears and the nails and rings also indicate she is a very glamorous women.

The close up shot of the women does not show the subject in the broad context of her surroundings but instead focuses on her and shows how important she is in the film.

Eve, in this scene, walks towards a lamp and turns it on. There is a similarity between the light and her - the colour of the scene is reflecting in a sense that she is the light, she is the women in the spotlight and both her and the light are of the same tone.

This next shot is of Eve looking at the outline of a man’s body on the bed - it is marked with bullet holes which suggest a sense of fear - this is a warning for the women. The high angle medium close up shot displays the scene and creates a sense of mystery as the women wonders what has happened - it also shows a sense of her out of power and feeling intimidated.

Furthermore, the outline of the man on the bed is a cultural reference as it can be used to show how the police in America are venal and suborned - they have no fears of taking matters into their own hands.

The next shot is of the three policemen walking into the room, one with a gun drawn. They are all dressed similarly to show that they work together as a group and they have a collective identity. The gun is a masculine signifier which is seen in a lot of thriller films - the gun is being pointed at the man in the photo frame - a sign to show that they want information about that man and he is being chased by them. As we can see by this scene, they will do anything to get him.

One of the men shoot Eve - they will do anything to get what they need and are taking the situation into their own hands which is generic signifier within the thriller genre. The three men against the one women shows how much power the men have over her. Again, we see this is many thriller films and an example of this is a film called ‘Thelma and Louise’ (1991) where they women are living in a world which has been overrun by men.

The three men then exit leaving Eve dead on the bed - one man turns off a light, similarly symbolising Eve as she is now dead, her life has came to an end and the room turns to darkness.

Analysis of Screen Shot from "Thelma and Louise" Ridley Scott (1991)

The location of the screen shot says a lot about how Ridley Scott utilises thriller conventions in the screen shot from “Thelma and Louise”.

The clever camera angle shows a lot in just one still photo. The medium close up shot of the scene shows the characters faces and how they both react to the situation in hand, not to mention how the screen shot also shows a great deal about certain details of the film which we do not see till later on.

From this screen shot we can see that the film challenges stereotypes. The women is pointing a gun at the man which would usually be the other way around. Another aspect of challenging stereotypes is that the women is holding a male signifier, a gun. We know straight away that the film is not going to be a standard thriller film, but instead deny generic conventions and challenge stereotypes.

We can immediately see that the location of the screen shot is in a car park - this is a perfect place to commit such a crime as nobody else is around, it is quiet and very isolated from the rest of the world. The car park in itself is a masculine signifier but in addition, the surrounding cars are also a masculine signifier. This shows that the film does not convey standard thriller generic conventions, but instead challenges stereotypes to turn this around, for example, the women being in a car park and holding a gun at the man.

From this screen shot it is clear how the rest of the film is going to pan out in terms of stereotypes. That being said, the screen shot does not give too much information away so as to make the viewer watch the rest of the film.

Opening to Thriller film - Revision of final concept

Unfortunately, the use of the empty shipping containers in our thriller film has had to be changed because they are now locked - we have no way of using these containers so myself and Austen have revised the opening and have came up with a slightly different idea. The start of the opening to the thriller film is exactly the same but we have changed the ending slightly.

The plot:

A boy will stop for a drink of water outside a shipping container located just outside a park. The boy walks down a long path away from the vanishing point before coming across the shipping container and stopping for a rest. Then, from nowhere, a mysterious older man enters the scene and slams the boy’s head against the shipping container and he drops to the floor. We see mysterious older man drag the boy around the corner of the shipping container.

That’s the cliff hanger. The enigma is who is the mysterious older man? Where did he come from? Is the boy conscious or possibly dead? What will happen next?

Revision of the thriller opening:

Shot 1) The camera pans down from the sky to a long shot which shows a vanishing point - the vanishing point is towards the end of the long pathway. A boy of around 16 years old walks down the pathway, away from the vanishing point, towards the camera. Me and Austen thought this would be a great shot - it was inspired by the ending scene of the 1949 film, ‘The Third Man’.

Shot 2) Pan shot of boy walking down long pathway with vanishing point.

Shot 3) The boy stops for a break outside a shipping container and takes a drink out of his bag - there is a close up of him drinking some water.

Shot 4) From nowhere, a mysterious older man walks into the shot and slams the boys head against the shipping container - the boy drops down on the floor (a series of close up shots will be used here to show suspense and the use of clever camera angles will stop anybody from getting hurt during filming).

Shot 5) There are more close up shots of the mysterious older man dragging the unconscious or even dead boy round the corner - at this point, the audience do not know whether the boy is alive.

Note: at the exact moment we see the boy dragged round the corner, our opening scene will cut to a black screen where the titles of the film will fade in.

Final concept of opening to Thriller film

The plot:

A boy will come across a lost, or what he believes to be lost, item inside a shipping container located just outside a park. The boy walks down a long path away from the vanishing point before coming across the shipping container which catches his eye - he looks at it in confusion and slowly walks towards it and investigate it. Then, from the opposite direction, an older man is seen hiding behind a wall. We see the doors slam shut trapping the boy inside a dark and frightening shipping container.

That’s the cliff hanger. The enigma is who slammed shut the doors when the boy was still inside. What will happen next?

This is a birds eye view of the location we are going to use:

Shot List:

Shot 1) The camera pans down from the sky to a long shot which shows a vanishing point - the vanishing point is towards the end of the long pathway. A boy of around 16 years old walks down the pathway, away from the vanishing point, towards the camera. Me and Austen thought this would be a great shot - it was inspired by the ending scene of the 1949 film, ‘The Third Man’.

Shot 2) Pan shot of boy walking down long pathway with vanishing point.

Shot 3) The boy stops for a break and takes a drink out of his bag - there is a close up of him drinking the water. The boy looks round and something inside an empty shipping container catches his eye.

Shot 4) There is a close up shot of a wallet inside the empty shipping container.

Shot 5) There is a low angle shot from inside the container which shows the boy walking towards the wallet inside the empty shipping container.

Shot 6) There is a long shot of a mysterious older man who walks round the corner.

OR

Close up shot of the mysterious figure’s feet walking round the corner which will create an enigma. This shot relates to the opening scene of ‘Kill Bill Vol.1 (2003)’ where all we see is Bill's feet walking towards the woman, but we do not see Bill's face - Bill's face is the enigma.

Shot 7) There is a close up shot of the boy handling the wallet inside the empty shipping container to find something, for example, cash or credit cards.

Shot 8) Another shot from inside the empty shipping container where there is a low angle shot of the boy still handling the wallet.

Shot 9) There is a medium shot of a mysterious silhouette standing outside the container directly in the line of sight of the boy. The empty shipping container’s doors then suddenly slums shut leaving the boy trapped inside. Note: at the exact moment we hear the container doors slam shut our film will cut to a black screen where the titles of the film will fade in.

Inspiration for Thriller ideas

The following shot relates to a mystery thriller film called ‘The Third Man (1949)’. In the end scene, a women called Anna Schmidt walks aways from a vanishing point and towards the camera. The thriller genre in particular represents the way in which this film is projected to the audience - normally, in thriller films, when there is a vanishing point involved, a character is walking towards it, however in ‘The Third Man’, it’s an opposite effect. I think this represents the mystery thriller genre as the women is walking away from the vanishing point which creates a sense of mystery - where was she coming from? What was she doing? Where is she walking towards now?

The following shots show the pictures i’ve taken in comparison to the ending scene of ‘The Third Man’ - this location has been thought through and we will probably use it in our final thriller concept:

This shot is the picture I took of the established location of our thriller film.

This shot is from the final scene of 'The Third Man (1949)' where the character is walking away from the vanishing point, rather than in traditional thrillers, towards it.

Below is the final scene of 'The Third Man':

Witness - Murder Scene Evaluation

Information:

Film title: Witness
Release date: 24/05/85
Genres: Thriller, Romance, Drama
Director: Peter Weir

About:


The movie Witness (1985) is about a young Amish boy called Samuel who is the sole witness to a murder. Police officer John Book goes into hiding in Amish country to protect him until the murder trial.

There are many aspects which affect the way in which the movie is projected to the audience - these include lighting, camera angles, narrative and genre. The film is of all Drama, Romance and Thriller genres and the lighting and camera angles are portrayed in such as way that the boy is small - and at times frightened - in comparison to the surrounding.

 The very first shot of the scene leading up to the murder is of a statue. The camera is inline with the boy at this stage and is looking up at the statue from a low angle camera shot. This shot shows power and that fact that the boy is not used to the modern surroundings - the low angle camera shot looking up at the statue represents intimidation. The soundtrack also represents the large surroundings and the boy looks at the statue in amazement which is also a sign of fright.

The next shot is of a high angle shot from the top of the statue looking down at the boy. This shot shows how small he is in comparison with the surroundings and it also gives the statue a very menacing status.

The camera then moves to a shot of him and his mother sitting on their own in a large, open space. This shot shows that they are isolated from everything - the medium camera distance not only captures the mother and boy but also the monumental surroundings which they have never seen before. On this particular shot, the sound is diegetic and the only audio is of the mother and boy speaking.

In all of the past shots, the lighting is ambient which creates authenticity and realism - it is not until the next shots when the boy enters the toilet that the lighting is non-ambient.

Further, the boy then enters the toilet - the camera cuts to a medium close up shot of a 25 year old white male who is in the toilet. The place is isolated and claustrophobic and the lighting is dim and murky which is used the create suspense. The medium close up shot of the figure washing his face tells the audience that the character is important in the storyline. 

The boy enters and cubical and closes the door as another two men enter the toilet. The boy leaves a gap in the cubical door and watches as the two men hang around. All three mens faces are not visible so as to show the tension. 

When the murder takes place, the tense soundtrack is purposely conveyed to create an enigma and show suspense as the boy looks in horror through the gap in the door of the toilet cubical. He witnesses the murder and the extreme close up camera shot of the boys eyes shows he is frightened.

The murderer suspects something is up and so pulls out a gun and slowly looks in all of the cubicles in turn to make sure nobody is hiding in there - the boy is in fact in the far cubical and he panics and wonders what to do as the murderer gets closer and closer to him - he locks the door and stands at the back of the cubical. This shot immediately shows a male signifier which is the gun - the gun is the main prop in the view of the camera which makes the audience tense.

The camera shot at this stage is of the murderers lower legs and feet as he pushes open each cubical door - the camera is positioned in such a way that the bottom-inside of the cubical is visible and as he gets to the end you can see the boy standing in there. This camera shot is marvelous as it really shows the build up of suspense as the murderer gets closer to the boy. Having just the feet really shows anxiety as the boy is uncertain as to what is going to happen!