Wednesday, 23 February 2011

SHOTS

SHOT 1 ETX. handi cam, almost a high angle shot, showing character which isnt established at this point, running through a forest, clearly running away from something but it does not show what exactly, panting sounds are used to enphasise the fact the character (victim) is running.

SHOT 2 ETX. further shots of character running through forest, but the camera tilted higher so that the location is established, same sounds as shot 1.

SHOT 3 NONE. white noise, with title sequence, first name of person in our group, with black BROKEN GHOST text.

SHOT 4 INT. over the shoulder/point of view shot of a different but also unknown character in a dark room (maybe walking around.. whilst) looking through photos, or paper cuttings, of the ''victim'', unusual sounds of character singing/humming, creating a pshycological feel.

SHOT 5 INT. close up showing photographs of victim, underneath non diegetic sounds of erie music, fast paced, to emphasise the genre of pshycological thriller.

SHOT 6 NONE.  white noise, with title sequence, second name of person in our group, with black BROKEN GHOST text.

SHOT 7 ETX. handi cam, much like shot 1, showing character running through forest with a underlying non diegetic sound, soundtrack created on garage band.

SHOT 8 NONE.  white noise, with title sequence, third name of person in our group, with black BROKEN GHOST text.


SHOT 9 INT.  another point of view shot, of the antagonist which still remains unknown walking around the dark room looking though the photographs.

SHOT 10 NONE. white noise, with title sequence, fourth name of person in our group, with black BROKEN GHOST text.

''Shaky Cam''

When filming we chose to use the effect of a hand held camera, which we have used to show a certain characters point of view, so that the audience can really grasp the atmosphere, this effect is sometimes used in professional thrillers, but not very often, we have decided to use this in our thriller as it may challenge the 'typical convention of thrillers'where mostly still cameras are used. It also allows us to show that our product is a little different from others making it unique and more interesting as its something ''new''.

When researching about the effect of using a ''shaky camera'' we found that it can suggest unprepared, unrehearsed filming of reality, and can provide a sense of dynamics, immersion, instability or nervousness. However too much shaky camera motion can make the viewer feel dizzy or sick.

2 different kinds of a handi cam shot

CAMERA 1

CAMERA

Colours

During the title sequence the main colours shown are:
Red
Black
and then green/dark colours ( to create a night vision effect )

We researched the colours to see connotations and what kind of effect they would create on the audience, we found that RED generally can be seen as love/lust but also blood and danger, which we need to make the audience feel tense. BLACK can show a number of things such as intellegence, smart, punctuality, buisness etc, but in thriller cases it shows darkness, evil, mystery. WHITE shows purity and sometimes peace, but it can also be seen as a religious sense, and in some countries can be worn at funerals, it also is known as being ''scary'' due to things like spirits and ghosts.

By using these colours we are conforming to the conventions of a typical thriller, where most colours used in the title sequences are red, black, blues, white.
We have used things like white noise, which is obviously white so we have needed to add dark coloured text on top to make it contrast so that it stands out. Which is why we have used black text. We were considering using white/red text on top of the actual video footage but felt that it may distract the audience from the opening scene which we want them to focus on, so therefore we decided to add white noise as part of the title sequence so that we could display text on that.

Example of scream, showing typical thriller colours
poster

Saturday, 19 February 2011

Costume

Typical costume of characters within a pshycological thriller.

From looking at other professional pshycological thrillers, it shows that all the main characters in each of the pshycological thrillers i have looked into, have been well dressed, perhaps showing buisnessman, but almost always in some kind of uniform or suit. Here are a few examples:

costume 2
Momento
This image is from Momento, and this is the main character with pshycological issues. He is wearing a suit. Smartly dressed, clean.

costume 3
Phone Booth
This image is from Phone booth of the main character and another character, both in suits, the main character is dressed a little more smartly and cleanly then the other (right)

costume 1
Catch me if you can
This image is from catch me if you can, also the main character in a pilot uniform, (suit) smartly dressed, also a pshycological character, a fraud.

What we need to have an understanding of

When producing our film project we need to have an understanding of:

  • using a tripod
  • using a camrecorder
  • using final cut
  • using garage band
  • understanding what we need to include for the micro elements
  • be aware of health and saftely
  • think about times of the day to film
  • think about costume
these are all things to consider when filming or planning to film.

Editing 1

Editing

We first uploaded all of our footage onto garage band and put it in an order to see how it looked, we found that because we filmed in school hours, the lighting was day light. So we had to find ajustments on the video colour corrector to make it look like the camera was on night mode. We brought up colour corrector and made it dark and green to give it the night time affect however the sky was green, making it obvious that it was daylight still, so this is a difficulty we should have thought about before hand. Aswell as the lighting we had to add small sections off blank video to apply text onto it, to show our names as part of the title sequence. When doing this we found that it did not look ''scary'' enough so we decided to add the ''white noise ''/ ''tv static'' effect however we did consider the simple black background with white text, as it was a typical convention of the title sequence of thrillers which we found from research.
blogger 1
Colour Corrector effect ^

After looking at the editing we had done we decided as a group to use the white noise effect as we thought it made it more clear about the cutting from different scenes, and locations. Also we used a type writer effect to make it look more pshycological, we got the ideas from looking at other thrillers such as 'Momento'.

blogger 2
Adding text ^

When using the text tools we set our font to 'BROKENGHOST' rather then having a general obvious text like 'times new roman' we think that the text we chose made a better effect then if the text was simple and blunt although some pshycological thrillers do use capital letters with simple fonts such as 'tahoma'.

Thursday, 17 February 2011

Micro Elements

Editing

Mise-en-scene

the location of our production helps to generate the genre of the film, set from the very beginning in a dark and desolate area, with strange and unusual lighting which makes the audience feel uneasy from the very first few moments. in this sequence you do not see the characters, but what you do see can help to establish the character types, you see the boy running through the forest, all you see is his shoes which establish that he is an ordinary person, fairly young as he is wearing white trainers, which could help the audience to decide whose side they think they ma be on for this film. they may feel sympathy as in this shot he is clearly in danger, which is shown by the way this character is running and panting.
Owl in the red


Camera work
When filming our product we made sure that we did not use a tripod, we wanted a point of view, hand held camera to be used. To make a better effect, so the audience would be in the characters point of view. We got the idea from parts of 'Momento' and mainly the 'Blaire witch project' which is a little more horror then thriller however we wanted to see the effect it had on the audience, it would make them feel in the position of the suspect, running away from the antagonist, and also being in the antagonists point of view when in the dark rooms. There was not much camera work involved apart from the handi cam, because we didn't have to ensure any particular shots etc.Creepy Forest

Sound
when we filmed our sequence we got some unwanted sound - wind, voices, background noises etc.. so when we were editing we removed some of these sounds, as they make our production sound unproffessional. We did, however, use some of the sounds we had such as the sound of the running, the dialogue etc, which helped to put across meaning in our opening, and gains the reality of the situation the characters are in. We also added in some sounds upon editing, such as the white noise inbetween clips, this heps to make the white noise very frightening, as the unnatural sudden lack of picture combined with the sound can startle the audience.
Mental state

Digital Moodboard

Picture 3 

the_blair_witch_project_05-19


slender1 

SlenderMan06 



By Michael

ROUGH CUT

Our Thriller Project 



 Rough cut of thriller project.

Monday, 14 February 2011

Target Audience

Target audience

Picture 3











The target audience for our thriller project is both male and females ages 15-30. Our target audience can be divided into two categories 15-20 and 20-30, because they will have different interests. Teenagers enjoy things like going out with their friends to cinema's which the older category may also enjoy, so our project would appeal to them both. However teenagers or 15-20 year olds like going out clubbing, shopping with friends, sports activities etc.
cinemà
Picture 4

Our thriller project conforms to the 15 classification meaning that no-one under the age of 15 can view it, because it may be found inappropriate. We feel that our target audience 15-30 allows teenagers to enjoy our film but also allows the older generation as-well, although if anyone above 30 feels they want to watch it there are no restrictions that they can not, we just feel that 20-30 year olds would enjoy it, as university students etc as-well as teens enjoy watching 'scary films'. Majority of 20-30 year olds are employed and have children perhaps so they feel a need to go out once and a while and see films at cinemas.
Our product would be enjoyed by our target audience mainly because of its genre being a psychological thrillers, we tried making it similar to other professional psychological thrillers like 'Catch me if you can', and 'Momento' which have been popular with 15-35 year olds. This is why we have tried to get our project similar to others to ensure our target audience will enjoy it.

Saturday, 12 February 2011

Font Examples

FONT EXAMPLES
I searched on google for thriller fonts and this is what i found out, they are all very similar, usually capitals or the first and last letters are bigger then those in the middle, this is clearly a convention of the font of thrillers. Looking at various other examples of thrillers title sequences, I can see that the colours are generally dark, ie black, blue, red, usually a connotation of the theme or genre. However white is usually used with black, for example black background with white text or vise versa. Examples of this would be 'Inception' 'Catch me if you can' and 'Phone booth'.
FONTS
I researched different kinds of thriller fonts online and found a bunch of them, i put them all together on one image to look at them as a whole and compare, and looking at them its clear why they are used, they are mostly bigger on the first and last letters, also capitals are used alot of the time, aswell as the ends of the letters being exaggerated. Some of the fonts have an almost scratched look about them, making it look scary, also some fonts have things like blood dripping from the bottom of the letters.

Thursday, 10 February 2011

Font and colour scheme of title sequence.

INCEPTION











This shot of the title sequence from inception shows the colour scheme being simple, black and white, black background with white bold and in capitals writing so that it stands out and the audience is immediately drawn to it, because it is the production company name. The font looks simple and sophistocated perhaps trying to suggest the genre.

Wednesday, 9 February 2011

What we have learnt from Amar

Script writing

  • Write all ideas
  • Write it simple like so that everyone knows what the story does entail.
Writing your script


  • Each scene should have a new paragraph
  • Label with interior and exterior
  • End with day or night to show what time it is.
Walkthrough

  • Acting it out will help to identify problems
  • Don't make it too complicated.
Location Recce


  • When you find a suitable location, take lots of photographs to know where everything is.
  • Source info, e.g location of toilets, car park, food etc.
  • Think about filming location without background noise for dialougue.
Digital storyboard


  • Take a variety of shots so background etc. is visible.
  • How things look
Shotlist

  • Always have shotlist, annotate script
  • Tell story in the simplest way

 Sam, Michael, Saffron and Lindsay

Why thriller thrive!

 We go to the cinema to see our lives reflected on the screen, but the kind of lives we don't actually experience ourselves or the same life but with differences, emotional disturbances also known as ''thrills''.
We feel that our nature needs ''shake ups'' other wise without them we become sluggish, but our best way to experience this is artificially, on the screen. When in a theatre we can see what's happening from out seats, and we can watch the struggle of life, but to appreciate the characters we have to project ourselves into their consciousness, where we get our thrills 3, which isn't a good method, watching a film we don't watching we participate in the movie. 
When we are watching the films we are put in the thrillers seat, so that shudder runs through us as the audience but we know there is no harm as our subconscious knows that we are safe in our chairs just watching. Even when we leave the cinema they can leave us with a subconscious assurance of safely but yet still surprise our imagination into playing tricks on us. There is a another type of thrill where the audience seems to participate, where a certain characters have gained the audiences sympathy and is then involved in danger, and the screen can be used to make the impression of great danger when in-fact there is none. 
An example of this would be that suppose the protagonist is to throw themselves over a castle rampart into a moat filled with a crocodile on stage you can hear the characters should there are crocodiles and you see the hero jump upstage and disappear and hear maybe some water splash, this isn't as affective. However when on screen you can see for yourself a terrible height, you see the reptiles swimming around you see him jump,fall,hit the water, you watch him swim away desperately you see and believe the evidence with your own eyes. 
Scenes that set the blood pounding through the veins, are in-fact beneficial for indigestion, gout, rheumatism, sciatica, and premature middle age. The audience thrives on thrills, the cinema thrives from the audience, the directors thrive from the cinema so everyone wins. However ''horror'' films are entirely different situation. The term ''extreme aversion'' has been loosely applied to films, to give an emotional jolt, exploit sadism, perversion, bestiality and deformity, it is wrong to be vicious and dangerous. Its aloud to be horrific but not horrible. 
Thrillers must be wholehearted the more exiting the better it is and from this we can see that the authentic ''thriller'' will thrive and the ''horror'' will soon die and fade out.

Wednesday, 2 February 2011

Digital Storyboard

SHOT 1














Character running through forest, Handicam, shot of characters feet to show movement.

SHOT 2














Unknown character in dark room looking at photo of the victim, the dark ness, shows/connotes tension.

SHOT 3














Running through forest-handi cam, showing panic as character runs away

SHOT 7














P.O.V shot in dark room of antagonist looking at photograph of the victim

SHOT 14














LAST SHOT- tilted cam to show character falling to ground.


Saffron and Sam

Risk Assesment

Possible hazards or difficulties which we may comes across whilst filming, also health and safety risks we need to consider and be aware of whilst filming.

Mis-en-scene blog.

Location 1 - The forest- giving a scary effect, because the forest is known for being scary and a place of the 'unknown'.
Location 2 - The Dark room- just to emphasize the character looking at photographs of character 1 and with the lighting in dark rooms being very low it also creates a tense atmosphere.


Costume- Young male, usual clothing, jeans, top, trainers etc.
Not giving away anything about the character being a victim, that merely relies on the body language.
Antagonist- ( unknown character ) dark clothing, connoting the ''evilness'' or maybe some kind of suit, which is common for 'patients' in psychological thrillers. Only 2 characters are shown so there is only 2 costumes, one dark, one light colored, trying to show the antagonist and protagonist roles.


Lighting- We will most likely be filming in dark areas, e.g. dark room, also in the forest we will want it to look scary and dark so we may have to wait until its dark, but also we need to be aware of the weather incase it rains/snows etc. We want it to overall be dark so that it emphasizes the psychological thriller genre and also create tension on the audience.


Props- there are not many props in our film only the characters newspaper cuttings and pictures of the victim to emphasize the fact he is 'stalking' the first character. There will be enlargers, and chemicals in the dark rooms which could be classed as props. however in the forest the only things we will have is the filming equipment which will not be seen.

Sam and Saffron

Shooting Scheduel

LOCATION 1- The forest
LOCATION 2- The Dark room


Friday 4th February- Day time

4.10- Collect camera equipment from college.

Monday 7th February- Day time

9.00- Go to LOCATION 1 : The forest

9.05-10.00- Set up equipment and begin to shoot. Shots 1, 2, 6.

Tuesday 8th February- Day time

12.20- Go to LOCATION 1: The forest

12.30-2.40-Film shots  7, 9, 11.

2.45- Go to LOCATION 2: Dark room

2.50-3.30- Set up equipment and film shots 3,4,5.

4.10- Return equipment to college.

Wednesday 9th February-Day time

11.00- Collect filming equipment

11.05- Go to LOCATION 2: Dark room


11.15-11.45- Shoot shots 8, 10.

Thursday 10th February- Day time

9.00- Go to LOCATION 1: The forest

9-05-10.00- filming last shots of 12, 13, 14.




By Saffron and Lynsey

Mindmap

Location recce

`First location: Forest ( in college grounds )
  • if there is construction work/maintenance taking place.
  • train going past - would make too much noise.
  • alot of background noise for example winds
  • weather may make it hard to film e.g. rain. snow!
  • other students in forest filming might get in the way
  • areas off limits
  • health and safety issues
Second location: Dark room ( in college )
  • other students using it
  • not enough light in the room to see what is going on
  • too much background noise from students/machines
  • not aloud to film in certain times, ( when class is on )
  • health and safety issues
  • chemicals on floor or on work tops
  • not have permission to film
Saffron and Lynsey


Pictures of our location ideas.





Google Maps of College grounds.


Facilities
Considering we are filming in the college grounds, we know that we are surrounded by the possible needed facilities, eg. Toilets, are close to the forest and the dark room, also food places are close by (refectory) and also in the case of the dark rooms for health and safety there are teachers who are around for first aid, and also eye wash stations available. So in the case of an emergency or need of toilet or food the facilities are close by and every member of our group are aware so there would be no disruption to the filming.

Saffron and Lynsey