Focus Group

 This lesson we were asked to make a focus group which included me and my group interviewing individuals from our media class to explode more about our thrillers. This gave us an opportunity where we could ask people about our ideas on our thrillers, what they thought about it and how to improve on it. We had three ideas for a thriller, these were:


 Someone is being chased by mummies, this leads to them getting hit by a car. They are rushed to hospital but the mummies follow them so they are forced to run away for safety: which concludes the character to run through a graveyard however the character finds themselves trapped in the graveyard full of mummies.

 The other thriller idea was that men in the neighbourhood with their hoods up follow a young lady, their motive is to rob/rape the female. The camera goes away from the action so we don't know what is going to happen, we're going to include an enigmas to make our film more interesting and dramatic. All of a sudden lights flash  then the young lady comes out of the alley way with confidence almost as if she has done something bad, smiling.

 The last idea for our thriller was to have our thriller's main location to be in a hospital/graveyard. Our idea consisted of a person waking up in an hospital with confused, with no idea on what they’re doing there. She then begins to have short period flashbacks thinking it must have been what happened. These flashbacks consist of supernatural activities as the person first finds him/herself in a hospital and she 'knocks a cup of tea on the table on the side onto the floor', a series of other activities happen but the person end up being chased to a graveyard where she sees some sort of zombie appear out of nowhere, the scene ends after this. The audience will at first believe that they are flashbacks on what happened and the reason for her being in the hospital when really there premonitions on what is due to happen as the film goes back to the footage of the person being in a hospital, does the exact things she did in her flashback and as she knocks over the tea she realises that something supernatural is happen and as she walks out her room to inspect the same zombie which she saw in the grave yard suddenly appears behind her/him.  

These are the questions we asked:

1. Do you think a red herring would work?
2. Because our thriller is only 2-3 minutes. What do you think the focal point should be?
3. Do you think we should film it at night or day?
4. What type of thriller would you like?
5. Which ideas do you like the best ?
6. Do you like the idea of a non-chronology order?

Overall the people we interviewed thought our third thriller idea was the best idea to get higher marks in our media coursework, they thought a red herring would make the thriller much better and effective. Their ideas and opinions will help improve our thriller for the better, it gave us an insight to what other people may think about thrillers in general.

Focus Group

This the focus group we had in order to pitch our ideas of thriller openings.
We had three ideas we were introducing;

1. The first idea was somebody being chased by mummies, and this lead to him being run over by a car. He was rushed to the hospital, but they were following him there. Therefore, he ran away. He ran straight into a graveyard and was eventually surrounded by mummies. 
2. The second idea was that men in the neighbourhood with their hoods up follow a young lady, their motive is to rob/rape the female. The camera goes away from the action so we don't know what is going to happen, we're going to include an enigmas to make our film more interesting and dramatic. All of a sudden lights flash  then the young lady comes out of the alley way with confidence almost as if she has done something bad, smiling.
3. Our final idea was based in a hospital/graveyard. Aperson wakes up in a hospital and appears to have no recollection on what's going on an how they got in to the hospital in the first place. Then the person starts to have sudden flashbacks. The flashbacks seem to consist of supernatural activity.  

Overall, it was decided that the third idea was the best idea we had.

Recipe for James Bond Thrillers

Any James Bond would have to be dashing, sexy and heroic. His character has to be smooth and blatantly self confident. An eccentric villain of equal / greater strength. It always requires gorgeous women that James Bond will make love to. There are likely to be, exotic, beautiful locations. Lastly, there is usually one or two exciting, fast paced driving scenes, which include the context of either; James Bond being chased or him chasing a villain.

James Bond films tend to start off with a new 'Bond Theme-tune'. This is a track that is performed by a talented, well known artist, which is used to help promote the film. The track is usually played in the opening credits. 

The opening credits are then usually followed up by opening action scene. This is, most of the time, James Bond being chased or him chasing some (by foot this time), or him fighting a villain. 

This is a very well known opening scene from the film, Casino Royale. It is filled with excitement and fast paced action. In my opinion, the parkour runner made this scene very exciting for me. It was exciting to see James Bond's athleticism challenged. It was a good way to begin the film as it leaves the audience wondering who James Bond was chasing and why he was was trying to kill him. Overall, a fantastic opening scene.

           
                  

The Spy who loved me has a very interesting opening scene. It starts off with James Bond leaving one of his sexy blonde partners in a cabin and it appears she doesn't want him to leave. However, as soon as he does, it turns out that she is not as trust worthy as the audience would have assumed. This opening scene is very exciting, mainly because of the fast paced action and non diegetic music. When the music starts to pick up pace and increase volume, the audience knows that James Bond is in a rush and the tension builds up higher and higher.

The film starts with a dramatic and exciting car chase which automatically makes the audience sit on the edge of their seats. An aspect that creates tension and thrill is a close up shot when the villains' car is headed into a huge a huge truck which is about to crash into them, and it is as if we are put in the position of sitting in the back seat which suddenly makes us sc ared and nervous because we almost feel as if we are going to die as well. In all of these scenes/images the speed of the shots and effects are all very quick as we instantly flick from one image to another. Throughout the movie, effects are sharp, loud, quick, along with very effective as they are mainly diagetic sounds though many were non diagetic. During the opening scene it was surprising that the non diegetic sounds worked superbly as it was most effective.

Skyfall also delivers the incredible action we come to expect in every Bond film, it also has a layer of character, depth and scope that half- century series has never seen before. Bond is more than just a comic book hero in this film has never seen before. Bond is more than just a comic book hero in this film.Bond has always been about the same things, but now we also get a rich back story, this james Bond, shatters the tongue-in-cheek stereotype. Many critics that have anointed Skyfall the best James Bond film ever made.

Alfred Hitchcock

Born in London on August 13, 1899, Alfred Hitchcock worked for a short time in engineering before entering the film industry in 1920. He left for Hollywood in 1939, where his first American film, Rebecca, won an Academy Award for best picture. Hitchcock created more than 50 films, including the classics Rear Window, The 39 Steps and Psycho. Nicknamed the "Master of Suspense," Hitchcock received the AFI's Life Achievement Award in 1979. He died in 1980.

Hitchcock wanted to be a recognisable and distinctive director. His films usually featured a fugative on the run or a very beautiful blonde woman. A lot of his films had twisted endings or very thrilling plot featuring depictions of violence, murder and crime, although many of the mysteries function as decoys or "MacGuffins" meant only to serve thematic elements in the film & psychological examinations of the characters.

Hitchcock's films usually had characters struggling in relationships with their Mothers. In North by North West, Roger Thornhill is an innocent man ridiculed by his mother for insisting that shadowy, murderous men are after him. In The Birds the main character, an innocent man, finds his world under attack by vicious birds, and struggles to free himself of a clinging mother The killer in Frenzy  has a loathing of women but idolises his mother. The villain Bruno in Strangers on a Train hates his father, but has an incredibly close relationship with his mother. Sebastian  in Notorious  has a clearly conflictual relationship with his mother, who is suspicious of his new bride Alicia Huberman. Norman Bates has troubles with his mother in Psycho.

The Manchurian Candidate Analysis

Manchurian Candidate is a political thriller novel about a son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party. However there's two version of this film,the first one was written in 1962, it was filmed in black and white and the was less scene with blood in it, most of the violence was suffocating people possibly because they hadn't discovered ways of making scene of false blood. The characters all fairly looked the same the men all have dark hair fairly tall.The background music is very predictable, there's less digectic sound in the older version than the newest one.

This version was released in 2004, it's significant because it shows how time has changed, first of all a black man is the front cover of this film which wouldn't of been acceptable in 1962, the actor Denzel Washington is one of the main character and he's black not only is he the only black person in the film but also a police officer in the film who also play a big role in the film Kimberley Elise. Not only is Kimberley Elise black but also she's a women who plays the police officer, in 1962 a woman wouldn't be a police officer especially a black woman. Also the characters aren't developed enough to make the audience particularly care about them. In the original, there was a lot of background on Shaw's relationship with Jocelyn, and you actually developed sympathy for him; but mainly, Laurence Harvey was an outstanding actor. The heartfelt love between Raymond and Jocelyn was expanded upon much more, in addition to the warmth Raymond shared with her father, Senator Jordan. As a result, the girl's and her father's murders in the 1962 version was much more horrifying. In the remake, there's no underlying emotion when he kills them. As a result, we, as the audience, really don't care.

As you can see, the films have changed in different areas. The most recent one is more fast paced and current. It is more aggressive and gritty. Another change is that the most recent film is in colour. This is very helpful as the original film's black and white feature is not as appealing. More colour means more clarity. 

Overall, I believe the remake is much better than the original because there is more action, red herrings and cliffhangers.

Past Student Thrillers Analysis

                 
                           

This was a very good opening. It had a very professional, well made ident. The acting  was very convincing and its use of light and darkness was smart. The non diegetic sound was very well used, it built up as the opening got more tense. Overall, it was very well done.

Finders Keepers

                  
Finders Keepers had a very good opening scene. Its camera shots were very well captured and its use of action was brilliant. What gave this opening scene a twist from the others is that it had a lot more action. It reminded me of the parkour chase from the opening scene of James Bond Casino Royale. The non diegetic music was a little 'cheesy' but it seemed to suit the the action going on in the thriller.

The Betrayal

                       
This was a decent opening thriller. It had a good storyline. It's use of flashbacks to help tell the story was brilliant. The way the non diegetic music turned into diegetic music when the girl opened the door was very good. However, it had its flaws. The lighting was too dark. The camera handling was a bit too shaky. The ident was very random in my opinion. 
Overall, I think this opening thriller could have been better.

Second Preliminary Activity Media Youtube

For this task, we were asked to make a scene displaying the following factors of Continuity Editing;

• Eye -Line match
• Match-On-Action
• Graphic Match
• The 180 Degree Rule

The scene we created was of me waiting for Nicholas to arrive as we were supposed to go somewhere. However, Nicholas was late and when he arrived he explained why he was late. I was frustrated with the lateness but we still went where we had to go.

As you can see, we have included all the Continuous Editing factors. i think it was very well displayed.

Romance Goes Wrong Media Youtube

Romance Goes Wrong 

This production task was to film a conversation using a camera by capturing 'master shots' and 'cut away'.When editing this conversation we added parallel sound which is sound that goes with scene we used the sound of a heart beat when there was a fighting scene because that matched the theme. Unfortually we didn't use any contrapuntal sound as all of the sounds we used blended with the video.

When editing our video we used final cut express which allowed us to cut out parts we didn't want in our video and fastened up scene that needed to be more upbeat, we added slow soft music in the beginning to make the scene more romantic, when it started to unravel we used a faster beat to make the scene more intense. 

 We started with 17 shots and ended up with 10 shots which made the film better and more detailed. We used individual shots when different people were talking and positioned the camera differently as Michael walked towards the main scene. We added text at the beginning to give our film a better opening.

 We speed ed up the music by editing it using final cut express, we could of made the film better by making the actors talk louder and clearer because we noticed that its fairly hard to understand what some of us were saying at times of the filming however we did use background music to cover up that mistake which did make the film slightly better and easier to understand. Overall I'm pleased with the outcome of our film as we had a good team and a directer who was good on the camera and everyone was given a part to play.

Opening of Thrillers: Brick, No Country for Old Men, Zodiac

In our class, we watched four opening scenes for some past thrillers. This was to get an idea of how thrillers tend to begin and reel in the viewers.

Brick 

The opening scene to this film was fantastic. It was very still which gave a very chilled effect. Its use of non diegetic music was a very key factor in the opening as it created a very chilling and yet peaceful effect when the young man stares at the dead and pale body of a young blonde woman. Three great shots in this opening are; Where there is a full shot of the man staring at the dead woman, the shot of the woman's blonde hair lying in the sewage water, and the shot  of the woman's hand also lying in the sewage water. 

No Country For Old Men

The opening for No Country for Old Men was another great opening. It had no non diegetic music at all. However, it had Tommy Lee Jones' character narrating about himself. The tone of his voice is very low, calm and strict. This gives an idea that the film is very still. It starts with a man being arrested and taken to a police station. The film begins to get even more surprising when the arrested man slowly and calmly walks towards the officer that arrested him and strangles him the handcuffs around his wrists. This is a very effective scene as there was still no non diegetic sound. Usually, scenes like this use chilling non diegetic music.

Zodiac

The opening scene for Zodiac is quite different. It starts off with a teenage boy and girl driving to a quite area. The teenage girl seems quite enthusiastic and interested in the boy, whereas the teenage boy seems quite unsettled and shy. Then a car arrives and suddenly the girl's mood changes. She seems more alert and worried. This was a good scene as it started to seem more like a thriller, it gives you the idea as if something bad is about to happen to the teenagers. 

There is only diegetic sound which gives a more still and realistic feeling. Then suddenly the two are shot several times and the diegetic music from the stereo of the car becomes non diegetic and louder.

Brighton Rock

A remake of Graham Greene's classic novel about a small-town hood who marries a waitress who witnessed him murdering a rival thug in order to keep her quiet. As his gang begins to doubt his abilities, the man becomes more desperate and violent. Whilst Mods and Rockers fight on the Brighton beaches in 1964 Pinkie Brown, member of Spicer's gang, aims to wipe out his boss and take over the town from rival mobster Colleoni. Prior to the murder of Fred, one of Colleoni's men, naive waitress Rose Wilson had unfortunately been photographed with Fred. Pinkie marries Rose to keep her quiet but Ida, Rose's employer and a friend of Fred, has her suspicions and makes it her business to save Rose from Pinkie's clutches.

This is a fantastic thriller. What makes it so good is the character Pinkie, he has all the aspects of a good thriller; Violence, Darkness, Anger, Suspenseful, resourceful etc...

A brilliant scene from the film is when Pinkie asks Rose out on a date and she accepts. Suddenly he pulls out a gun but it turns out that it was a different scene from their date, were Pinkie is using a toy gun to win her a prize at the fair. What makes this scene so good is that when he pulled out the gun, it was as if he was pointing it at her, leaving the viewers in a great deal of suspense.

Another scene is right at the end of the film. We see Rose in a care home of some sort after the death of Pinkie. Earlier on in the film, she asked him to make a record of him telling her how much she loves him. However, Pinkie knows that Rose does not have a record player so he tells her how much he despises her instead. Now at the end, Rose is desperate to hear Pinkie's voice one more time so she borrows a record player and plays his record for the first time. This leaves the audience in shock and worry for her because Rose is already in an awful state. The recording starts and says, "You asked me to make a record of my voice, well hear it is. What you want me to say is I love you". Then the rest of the recording is ruined and all she can hear is him saying "I love you" over and over again. Then the camera zooms on to the crucifix above her. Almost saying that God saved her from anymore depression.  

Psycho

Marion Crane is fed up with the way life has treated her. She has to meet her lover Sam in lunch breaks and they cannot get married because Sam has to give most of his money away in alimony. One Friday Marion is trusted to bank $40,000 by her employer. Seeing the opportunity to take the money and start a new life, Marion leaves town and heads towards Sam who is in California. Tired after the long drive and caught in a storm, she pulls into The Bates Motel. The motel is managed by a quiet young man called Norman who seems to be controlled and fed up with his mother.  For Marion Crane, it's been quite an eventful day. The day before, she had stolen $40,000 from her employer's client, packed her bags and driven all day on her way to join her lover several miles away.

Several things make this a good thriller; 

• The fact that it is in black and white, even when films have been able to watch in color
• The music is very subtle yet suspenseful 
• The murder scenes

The murder of Marion Crane is one of the most famous scenes in film history...

What makes this scene a classic is the screeching music that plays as soon as the murderer pulls the curtains, and the way the swirling water into the black hole fades to a shot of her eye at the end.

Another classic scene is right at the end of the film...




This scene is what made the film legendary. What makes it a good scene is that we finally here the mother of Norman Bates, the notorious murderer, speak. At the end, when the shot fades, if you look carefully enough you can see the Norman's face in the form of his mothers skull as he smiles.

North by Northwest

An innocent’ New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive.

North By Northwest Poster
and famous 'plane attack'scene

What makes this a good thriller is that its fast paced and it leaves you asking questions after most scenes. Roger Thornhill, the main character, is up against a corrupt organisation who are trying to kill him. He must overcome the odds in order to be free.

Another convention is the mistaken identity plot. Roger Thornhill has been mistaken for  George Kaplan, an identity created by the corrupt organisation. George Kaplan is a wanted fugitive and Roger Thornhill must prove that he is not they are after.

North by Northwest is also very famous for the 'plane attack' scene . This is a very memorable scene were Roger Thornhill has arranged to meet George Kaplan, to his knowledge. Instead, he finds himself being attacked by a plane...

Birds

      Melanie Daniels, a beautiful young blonde woman who seeks out a man she met at a pet store. But when she arrives at Bodega Bay in search of Mitch Brenner (the man from the pet store) when an unexpected war begins: a war between humanity and  birds. As ridiculous as the plot sounds, Hitchcock manages to keep it interesting with side stories;  A family torn apart, a town curious and scared and a teacher who struggles to let go of the man she once loved.

     The film is filled with suspense and terrifying scenes that make this a fantastic thriller, or possibly  a Horror Thriller. The vicious attacks from the birds keep you on the edge of your seats and covering your eyes. 

One of the film's famous scenes is when Melanie Daniels is picking up Mitch's younger sister from the local school and as she waits outside, she turns around to a terrifying surprise...

  

What makes this scene so frightening yet perfect, is that every shot of the playground shows the number of birds increase slowly and then the final shot were Melanie turns around as she watches one bird join a whole pack of birds surrounding the playground. By now the viewers would have known that the birds are the villains in this thriller and their main objective is to attack the humans, therefore leading the viewers to understand that Melanie and the students are in grave danger.  

Continuity Editing

Continuity Editing:

• Retains a sense of realistic chronology and generates the feeling that time is moving forward.
• May use flashbacks or flash towards but the narrative will still be seen to be progressing forward in an expected or realistic way.

Eye-line match

We see a character looking at something off screen and then we cut to a shot of what they are looking at.



Match-on-action

We see a character start an action in one shot and then see them continue it in the next.

Graphic Match

The filmmaker can choose to place shots in a certain order so as to create a smooth visual transfer from one frame to the next.
When two consecutive shots are matched in terms of the way they look.

The 180 Degree Rule

The 180 Degree rule is a basic guide line that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other
If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line.
Here is a tutorial explaining