From our Prelim, what went successful was that everyone in our group was committed to contribute while we were filming. This meant that we had various of ideas to choose from while filming, for example, shot type. We managed to use the equipment safetly, using our knowledge on health and safety hazards we did earlier. We made sure that the tripod was fixed properly, that the camera wasn't loose on the tripod, and that we were aware that we could trip over the tripod easily. What we have learnt from this Prelim was that it is very important to plan beforehand (storyboard) otherwise there would be a lot of hassle. What went wrong was that some of our shots were shaky and it needed to be stable as it wont look good if our shots were shaky in our real thriller opening. We will take this into account when we film our thriller. If we were to do the Prelim differently next time, we would extend the length of the Prelim. It was only 55 seconds, which is very short.
We also struggled on putting title sequences on the Prelim, we needed some help to do this by our teacher. To make up for this, we will research more about how to add text on to clips using Final Cut Pro. There are lots of tutorials on Youtube and we will begin to look soon.
Today our group discussed on what our title should be for our thriller. First we thought about the genre of thriller, in which the title must match the genre otherwise it wouldn't look appealing to our target audience of ages 15+. We came up with titles such as "Killer", "Chained in", and "No where to go" but we thought the title was too much on the side of horror instead of thriller so we decided to think of more names. In the end, we decided to use the location of our thriller as our title, which is "Undercroft". We believe this would be a suitable title because then the audience would think of the name and expect the film to be something about the undercroft which it is. Also, there are lots of random things in the undercroft, so the title does not give away the plot, for example, the title "Killer", we thought that would give away the plot easily. In a thriller, it is good to keep the audience entertained so giving away the plot in the title is not good.
When brainstorming various locations for our title sequence:
- The college undercroft
- A Park
- One of our groups homes
- A warehouse
- A classroom
After much discussion, we decided to use the schools Undercoft as the location for our film as it fitted the genre the film.
The college created a sense of normality, in which a college has security in which the students are meant to be safe and protected at all times. We used the idea of the victim being held beneath the school, a place where they're supposedly supposed to be safe to create juxtaposition.
We decided not to use other locations such as a warehouse because it will cost us a lot of time, consent to use the warehouse will have to be considered by the owner of it. Taking equipment outside college will cost time and energy.
The most common pattern used in film title opening sequences is:
Production Company Ident
Without the production company, there would be no money to fund the film, pay the actors, find locations etc They are at the peak of the hierarchy. Distribution Company Ident
The company who promotes the film via print, media and internet. Distribution Company in Title Sequence
Repetition of the distribution company shows their importance. Production Company in Title Sequence
Repetition of the production company shows their importance. Actor 1
Always a A-list actor, they;re put before the film title to attract the audience in as they are so known. Actor 2
Always a A-list actor, they;re put before the film title to attract the audience in as they are so known. Film Title Actor 3,4,5 etc
This will usually be the lesser known actors as they are shown after the film title Casting
The people who audition the actors for specific roles they want. Costume Music Superviser
The people who overlook the making of the film soundtrack and scores. Music By Editing By Production Designer Director of Photography Executive Producers Written By Director
Usually the final name shown in the title sequence.
These are the various types of shot types that we have used in our Prelim.
Close up shots were used to build tension between the two characters involved in the scene. It also shows expression on the individual in which in our Prelim, Danielle was expressing anger.
Extreme wideshot was used to establish the details of the location.
Mid-shot was used to give details of the surrounding around the individual.
Tracking shot was very effective as it links to the purpose of the scene, Danielle was walking and the tracking shot links as it follows the subject within the scene
High angle shot is effective as it makes a person vulnerable and powerless as the shot is looking down on the person.
Low angle shot makes a person look powerful and dominant as the camera is shooting up at them, making the person look big.
Panning shot is a shot in which allows you to follow and track movement of a moving object, in which in our Prelim we used a panning shot to track Danielles movement to the door.
Two shot is used to establish the relationship between two people in the shot.
Over the shoulder shot was used to show the conversation between two people, in which gives the audience a sense of relationship between the two characters.
Flaming Cactus Productions Ident
Group 46 Ident
Flaming Cactus Productions in Titles
Group 46 in Titles
THE TAKING
Actor 1
Actor 2
Actor 3 and 4
Other Actors
Costume Designer
Casted by
Music Director
Music By
Editor
Production Designer
Director Of Photography
Executive Producers
Written By
Director
The movie that I will be analysing in terms of mis en scene, cinematography, sound and editing is "Dredd (2012)". In my opinion, while watching this film I believe it is very entertaining in terms of editing and mis en scene.
The film Dredd is a hybrid action-thriller movie, in which has elements of sci-fi and crime aswell. It is set in Washington DC, in which the streets are ruled by chaotic gang members. Officers called "Judges" are the new police in which have the combination powers of judge,jury and execution. They have the power to execute a criminal on the spot without permission from anyone eles. This is what makes the film exciting, the plot is original and based on the famous legendary british comic "Judge Dredd".
PLOT
The plot is about a Judge (Dredd) and a woman (Anderson) who has pyschic mind reading skills, and it is her duty to protect Dredd. Also, Anderson is currently on her test on becoming a Judge, so she is a rookie. Both Anderson and Dredd have been trapped in a block of flats(called peach trees) controlled by a powerful gang of hundreds. It is 2 VS 100 which makes it seem impossible, but this is what makes the film exciting to watch.
MISE EN SCENE
Advanced technology than there is today is shown, such as motorbikes built in with explosive rockets. This portrays the sci-fi element. The thriller element comes in with the suspense and sound created by the explosive rockets blasting out of the motorbike "Gun". Alot of weapons (machine guns, pistols) are portrayed in this movie, in which adds extra action suspense to this movie. Also, the armor that Judge Dredd is wearing portrays the power he has, to execute. The weapons that he holds show his toughness. The enemies are dressed with normal casual clothes, which shows the difference between Judge Dredd and the enemy, that Dredd is a higher, more skilled class than the enemy.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Alot of close ups are used to show expression on the individuals face, these include those who are in pain and those who are fearless. In which for example, a close up of Judge Dredd's face is shown when he is battling with the enemy, this shows the ruthless and ambition of his him and potentially his job. A close up of an enemy after he has been shot shows that he is fear of death in which he is sweating and crying. There is also a lot of wide shots to remind the audience that the film is set in the future, in which the setting is more technologically advanced than today. There are various camera angles such as high angle shots which makes the enemy vulnerable to Dredd.
EDITING
There are scenes in this film that are slowed down in which links to the "drugs" that slows down time. These drugs are used by the enemy to torture their victims, in which they force them to inhale a drug which slows down time in their brain, and then they are thrown down a 1000ft balcony. The drugs will trick their mind in slowing it down therefore the victim are experiencing a slow death. The editing is used very well in these scenes. The colour is also changed while the victim is taking the drug, which portrays artificialness.
SOUND
The non diegetic in this movie is very intelligent, in which the music is thrilling using the combination of different instruments (Drums, Violin, guitars). There is suspense created by the music throughout the film, which makes it exciting to watch. There are build ups of small volume of non diegetic music, and then it gradually increases to increase the suspense of whats going to happen (either an upcoming gunfight or a chase). The sound is a very important convention in which it creates a face paced atmosphere, this is an important component in a thriller.
Recently our media class was given a health and safety tutorial which consists of an introduction to setting up a JVC camera to a standard tripod, inserting SD memory cards into the camera and how to manually focus a camera which is considered very important when shooting any film.
Equipment introduced to: SD cards, JVC camera, tripod, still camera, video drive, mic, integral usb
Narrative openings are when the first part of the film is shown with titles. The titles can either be superimposed, which is where the titles appear over the images on screen or inter-cut where the titles appear between between images. Panic Room is an example of a thriller with a narrative sequence in which superimposed titles are included.
Discrete Title Sequences
Discrete title sequences are those that include random short scenes/images that stand apart from the film with titles. It may contain elements and hints to indicate what the plot or/and genre may be but is not part of the actual narrative of the film. An example of a thriller that has a discrete title sequence is Se7en.
Stand Alone Titles
Stand alone titles are sequences that are made up entirely of titles. They usually appear white on back which will then lead into the film. This will create an atmosphere full of suspense and tension, giving an edgy feel which is why it is common amongst the thriller and horror genres. The opening sequence of 2001 thriller Donnie Darko is an example of a stand alone title sequence.
Shot type: there are
a variety of shot types. E.g. low angle shot, close up shot, wide shot. Shot types are generally used to portray meaning to the scene, for example, an extreme close up is used to show the individuals feeling and expressions while a wide shot will describe to the audience about the setting (e.g.weather) and the enviroment (to suggest for example, is the enviroment industrial, poorly built, rich?).
Tripod : used to
steady the cam recorder, or either helps sustain e.g. a pan from left to right
movement creates a smooth moving image.
Setting white
balance: it is the system the camera uses to recognise the colour "white" and
then recognises other colours to produce the best quality video possible for when we edit using final cut it is in its finest detail and not blurry.
There are different
features on final cut pro, such as creating text for example, introducing the cast
names at the start or the directors
name. We could also edit the audio of our
footage e.g. increase the sound levels in parts of the scene to create suspense and meaning.
Sound/music
: we use garage band to edit and make our music. It is very useful as you can combine different sounds from different instruments to create an original sound/music for a particular scene. Some of the instruments include strings, guitar, violin and many more. The piece of sound/music created can then be superimposed to our film.
Although we have been told how to use and handle equipment in previous units of work, Mickey gave us a refresher lesson on the dos and don'ts of handling equipment. We learnt how to make the tripod stand properly without falling by using the security clips in the middle and bottoms of the tripod legs. We were told how to secure the camera correctly in to the top of the tripod and tighten it into position so that the camera does not fall out of the tripod holder, when carrying it around. Mickey also told us where the on and off button are, how to focus the camera correctly, where the memory cards must be inserted and how to zoom in and out (although he advised that zooming in and out creates poor effect when filming some footage.)
Sub-Genre The film 'Let me in' has a blend of genres of Horror, Mystery, Romance, and most importantly, Thriller. The convention and choice of mis en scene brings the audience a sense of genre. For example, the setting of the movie is in the winter (snow), which signifies darkness as in the winter, days are the shortest. The use of red color throughout the trailer signifies potential danger to the audience, or maybe a sign of violence and death. The music portrayed in the trailer is very effective to the scene as during the beggining there is a fast drum beat with creates atmosphere, suspense and this
heightens the distress towards the audience. The light and dark lighting used in the trailer shows the characters feelings, emotions and expressions. As most thriller films contains low keylighting e.g. shadows across the face may establish the mood created in the
scene.
Coraline is stylised opening it begins with a stand alone opening, in the order of 'Distributor Ident, Producer Ident put into the stand alone opening, Film title as there were no major voice actresses actors in the film and then went on with the actor/actresses name titles.
After 0:40, the opening changes from stand alone to discrete , we see clips of a doll being taken apart then sown back together, during this, the titles continue: Lead Animator, Concept Artists, Art Director, Storyboard Supervisor, Editors, Visual Effect Supervisor, Music By, Supervising Animation, Director of Photography,Produced by x2, Based on the Novel and finally Director. Because the film is an animation, it didn't follow the usual order of titles usually seen in films.
The music in this goes from a minor to a major key which gives the opening quite a somber, sinister, eerie feel to it, the lighting in the animation also contributes to the eerie, sinister feel, we are given a sense of mystery from the lack of light and shadows made from the doll.
From the opening, I can tell that this is a PG film, mainly based at children from 3-12, I assumed this because Laika productions are most known for making PG animated films whose target audience are young children.
There are three categories in which a films opening can go under depending on it's structure
Stand alone titles
Narrative Openings
Discrete Openings
Stand Alone Titles
This type of film opening always shows most of the time as white writing on a black background.
Narrative Openings
Discrete Title Sequences
Discrete Title Sequences are edited sequences that is apart from from the film, they give the audience a insight of the films plot and/or mood but do not actually reveal what the film will be about.
It's often heavily edited and stylised and support most of the opening titles/credits
Stylised Editing
Stylised editing is when a opening includes a mix of two of the film structures shown above.
In one of our previous media lessons, we were given a health and safety tutorial/recap on how to se the equipment we will be using over the period of the next three months. We were re-introduced to handling the JVC Camera and Tripod and how to make sure we had securely placed the camera onto the tripod. During the course of the tutorial, we learnt how to film basic shots, how to zoom, pan and tilt with the camera, hot to adjust the tripod on it's different height levels and how to insert and eject the SD card and battery from the camera correctly.
I have been looking through different types of thriller movies and i noticed a thriller poster which looks very interesting. The thriller poster that caught my eye was "28 days later", here is an image below.
Some of the conventions that I have noticed when I first saw this was the use of the colour red, in which signifies intense danger; 95% of the poster is dominated by the colour red. This also shows the dominance of the current massacre that is going on in the movie. You can see there is one person standing in front of London City, in which could show that there is some kind of extinction of humans. The title "28 days later" shows that there is something going on that hasn't been stopped yet. The sub titles on the top which says Day 1,Day 2, Day 3 ect. These are effective as it links with the title (28 days later), in which shows that there is a continious thing going on. The words "exposure", "infection", "epidemic", "evacuation" and "devastation" are all strong words related to a serious case of massacre. The genre to this film is a horror/thriller in which is the same genre as my thriller.
This research is an inspiration to my thriller project as it taught me that it is important for the title to link strongly towards the film itself. It also taught me how small conventions (mis en scene) such as colour can have a big impact on the meaning of the scene, for example, if the killer was wearing a yellow suit in my thriller attempting to murder, it would look silly and pointless.
The title sequence of the 1979 action thriller 'The Warriors' includes a structure similar to a discrete title sequence. Some shots and scene stand apart from the film sort of similar to montage editing and cross cutting . The scene also jumps back to the titles which then classes the scene as a discrete title sequence. although the sequence is mainly discrete, towards the beginning it is shown as stand alone titles as there is only one plain moving graphic behind the titles.
At the very start of the film normally the producers indent shows separably with there own opening but in this film it is merged together and is shown as one of the titles in the opening sequence. The sound is present to create an eerie atmosphere and as it builds up so does the title opening. as the scene progresses the pace increases especially when the warriors enter the train, also this scene depicts what type of audience it is, we can tell its between young teens/adult men as it is aimed to be an cult action thriller.
Today we had the lesson on how to use soundtrack pro.
We were shown how to import our previously made video into soundtrack pro and add different tracks to it to create our own opening sequence composition.
Intertextuality is when a film borrows some ideas and elements of one film and add it to the their own. They may borrow types of Editing, Mise en Scene, Camera Angles and Sound.
I looked at the thriller films Stepfather and Fatal Attraction, looked at the similarities and also looked at the famous bathroom scene in which leading female protagonist gets stabbed in the shower in the film Psycho.
In this scene we see the female protagonist showering in an all white bathroom The protagonist being surrounded by white, gives a sense of afterlife and innocence. The anti-hero approaches her with the typical slasher convention, a knife. The protagonist is unaware of his presence. He creeps forward, opens the shower curtain and stabs the protagonist multiple times.
The 180 degree rule is very important and will be taken into consideration when our group films the opening of our thriller. Here is an example of a picture that represents this:
The 180 degree rule claims that when filming, the camera should stay on one side of an imagery line.
It is important that the 180 degree rule is not broken in for example, over the shoulder shots. If it is broken in this case, (the individual that is being filmed is talking to someone eles) the person would be looking in the opposite direction which will confuse the audience and overall it wont look professional.
The 180 degree rule is mainly broken when there is camera movement such as a panning shot. If the identical line is crossed then the audiences viewing experience will be disappointing.
It is important that when our group is filming, we don't break the 180 degree rule as it will make our film look unprofessional and will put the meaning context of the scene look unorganised and confusing.
Today, Mikey came and gave a tutorial on how to do basic titles of Final Cut Pro
He showed us how to put titles on a opening sequence we had made and put simple effects on the titles such as fade in and out.
This is the distribution companies ident. These are the people that fund the film, so without them there would be no film. This is the distribution company, mentioned again in the title sequence, emphasising the importance of their role.
This is the production company, mentioned in the title sequence. These are the people that organise the film, help set it up and get everything together. They make use of the money from the distribution company.Without them, like the distribution company, the film would not come together. They are at the top of the hierarchy.
This is the name of the costume designer. The costume designers play a big part in creating connotations of the characters. Costume is part of a films mise en scene.
This is the name of the person who is in charge of what music and sound plays throughout the film, in specific scenes. They play a huge part in creating different types of atmospheres in different scenes.
This is the name of the actor who plays the main character. This is presumably because his name appears first. The less important the actor the further on they will appear in the title sequence. This is the title of the actual film. This is important because it reassures or tells the audience the name of the film they are watching. By the name of the film being super imposed over a character makes the audience know that this is the main character.
