Thriller idea (Original Idea)

Thriller Idea


This is the powerpoint of the origianl idea which we all thought was a great idea of a thriller but after we chose the idea, we began to work in more detail of how we would film the sequence and we thought it would be difficult to find enough believable characters to work in an office. We also found it hard to create an effective and believeable location for an office. This is why We decided to change our idea from 'Assembly Point' to 'Simulacrum'.

Analysis of an opening title sequence (The Shining)

The Shining Opening Sequence

Preliminary Task (Editing)

We filmed our preliminary task in the school studio which meant the light was perfect for filming, but we did a white wash just in case, because it was in the studio we had some furniture of a sofa and brick walls surrounding the characters, we also had a grey door which we used to have a character enter and exit from.

For our preliminary task we logged our shots by choosing which shots were effective and which were dull or pointless, the ones we liked we logged and saved, these would then be edited into the final prelininary video. We discarded some shots because we didnt bubble the camera which had a big effect on the shots we had used, it did make the camera seem unbalanced which didnt make the shot look good at all.

By using final cut pro we had to chack in and chack out our videos so we can edit them correctly and save our data. Even if the video didnt run smoothly we were able to click and drag certain seconds of video which helped create the continuity of the video.
One problem we faced that we found out after we edited the video that the shots were too quick and the shots changed to fast to gain camera time for one character is that the audience to gather an emotional connection, the pace of the sequence confused me as a viewer, so I would defiantly change the pace of the sequence if I got another chance to edit the video.

We used extreme close ups on one of the characters at the end of the video to show the reaction of the character, our idea was successful but I don’t think it was effective because the reaction was at the end of the video and may have been better if it was placed earlier in the video.

We used over the shoulder shots to show who is talking, I think over the shoulder shots are simple but effective to convey the story ands the characters emotion. The continuity aspect I thought we didn’t do very well at, you could clearly see where we purposely changed the shots, the video in my opinion didn’t run smoothly as it should.

My Thriller Idea

It is night time and the location is a grand manor showing the owner has much wealth and power. But in the distance we see three masked men in black clothes, the masks will be political characters such as Margaret Thatcher or Gordon brown masks to show that the reason why the masked men are there for political reasons. The man in the house is falling asleep watching TV and the three masked men walk in and kidnaps the old man and put him in the black van outside the house. The wife walks down the stairs to find that all is left is a mask on his chair.

Our idea is from a few films, such as the masks coming from Batman and The Town, then the idea of a kidnapp came from the film The kidnap of Alice Creed a British thriller.

What I expect in a thriller

Well a thriller needs to excite the audience, it needs to include tension, suspense and excitement to make a successful thriller. there are many differant types of thrillers and many thrillers also cross into the horror genre. in my opinion a thriller needs to make the audience think and create a large amount of mystery. In my mind a thriller needs to keep the audience on the edge of there seats till the end of the film, i think also it needs to make the audience think about the end and surprise them with a few twists in the story, they need uncertainty an unknown and surprsing ending. A good example of this is a film called 'Devil' right the way through the film we are kept guessing who the bad guy is and at the end it has a twist which no one would expect to happen. this is why i think the film 'Devil' is a succesful thriller which i strongly suggest watching.

Prelim task

The location we filmed in was a film set in the studio, which is set out to be an old damaged apartment. This location worked for us because we could clearly see the 180 degree line in the set, the set also looks quite real with the furniture in the set to add realism. The set made our film look more realistic and detailed. The primary role I took was director and the role of continuity in each shot because I noticed the differences between each shot we filmed, for instance if the door was meant to be open or closed. I also gave the instructions of ‘stand by and camera rolling.’

Lighting

As a group we looked at the two actors and the brightness of there bodies and faces because one had very pale skin and the other had a more tanned colour of skin. We also looked at the lightness of the room we wanted to make the scene as naturalistic as possible by using artificial lights.

By trying to create natural realistic scene lighting was key, if the lighting was too dark the viewer would find it difficult to see what was happening, and that’s why we had to do a white balance.

Filming

We set up the camera correctly first by lifting the tripod to the height we wanted it, I think the shots we chose were effective or conveying the characters status, power and relationship towards the other character. We then correctly placed the camera on the tripod, we then ‘bubbled’ the camera so that the camera was correctly balanced and was not at a tilt. We didn’t check the level of the camera at each shot because we used different heights for different shots; we mainly noticed what went right in the shot or what went wrong in the shot. We had one particular shot where you could see in the top left corner the end of the set where it was just a black wall. There was another shot where one actor opened the door and you could see the green paint behind the door, we could do nothing about it but it did stand out as we viewed each shot. We used a variety of different shot types, we used a high angle shot of one actor show show her status and power between both actors. We used a couple of times, a close up and an extreme close up so that you can clearly see their emotion and reactions of the actor. We also used a wide shot which was also used as an establishing shot of the scene, the wide shot also shows the proxemics of the two characters. The shots we used were all appropriate for our scene because they all had a hidden meaning if it shows the relationship between the two characters or if it shows the characters status.

We used a wide shot at first to establish the audience where the characters are, we also remembered the 180 degree rule which we knew we must not break otherwise it would confuse the viewer. We found it difficult to remember everything at first, such as to bubble the camera so that its level and balenced, also to place the camera on the tripod securely and successfully, it was all new to us and we found it a challenge to set up the camera. Once we had placed the camera in the first shot which was a wide shot we needed to allocate positions to each member of our group, whether they would say the lines such as 'stand by' or the person who would press the record button and then we also needed someone who would be the continuity person to keep every shot looking the same.We used extreme close ups on one of the characters to show the reaction of the character.

We used over the shoulder shots to show who is talking, I think over the shoulder shots are simple but effective to convey the story ands the characters emotion. The continuity aspect I thought we didn’t do very well at, you could clearly see where we purposely changed the shots,

We did notify the 180 degree rule and so we stuck by it, we may have moved around the 180 degree line too much, we may have had too many shots which were far too different from each other, we did not break the 180 rule but we did move very close to breaking it, almost in line the 180 degree line but we all knew that we must not go past that invisible line.

In the practical lessons I have learnt how to set up a camera and tripod correctly, I have been able to work in a small group to be able to film a simple but complete scene with one camera, I have learnt in our group that it takes a long time to perfect only a few seconds of film, I have learnt the basics on how to edit the scene we filmed.

Camera shots

This video shows the differant camera shots I have been learning in Media studies in the past 6 weeks. The video also gives an explantion to new camera shots which I have yet to learn, i.e the arc shot with circles a scene or character which increases the tension of the scene. they show the tracking movement which by tracking in twoards a character grabs the audience's attention and focus on the character and by tracking out shows that the narrative and scene has finished. they also show a tilt shot which shows the characters status and power. I learnt the crab shot which follows the characters movements at a low level, for example following their feet and the pace at which they move accross the scene. The video shows differant zoom shots and explain that it can be used as an alternative to a tracking shot.

We used a number ofr differant camera shots explained in this youtube video in my prelim video such as

Zoom
Wide shots
Close ups on the face
Over the shoulder shots
High angle shots
Low angle shots
Extreme close ups

The low and high angle shots help show the characters power, status and relationship with the other characters in the scene. Close ups of the faces and extreme close ups show lots of detail in a characters face from every wrinkle. A wide shot shows every thing in the scene and zoom shows where the focus is and where the main attention is.