Further research into thrillers

In my wordle, I have shown what is associated with a thriller.

Elements In Chosen Thriller Film

 Elements in chosen thriller

I have decided to write about the different elements used in the thriller film Devil. Devil was released on September 17th, 2010.

I have decided to do Devil as there are a lot of little things that inspire me and make me want to put in my thriller opening. There are many different camera shots used in the film mostly clos-up. This is good because as it is a thriller film it will be intence and will show us how the charactor is feeling. The close-up's will show the expression on the charactors face which will give a certain feeling to the audeince on what is happening. Also from the start of the film there are loads of long shots used to show the area the film is based in. It shows a very busy city with a lot of sky scrapers. This is good as it may give a sence of peace to the audience. This inspires me to do this at the start of my thriller opening. To give a long shot of a desserted town instead and show the viewers where the film will be based. Another thing about the camera angles that interested me was that whilst the guards were looking over the people trapped in the lift. It would be a high angle shot of the lift and those within it. It almost gave us the chance to know how the guards are looking on the situation.

I found the plot of the film to be very good. The film is mainly based inside a cramped lift with 5 people. I thinks it was good in how they decided to make it to be 3 men and 2 women stuck inside the lift. This is because when the attacks start happening it is very confusing to pick out who done it if it was anyone. Another thing which took my interest was that how everyone in the lift looked middle aged however only one charcter was old. In the end it shows that the Devil had took over the old womans body. This will again surprise the audience that the person least expected is infact the killer (Devil).  

Another thing about Devil that inspiers me is the amount of cuts that they used in the film. Neally every miniute there is a cut. This shows suspence as almost you can never take a rest. It gives excitment and also a thrill to watch as anything can happen. Also by using a ot of cuts it takes up less time as you can show more in one go. This is good as we will only have a limited time for out thriller opening so we would need to put as much in, in a small amount of time. The film as i said is mainly based in the lift and the security room of the building. whats interests me is how they would always cut from them two scenes and show no where else. It was really good in how it showed communication between the guards and the people trapped in the lift. In certain parts of the film there is nothing shown only diegetic sounds. This isterested me as it excites the viewer because as nothing can be seen and something only heard. It almost leaves a cliff-hanger as the audience will get more thrilled to know what was going on in the dark.

OFFICIAL TRAILOR:     

Few Screen Shots Of The Film:

Comparisons Between Original and Remake

Comparisons

We in our group had to do a remake of the clip taken from the film Collatoral. At first we thought it would not be a problem and e would be able to do it easily. However once we started we knew there would be a vast difference between ours and the original. There would be a difference mainly of Mise-en-scene and sound. After we finished the remake our video looked totally different to the original. The only thing that was he same was the actions that took place. There were a few mistkaes made while filming. Continuity was one of the problems that we had during the filming. This is because at one point one of the characters did not have the hand bag then again in the next scene he has. However this did not stop us in continuing and making a successful remake. Also we did not have the speech in the remake which was in the original instead we used non-diegetic sound throught the whole video.  Another aspect of our video that was not the same as the original was the camera shots we had done. The angels where different. We decided to this because we did not have the right ime and enough people to try and make it the same as the original. We also decided to use the slow motion effect. This was something that was not used in the original. However it did make our vide more worthwhile to watch back fter finishing.

However, we as agroup learned from these mistakes and will take them on board whilst doing our thriller opening. We do not take it as a mistake however take it as a lesson which we will do right next time and do ourselves proud. 

Original Video:

 

"Watching" Documentary about films and openings - research

I watched an half hour documentary about films and openings. In the documentary a man named Thomas Sutcliffe says "films need to seduce their audience into long term commitment. While there are many types of seduction, the temptation to go for instant arousal is almost irresistible." I think he meant that in an opening of a film you have to catch your audiences attention and keep them watching and that there are many 
ways to do this. He also mentions that many directors decide to do this from the start.


The risk of doing this is that you are then left to answer the question of what shocking things come next. There is always the risk, you have to take the chance but the negative outcome could be that you never quite answer the question and the rest of the film doesn't live up to the opening scenes.


A good beginning must make the audience feel that they don't know enough yet and at the same time make sure they don't know too little. You have to draw up rules of engagement, these crucial points at the beginning are crowded with anxiety. A deal has to be struck from the beginning, the film must come to terms with its viewers. You have to establish the tone so that the audience can adjust to its nature (whether they should be laughing, crying or scared).


A classic opening was described by a critic named Stanley Kauffmannn. He included the following:

• Film beginning with establishing shot (New York City)
• Close up of building
• Camera went up the building to a window
• Camera went into window
• Past receptionist
• To a private office

with all of this the opening informs the audience of the occupation of the main character, where they work and so forth. More importantly he said it highlighted the organisation of the world. It progressed, was rational and expected.

Kyle Cooper was created the title sequence to a film named Seven. It was very effective because it woke everyone up, told a story and introduced the obsessive nature of the main character. It also foreshadowed events and was incredibly influential.

Orson Welles created an opening sequence to the film 'A touch of evil'. He wanted the film to be done with no credits. This was done to plunge the audience into the story before they could even prepare for it. Universal studios put a nice score and credits over it so that the effect was lost. This is what happens when your signed a specific company.

'Favour trick of film Noir' means the beginning of a film is the ending, not quite a beginning at all. It is a quality many great films share and is basically a destination looking ahead to what is to come.

The film 'Shining' creates suspense because it has a easy uplift and the camera pursues the car like a predator.

Representation

This activity showed me how directors represent characters.

How teenagers are represented in ‘Misfits’. (Clip – YouTube – Misfits| A little heated E4)

The television drama ‘misfits’ is very stereo-typical it portrays youth to be very violent, sexually active and always looking for trouble especially in this clip. The two teenage characters costumes are very representative of their character. One female is wearing a bright orange jumpsuit indicating she is in some sort of youth offending program or probation, she is also wearing brand trainers displaying her age and that she is keeping up with the latest fashion. The other female is in a casual young scruffy outfit which consists of jeans trainers a jacket and hat. Many youth these days wear head gear in order to cover their face during crimes or to give off a certain persona which could be why this female is wearing a cap.

One female is slouching with one foot up on the sofa showing her comfort and carelessness. Her facial expressions and language are very patronising and aggressive. Her vocabulary is limited and shows that she is not well-educated and she talks fast with slang and swear words which automatically show her inconsideration for others around and highlights her bad attitude. Within the scene there is a fight which emphasise how teenagers can be so abusive and violent.

Post Production For Collateral Remake

Editing Process

The filming task for our collateral remake may have been fun, however the editing was quite different. As it was our first time using Final Cut Pro we had difficulties using it. Also it was our first time using the two connected mac screens which was also very new. However once we got started and got a few tips from the teacher we got on our way.

The screen shot above shows the 'bin' and the two screens. We decided to use only one of the mac screens to display everything as it will be easier to see everything. Also because using both of the screens was very confusing to us as we are still just starting off. From the image you can see that we had all of our chosen footage. However then we decided we wanted to add sound and also some effects to make it look even better.

This was the soundtrack we had decided to use. At first we thought that finding a soundtrack will be very difficult especially because it would be playing throughout the clip. This is because our original does not have any diegetic sound. The soundtrack will be played as non-diegetic music. However we got lucky as this soundtrack went perfectly along with our clip and also paused at moments where the video had slow motion.

This is the screenshot of our clip finally finished. As you can see from the Final Cut Bin we added slow motion in certain parts of it. Also another thing you can see is that the soundtrack has been inserted to play throughout the video. After having finished the video we had been told that we had made a minor mistake however it was not anything to panic about. We had been told that if we had inserted the separate clips into the bottom row of the bin, it would have been easier when coming to edit. However we did not ignore the teacher, but instead took the advice for future editing.

Overall I thought it was a really good exercise to help us understand and learn about both Final Cut Pro and also how to use the camera.    

Collateral Remake Comparisons

View more documents from abigail270595.

Comparisons between our remake of 'Collateral' and original

This is the original clip that remade. There are a number of differences between our remake and the original such as props, costume and mise en scene. Another issue with our remake is continuity. At the beginning scene there's a shot of one character without the bag that he later on drops in the scene. This is a weakness that was pointed out by one of my fellow team members. Its a fault we can learn from when filming our thriller opening. Our sound is also different. In the original, you can hear the diagetic sound of people in the clip but with ours a non-diagetic instrumental was played.

Video of active post production

This is us during the post-production stage of our Collateral remake. We briefly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of us using Final Cut Pro.

Research into film genres

Collateral final.

This is our remake of the first 44 seconds, of the film named Collateral. We used a varied amount of effects, which included: slow motion and the use of a soundtrack.We believe we have been successful in doing this, and that we have built up suspense throughout, with the use of a soundtrack, and our clever use of slow motion.

Post production: Collateral remake

Post Production

Here we used Final Cut Pro to edit our footage. We found the task quite difficult to begin with but we then became familiar with all the different buttons and tools we needed to edit the film. We all contributed with ideas and criticisms of the film so that everyone had an input. After editing the whole short film we added special effects like slow motion and fades.

 

We put all our clips into the Final Cut Pro 'bin' where we could watch over them and decide on the correct clips to put together on the timeline. On the left viewing screen is where we watched and edited the clips and on the right viewing screen was the artistic whole. We dragged parts of clips onto the timeline and slotted them in the correct order so we could have different shots and points of view.

We found the above soundtrack on YouTube and all agreed to use it as a non-diagetic sound in our Collateral remake. It didn't take us much time to find a track and agree, this was the second one we played and it sounded perfect. The instrumental built suspense and had a crescendo which would be perfect with the action going on in our clip.

 Overall I think this was a great task to prepare us for the filming and editing of our thriller opening as a group, we worked as a group and the product was successful. We are now more familiar with the filming equipment and techniques and tools to use when using Final Cut Pro.

Storyboard Of Collatoral

 STORYBOARD SHOTS

Here are a few shots of the storyboad i had done before out filming task. We as a group split up the clip time so we could each focus on a certain part of the clip. It was very useful when we started filming as we knew what to film without watching the clip again. The storyboards also helped us in remembering what shot types to do for each part of the film.

Here is part of the storyboard when the second charactor is entering the scene. As you can see it is a close up of the character and the background is faded.

As a team i was allocated to do the storyboard for the first 11 seconds of the clip. Above is the first shot of the scene where it comes in from a long shot to a close up on the character. This part of the clip also has a faded background.

Video of active post production

This is us during the post-production stage of our Collateral remake. We briefly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of us using Final Cut Pro.

Video of active post production

This is us during the post-production stage of our Collateral remake. We briefly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of us using Final Cut Pro.

Screen Shots While Editing

Screen Shots While Editing

The editing process seemed very fun whilst looking back at it. When first taking the footage we though that we had took some good shots but nothing more. We believed that our remake of collateral would be fairly mediocre however the editing made our remake much better and gave it much more meaning.

The shot above was token when we managed to get a rough idea of the footage we wanted to be in our remake. Using final cut pro we used the timeline and above you can see that the footage lasts from O - 28 seconds when the collateral trailer was about 44 seconds. After much pondering we decided to add some effects such as slowing down some sequences etc..

The shot above is similar to the first screenshot we had took however it illustrates the use to both editing windows. on the far left is the screen where we could play back our footage and cut out anything we did not want or add anything we did. on the left is the window where we could see our trailer in full making the editing process much easier. 

Originally we believed that finding the soundtrack would be very tricky and hard as we did not have enough time to make our own. However the soundtrack that we found worked perfectly with our Movie sequence with breaks and suspenseful music the non dietetic soundtrack. 

When adding the sound in which is the green bar in the timeline we wanted to start the motion pictures on 14 seconds. As we uploaded the track we needed to extract it so it was compatible for final cut pro. As we found such a good soundtrack we did not see the need to break and add in any other effects other than fiddling around with the volume of the non dietetic sounds at certain points of our remake.

Our Storyboards For Collatoral

A Few Storyboards

Storyboards proved very useful when filming, with the help of our groups pictures we knew exactly what shots to take and what shots to film when using the video camera. Firstly it felt like a lengthy and tedious task and I personally thought that I did not need to use the storyboards ads I had it all planned out and remembered in my head. However when doing the practical I strayed of task a few times. The storyboards that where with us helped us stay on task and use the correct shots.

A shot of the bag dropping ^

A shot of the bag on the floor from a worms eye view ^

Health and Safety Tutorial

Health and Safety Tutorial

During our class we had a valuable lesson in the health and safety issues when using the camera. We were told the do's and dont's by the camera technician and the best way to get the most out of these very expensive cam-corder's. Basic things such as putting in the battery and inserting the memory cards were the first things we learnt. It was pretty straight forward and everyone in our group had an opportunity to try it. After all the simple stuff we got onto turning the camera on and learning how to film. after getting to grips with the camera we felt as if we knew the basics. We were later given the tripod and after setting everything up we learnt how to get the best out of the camera modes and how they would look when expanded on the electronic white boards. Louisa had then gave us the task of taking various shots outside of the classroom with the video camera on snap shot mode. These shots included the over the shoulder shot, rule of thirds shot etc.. we had turns in taking the pictures and handling the camera and as you can see in blog 2 the pictures came out fairly well. We were then given the imperative rules when handling the camera outside of the school premises.


Such as.
1. Never leave the camera unattended
2. Use the umbrella when filming in the rain


and Louisa and the technician were very clear when telling us that if we ever hire the camera for a day or more to be sure to hand it in ON TIME

Health and Safety Tutorial

Health and Safety tutorial

In our health and safety tutorial I learnt a lot of things about the camera and how we should use it

Video of active post production

This is us during the post-production stage of our Collateral remake. We briefly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of us using Final Cut Pro.

Final Product For Collateral Remake.

Post Production For Collateral Remake.

EDITING PROCESS.

Here are a few shots of the editing process for our remake of Collateral. 

The two pictures below show what we thought was our finished video. However, we realised we wanted to add some special effects into the video, which would enable us to make it longer. Some of these special effects included: slow motion, and a fade-in at the beginning of the scene.

Next, you can see that with the shot below, the line of recording is longer, and things such as slow motion make the clip longer. Slow motion came in handy, as it enabled us to get a serious point across, and enabled our audience to recognise what we were particularly focusing on when filming. 

Below, we can see the soundtrack we used, and put on our video. The music is very tense, and added a sense of thrill to our clip. Also, it fit in extremely well with what we were trying to accomplish, so all in all the soundtrack idea was a large success. 

Finally, we can see the finished edit below. It consists of all the film we required, and also another line for our soundtrack. It also includes the special effects, which are visible in the film section of the edit. 

THE VIDEO.

If you wish to view the final product of our video, it is under the label of 'Mark Tanvir Mohammed Abigail Group 19' - you will be able to see how we used the special effects, and varied our use of slow motion, along with a lot of other things. 

Collateral (2004) Story Board.

This is my story board for the film Collateral, which was released in 2004: 

As a group we split the allocated 44 seconds into 11 seconds each, and I did 12-23 seconds. During my scene, there was no speaking at all, however there was specific focus on two men, which my group en-captured when we recreated this scene.

Health And Safety Tutorial.

During lesson time, we were given a health and safety tutorial of how to use professional cameras. We were told the do's and do nots of the camera, and of course how to function it properly. We were given examples by our teacher on how to insert the battery and memory cards into the camera, and then told to try it ourselves. All of us managed this without any trouble. We were told the use of each button on the camera, and then introduced to the tripod. The tripod is easily used, and we learnt how to securely open and close it. We also learnt how to lock the camera on top of the tripod, which makes filming a lot easier in certain occasions. 

Next, we learnt a few of the necessary shots needed to film. For example, we practised over the shoulder shots, and how to focus on one certain person whilst recording. Everything we have learnt has been valuable, and with our first use of the cameras, everything went smoothly and untroubled. 

We were given a few reminders about the camera when we left the room, and these were:

· Never leave the camera in an unsafe place

· Take care of the camera and use it safely

· Never leave the camera out in the rain

· Always return the camera in college at the time set

This is the camera we are using for filming. 

Collateral (2004) storyboard

0:23 - 0:33

Health & safety tutorial

We had a group session where we learnt all the health and safety rules of using the camera. Firstly we were taught how to insert the memory card and battery into their slots preventing damage to them. We each took turns practicing to ensure each member knew exactly what to do. We then learnt how to set-up the tripod in which the camera is placed on correctly. It is important that the legs are all equal and straight to avoid getting a wonky shot.

After the tutorial on setting-up, we practised recording and taking snapshots of each other.  We learnt that too much space above the head and behind the person in a side view shot are wrong and that space is very important when filming. Focus on the main character in a shot is also important so we know not to always use auto-focus as it may lead the audience to focusing on a different object or person which could give a different percept.

Health and Safety Tutorial

 HEALTH AND SAFETY TUTORIAL

In the health and safetey tutorial i had learnt a lot of new things.
First of all i had learnt the concequence of damaging the camera or if lost. I learnt how it will not only be one of the team members fault, however everyone part of group 19.
I had learnt how to handle the camera properly and how to open and put down a tripod.
I learnt what each button does on the face of the camera e.g; the zoon button, how to focus, how to check previous pictures and videos, how to change from AF - MF (Auto Focus - Manual Focus) and more.

 

Camera shots

 RULE OF THIRDS

In this shot, we used rule of thirds. I have outlined the three sections in which each person takes up a third of the frame. We use the rule of thirds to help with focusing on our subject/s.

Here we have experimented with rule of thirds again with an over the shoulder shot. A character in the first horizontal third, empty space in the second horizontal third and the 2nd characters shoulder and hood in the last horizontal third.

WIDE SHOT

Heres a wide shot of the area we were currently in. This could be used as an establishing shot because of the scenery including traffic, buildings and greenery.

CLOSE UP

This is a close up shot, as you can see there is no space above the head and the top of the head has been cut off. This highlights every feature on the face and in films will emphasize a characters facial expression.

WINDOW SHOT

 

As shown, positioning a character in front a window can have bad effects on lighting. There is not much contrast between the character and he's background. Its harder to outline the character and takes focus off him. When taking a shot of a character it is best to place them opposite a window with natural lighting so they are clearly outlined and the focus is on them and their features.

WORMS EYED VIEW - SHOT OF FEET

  This is a worms eyed view shot of feet. We positioned the feet in order of shoe size to make the shot look interesting. The reflection of the light on the floor also improves the shot.

Introduction Task

                                                                   BIG CLOSE UP

In this the first part of the task we had to do a big close up of someones face. Inturns we took goes to capture a nice still image. We also had to consider the rule of thirds as the person was in the middle with nothing on either side. This showing that the shot is only of the person. 
  

                                                                        Wide Shot
In the second part we had to take a wide shot of an area of our choice. Again in turns we took pictures of different places and picked which was best. This shot was successful as we were able to caputre a wide shot with a lot happening within it.

                                                                          Feet Shots

                                                                      Rule Of Thirds
In this shot we had to take a still shot which showedout understanding of the rule of thirds. We decided to put three people in the shot so all three places (left, centre, right) were taken.

                                                                Over The Shoulder Shot

                                                                   Lighting Issue Shots