Thriller Analysis 12/02/10

007 Die another day





Camera

At the beginning of the clip there is a long shot of the main character, James Bond, as he walks across the screen and stops to fire a gun directly at the camera. This surprises the audience because it is so sudden and we are not expecting it. This shot now tells us that this film is going to be full of action and suspense because of the sudden gunshot and the animated blood pouring down the lens of the camera. We are then taken to a shot of a character surfing in what seems to be very rough and violent ocean with huge waves. This again tells the audience that the film will be full of action and suspense due to the raging ocean and the surfer maneuvering through the waves easily.

Sound

There is a familiar soundtrack played at the beginning of the clip which familiarizes with the audience. It is very dramatic and sudden which creates a sense of surprise towards the audience. The music creates action for the audience because it is fast paced and loud. As James walks across the screen he stops and turns to fire a gun at the camera, a non-diagetic sound is used for the sound of the gunshot. The diagetic sound is very sudden and loud causing the audience to jump in surprise at the gunshot. The gunshot creates a thrill for the audience as it symbolizes the action and excitement of the film.

Editing

The graphics that are used at the beginning of the clip show white circles moving quickly across the screen up to James. Once the circles have landed on James they track him across the screen again as if they are targeting him. This again creates a sense of danger and excitement for the audience because of the circles tracking James making it seem like he is being followed by somebody who is targeting him with a gun.

Mise en scene

When we arrive at the beach we see what seems to be army soldiers dressed in their uniforms surveying the beach. They are speaking in a different language so we don't know what they are saying creating a mysterious and dangerous feeling about them. This creates suspense for the audience because they do not know what the soldiers are saying and whether or not they are bad or good. Afterwards we are shown the agents arriving on the beach as they remove their wetsuits revealing their suits beneath. The suits are black and appear very smart, making the audience assume that the agents are the good characters. However they also seem mysterious, which makes the audience wonder whether they are the good characters or not.



SIGNS


Signs (part 1/6)
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Camera

A mid-shot is used to show us a picture frame with a photograph of a family in it. During the same shot, we see the man quickly lean up and gasp unexpectedly creating a surprise for the audience. We are then given an establishing shot of the man in his bed sat up in complete silence. This creates an eerie feeling towards the film as the silence is very unnerving and the mans sudden gasp creates a feeling of wonder for the audience at what he was afraid of.

Sound

Whilst the credits are rolling at the beginning of the clip a soundtrack is played and it is very dramatic and suspenseful music. The music seems to be building up to the climax at the end where we are shown the title of the film in capital letters. The dramatic music implies that the film is going to be very fast paced and suspenseful. We hear at two different points in the clip the non-diagetic sound of a screaming child from far away. This sound is very chilling for the audience and creates a sense of danger and suspense for them.

Editing

At the beginning of the clip we are shown the credits of the film consisting of actors, directors, producers and other crew members. The credits are in time with the soundtrack that they are being played along side with and change each time the music raises it's pitch or noise level. The credits are in a normal aerial font and are also in capital letters. The effect of the credits changing with the music creates a suspenseful feeling towards the audience as well as setting the eerie atmosphere of the film.

Mise en scene

When we are introduced to the first character we can see that he is wearing casual sleeping clothes which consist of a plain grey shirt and trousers. This tells the audience that he is a regular person just like them and it also shows us a little about his personality. Eg, the colours may represent his personality so the grey clothes make him appear dull and regular.

Thriller Task- Groups and planning 8/02/10

For this session we were required to form our groups with the people that we knew we could work well with. I chose to work with Alex Fox and Charlotte Wesson for the main task. After we had made our group, we began planning straight away by starting with a brainstorm of our ideas. We divided it up into sections which were, camera, locations, props, soundtrack and actors/actresses. We each had different suggestions and wrote them all down in order to be able to create a basic storyline for our thriller. We then chose what we thought were the best ideas from our brainstorm to create the storyline which we then used to create the storyboard. We drafted out the scenes in our storyboard so we had an idea of how the clips are going to flow and at what points we should change camera angle or use editing in between certain parts. We also managed to start our questionnaire before the lesson ended.

Triller Task - Introduction 5/02/10

This session we continued to watch one of the following opening clips that we had been shown in Mondays lesson. We watched the entire extract of 'Blood Simple' so that we could gain some inspiration and ideas for our own thrillers. The extract gave us ideas about settings, characters, soundtracks and story-lines. For example, most of the film was shot at night which helps to build up the suspense and tension in the thriller and it is also a creative way of leaving the audience in the dark so they don't expect what happens next.

01/2/10

For this session we were introduced to our main task and what we are expected to produce and how much time we have to create it. We were shown the timetable for our main task so that we had an idea of how much time was available and what stage we should be at throughout the time up to the deadline. We moved on to watching opening sequences to thriller movies so that we could begin to gain ideas for our own thriller clips. We watched each opening sequence and took notes on what we liked about the clip and also took notes on camera, sound, mise en scene, editing and the typical features of a thriller found in the footage.

29/01/10

We spent this session finishing and tidying up our final clip for the preliminary task. Because me and Oliver did not get as much experience in editing as Sophie and Josh, they demonstrated what they had been taught to us and showed us how to change the audio so that it would match the clip. Afterwards, we made some minor adjustments to the clip such as removing the extra footage at the end because we were told it wasn't necessary. We then played the clip back numerous times so that we could check for any errors or in-corrections that may have been caused during the filming or editing stages.

This is our finished clip for the preliminary:



Overall I thought that our final clip came out very well with minor problems. The particular scenes which I found were the most successful were the clips of Sophie entering the room and sitting opposite Josh and the over the shoulder shot of Josh as we see his laptops screen. The scene of Sophie entering the room was handheld footage filmed by myself as I track behind her before she sits down opposite Josh. The footage was not too shakey and kept up with the characters movements well but it also kept in focus throughout the whole scene too so that there were no out of focus moments. The scene where the camera goes into an over the shoulder shot of Josh so that we could see his Laptops screen was a decent establishing shot. We placed the camera on a tripod and used a pan shot to go into an over the shoulder shot of Josh so that we could see the laptop in front of him. After we had established the over the shoulder shot, we used a zoom so that we could get a closer look at the laptops screen enabling us to see what was written on it. The footage was very still and kept in focus for the whole scene.
The scene which I thought could have been improved was the scene of Josh infront of his laptop as we use a tilt to show his character for the first time. The tilt seems to be going smoothly up until there is a slight jerk in the middle as the camera comes to a temporary hault. This scene I think could be improved if we re-film the tilt shot so that there are no shaken or delayed seconds of footage.







Having now completed our preliminary task, we moved on to watching clips on the internet of thrillers so that we could get an idea of what we could create for our main task.

I watched the following clip:

25/01/10

In this session we began to edit our footage on premier pro. Myself and Oliver were given the task of finding the music for our clip while Sophie and Josh began to edit the clips by putting them in the correct order. We used youtube to find the music for the songs and the sound effects. We then e-mailed them to Sophie and Josh so that they could begin to place the music in the correct places and afterwards we took photos of the storyboard and brainstorm to upload to our blogs.

22/01/10

During this session myself and the rest of the group began to film our footage using the storyboard that we made in the previous sessions. We started recording the scene where Sophie is entering the room using only pan shots and tilts. The first shot we filmed was of Sophie walking towards the classroom and the camera following her using a pan shot. We placed the camera on a tripod so that the footage was steady and tilted it at a low angle so that you could only see below Sophie's waist. We then recorded the second scene which was Sophie walking towards the door with the camera facing her as she walked by it. This scene was slightly pix-elated on the camera and had to be re-filmed later on. The last shot of this scene was the tilt that we used at the end before Sophie had entered the room. We placed the camera on a tripod outside of the door, and tilted it upwards towards Sophie's face. We then recorded a close up shot of Sophie's hand pushing the door handle to be used as a cut before she enters the room.
Afterwards , we began recording the short clips of Josh in the classroom in front of the laptop so that they could be used as cuts during the extract. Our first shot was a tilt shot showing us Josh in front of his laptop smiling. We placed the camera on a tripod and tilted it downwards to reveal Josh sat down with his Laptop. We then moved on to recording the second scene of Josh from behind as he browses his laptop for valentines day ideas. We used a pan shot to go into an over the shoulder shot of Josh to view his laptops screen. Then, we used a zoom to get a close up of the screen and the text on it.
We moved onto recording the conversation between Sophie and Josh using over the shoulder and shot reverse shot. Firstly, we recorded Sophie entering the room and sitting down opposite Josh as she closes his laptop. The group decided that this scene would be best filmed in hand held to make it easier to track Sophie as she sits down. I tracked Sophie with the camera and followed her up to the point where she sits down with Josh. I then established a two shot with them both leaning in towards each other, as they spoke their lines. Afterwards, we recorded the conversation using over the shoulder shots from both point of views. We started with Sophie and recorded over her shoulder so that we were able to see Joshes reactions more clearly to what was being said. We then swapped to go to Josh's point of view instead and recorded over his shoulder this time. We were then told that we should use a close up on each of the characters faces during the conversation to see more emotion and reaction to what was being said. So, we started with filming Sophie's close up over Joshes shoulder. We zoomed in so that we could only see Sophie's face and expressions during the conversation, while we could still hear Josh talking to her. We swapped around again so this time we were recording Josh's close up in the conversation over Sophie's shoulder.
Having now finished recording all of our scenes, we were shown how to upload our video onto premier pro and where to save it and also how to select the scenes we wanted from the camera so that we were ready to edit next session.

Brainstorm and Storyboard

Above is the brainstorm that myself and the rest of the group made in order to get some ideas about what we could make for our preliminary task. We came up with the plot, location, camera angles, sound effects and props that we would use in our extract.

This is the storyboard that our group made about our short clip of film. We went through scene by scene and plotted which camera angles will be most efficient and effective in each part of the film sequence. We also added cues for sound effects and music in between each of the panels as well.

18/01/10

During this lesson we started off by continuing our storyboard and deciding which camera shots will be appropriate for each seperate scene. We were struggling slightly with imagining how each shot would look, so we decided to film the first couple of scenes in the sequence to see whether or not they were suitable. We recorded the first three scenes of Sophie walking towards the door by using a Pan shot to follow her. These filmed scenes were only a rough idea of how each of the camera shots looked, this was so that we would be able to get a better idea of which ones looked appropriate for the scene. Afterwards, we went back into the classroom and finished off our storyboards and decided which shots should be used in each part.

15/01/10

This lesson we were introduced to our new project. We were given an explanation of the course and what we are required to do. We were told that before we were to begin our main filming task, we had to create a small film sequence as a preliminary task to experiment with the filming and camera techniques. I was grouped with Oliver, Sophie and Josh for the preliminary task and we began to create and plot our storyline of a girl walking into a room and breaking up with her boyfriend. So, we decided to record some of the scenes where Sophie walks into the room to give us some ideas about what shots work well and which shots are less effective. We recorded the first shot of a low angle pan following Sophie as she heads towards the room. We had finished our brainstorm of ideas and had just started to create our storyboard before the lesson ended.