Thriller denotation and connotation

In preparation towards creating our thriller opening sequence, we needed to fully understand what elements are included in creating a successful thriller movie and what creates a feeling of atmosphere and suspense. We have already created mood boards suggesting typical horror conventions but to find out more about thrillers we had to do a bit of research by watching and reading, what we thought, were good examples of thriller movies/programmes and books. After this process I came to the conclusion that a thriller has many different layers and elements to it. A thriller must keep the audience on edge, making them try and work out the must have twist in the plot. However, yes the audience try and work out the ‘twist’ but the beauty of a thriller is that no matter how much you try to understand it, there are always unexpected sudden sub-plots which are there to throw the audience, once again keeping them engaged.

An essential component in creating a thriller is creating suspense for the audience by overlapping plots etc. There is normally always a main heroic character and the setting of a thriller is regularly set in an exotic country/island. There are many different types of thrillers from sci-fi to straight mysteries but they all share the same elements in creating suspense. Some can be psychological and very complex encouraging highly educated people to enjoy them and some are much more simplistic appealing to a much wider audience. To create our own thriller I think that we need to include all the different elements that I have spoken about here and try to create suspense in the small space to 2 minutes for the audience.

A good example of a thriller opening sequence would be seven. Below i have put the opening sequence of seven, to demonstrate the type of thing we will be looking at when making our own thrillers.

Analysis of when a stranger calls

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Conventions of horror! =]hw

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The reason for making this powerpoint on the conventions of horror was to understand the ideas, images and themes which i need to include in my thriller opening sequence.

Prelim film

Prelim Post Production Blog

From the shots that we produced in the prelim task we had to edit the shots to make one smooth continuous film. We started doing this by watching back the footage, checking for continuity in the shots. This is where we had to make sure that all the shots were the same, for example the actors were moving their hands in exactly the same position each time etc.  We then gathered all the shots in the rushes bin and then logged our desired takes of each style of shot—wide shots and over the shoulder shots—into the log bin. We did this by deciding which shots had the best features like focus, white balance etc. We then put the chosen shots onto the timeline and cut them to get the desired piece of dialogue. The shots that we ended up selecting best showed the correct shots in relation to the storyboard. We didn’t always follow the storyboard exactly, we also included extra shots with close ups like the rubix cubes to make the storyboard more interesting. We cut shots like this into lines that still made sense without seeing the actors face to make the overall sequence more diverse and entertaining.

Prelim Task Evaluation

For the shoot I was involved in, we were shooting in the editing suite. By having this location we had some disadvantages and advantages to how the end result of our short film would turn out. The disadvantage of shooting here meant that we had to work around all the heavy technical equipment and other objects in the room. However, in the editing suite there was a large white wall which we used to our advantage by setting the shot here. We were also lucky enough to have a door at one end of the wall so we didn’t have to cut in a different door. At the beginning we had to set up the camera for shooting, I had an involvement in this by adjusting the tripod to the correct level and also helped bubble the camera. My main involvement throughout the filming was to ensure the actors, Wells and Jo, got all of their lines correct through the correct shots to ensure that the actors followed the right lines in correlation to the correct shot. I also directed the actors and made sure that they used the same actions in every take of filming as when editing all the cuts run smoothly into one another. Also I came up with different shot idea to make the overall story more interesting all the time thinking about, juxtaposition and the rule of thirds.  Finally I helped with the focusing of the camera thought panning shots to ensure that there was focus thought the shot.

Lighting

As we were filming we had to think heavily about the type of lighting we wanted. As our story wasn’t based around a serious subject, only a rubix cube, we decided to keep the lighting as it was in the room originally—quite light and natural to convey an ‘everyday’ look which worked well with our scene as it put across the correct mood of the piece—not too serious but not a joke.

Filming

For each individual shot we had to film the whole scene for every different type of shot we desired—over the shoulder, wide etc. We started our filming by setting up the camera. Firstly we set up the tripod to the correct level for the wide shot before locking it in and then we placed the camera on the top of it. We then bubbled the camera to ensure we had the correct angle to produce the best looking shot we could. Then we had to ‘white balance’ the shot, by holding up a piece of plan white paper to adjust the lighting and balance it so each different colour contrasted the other well. After this we had to focus our camera to ensure that we would be able to see what was happening in the shot. We did this by having a close up of one of the actors faces and adjusting the focus knob until we all agreed that the shot was in focus. We then set the actors up for filming by using three phrases ‘standing by’, ‘turning over’, ‘action!’. We shot the scene through the whole way and the shouted ‘cut’ when we were satisfied that we should stop shooting. We repeated this process with different shots—over the shoulder and close ups— adjusting the size of the tripod, focus each time to ensure that we were getting an accurate shot. All throughout shooting we also had to keep in mind everything we had learnt throughout the past few weeks in relation to rule of thirds and 180 degree rule.

By doing this exercise I learnt how to set up, film, direct and edit a film by using different skills. 

Preliminary task

Storyboarding

Storyboarding is a vital part of planning any film. It is when you accurately sketch out what each shot of your film is going to be, in order to see what your film will look like. It is not the final plan of what your film has to look like, but it helps breakdown the film and allows us to see what parts we like and which could be changed or improved. Through storyboarding we can also breakdown how long each frame will be shot for and what type of shot it will be. Storyboarding will also allow everyone involved with the film to understand how the film will look visually, like the lighting and camera crew and the actors, but it will also allow the producers to foresee and problems that may occur. The finished storyboard would look a little bit like a comic book but without the speech bubbles!

Introduction to Video Camera

Before shooting your film of video you need to set up the camera. You start by setting up the tripod which makes the camera more steady, to get a more realistic shot. Then you bubble the camera until the camera becomes balanced—like a level meter and you lift the camera until you get it into the correct position.

Timecode— the amount of time you have been filming.

White-balancing—adjusting the white balance therefore correcting the other colours making the picture look more realistic.

Focussing—changing the look of the image in the screen to make the image sharper.

Aperture Settings—how bright or how dark the image is on the screen.

As we were filming we had to think about the different shot types in reference to close ups, long shots, short shots etc. and also the basic film skills. When shooting people in a frame we also had to think about the space around people with regard to the rule of thirds, ie. head space, looking space and movement within a frame,  which made the film clip as effective as possible.  

Using Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a graphic and picture editing tool. It enables the user to alter, manipulate and create images either from existing photos or found images.

Throughout the first two weeks of the Media course we learnt how to use many different tools using photoshop. They are:

Marquee Tool - cuts box shapes around a part of an image.
Clone Stamp Tool - makes a perfect copy of a highlighted part of the image.
Lasso Tool - this tool enables you to cut around a specific shape to later transfer it onto another photo.
Clone Stamp Tool - this creates an exact copy of a specific area which you can then copy onto another part of the same photo or onto a different photo.  
Eraser Tool - this enables you to take away any mistakes from your work.
Dodge Tool - this tool lets you lighten a specific area of a photo.
Burn Tool - this tool instead  of lightens an area makes the image darker in desired areas.
Sponge Tool - this saturates the different colours to makes them become richer.

I found that using the different tools on Photoshop proved to be harded than i would have thought however, dispite my hazy start i found my feet and found most of the tools relativly easy to use.
I found that the Marquee tool was quite an easy tool to us as it was simple, however i prefered using the Lasso tool because the cut was much more accurate compared to the Marquee. This tool wasn't as easy to use as the Marquee tool beasue it was harder to guide the line neatly around the desired object. 

This week we applied the different tools we used to create our own movie poster. We, in groups of three, went out to take a selection of pictures which we could then transfer into a action/horror movie poster. We decided to take photos in dark areas like the woods and over grown areas, which were an approprite setting to a horror movie setting.

Basic skills camera work and composition

Photography brings a visual language that is universal in understanding. We must then understand its vocabulary which consists of shapes, textures, patterns, lines, colours, shade of light to dark and sharp to blurry images. Just as we must learn to arrange words in a coherent order in order to make sense when we write or speak, so too must we put visual elements together in an organized manner if our photographs are to convey their meaning clearly and vividly.

Composition means arrangement: the orderly putting together of parts to make a unified whole; composition through a personal, intuitive act. However, there are basic principles that govern the way visual elements behave and interact when you combine them inside the four borders of a photograph. Once we have sharpened our vision and grasped these basic ideas of principles, then we will have the potential for making our photographs more exciting and effective than ever before.

The rule of thirds is one of the most important rules of photography. It works by drawing imaginary lines - two horizontally and two vertically. The most important element of the photo should be where the lines intersect. The best places to put things into your photo would be a third of the way up, a third of the way in from the left and so on. Places that are not so good to put important elements of your photo are right in the middle, right at the top, right at the bottom or away in the corner. By using the Rule of Third it can help you to produce a balanced looking picture.

Introduction to media studies

I am looking forward to studying Media Studies and have already begun by creating a new trailer for Doctor Who, shown below. I am particularly interested in learning how to use a camera and about the different angles one has to uses to create the best piece of film eg rule of thirds, sight lines etc. As I am interested in this element of Media Studies I am particularly looking forward to planning and filming our upcoming thriller sequences. While creating these I am also looking forward to learning more about the target audiences and how the cinema world works, as well and different production companies. I think I will take to the subject well as I have a keen interest in different styles of films, and how they work.

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Doctor who trailer