Shot Plans

Field Shots
1. Across the bridge, long shot of girl walking towards bridge.

2. Close up of girls legs walking across the bridge.

3. Long low angle shot of girl walking (down path)

4. Side close up of girl crying, still walking down path, near gap leading to next field.

5. Close up on ripped tights straight on, girl walking to camera.

6. Low angle long side shot panning as girl walks, showing street.

7. Girl walks past camera to front door, camera pans.

8. Mid shot of girl at her door, side mid-shot.

9. Close up of girl fumbling in her bag.

10. Hand held camera walking up behind girl.

11. Close up of girls head and shoulder, hand comes up behind her.

12. Close up of her turning around.

13. Pan, eye level, empty street.

Flashback Shots

1. Girl with bottle, drinking. Mid-shot side.

2. Girl feet to right of frame, guys feet come in from left side.

3. Girl being pushed onto bed, Mid-shot from side.

4. Girl lying down, guys crawls up and heads out of shot, Mid-shot of bodies.

5. Close up of her leg, guy rips tights. Hand slides in from top of frame.

6. Long shot eyeline match of door closing.

Media Questionnaire

Media Questionnaire

This is to help with the planning and developement.

1. Do you prefer fast pace or slow for a thriller?
Fast – 4
Slow –6

2. Would you prefer lots of dialogue or less
Lots of dialogue - 3
Not so much - 7

3. Would you prefer a loud soundtrack behind the film?
Yes – 6
No - 4

4. Male or Female lead?
Male – 2
Female – 8

5. Would you prefer a large or small cast?
Large –3
Small –7

6. Would you have a mostly dark or light environment?
Dark –9
Light – 1

7. Which font do you prefer for opening credits?
Century Gothic - 1
Monotype Corsiva - 8
Papyrus -
Segoe Script - 1
Trebuchet MS -


8. Do you prefer opening titles to be?
Bold - 2
Underlined - 1
Italic - 5
Mix - 2

9. Where would you prefer it to be set?
Forest - 2
House -
Town – 1
Field - 3
Abandoned places – 4

10. How long would you prefer each credit to be on?
3 Seconds - 6
5 Seconds - 3
5+ Seconds - 1

Using this information, our film ideally should look like this.



(Photo - http://iforgotmypen.deviantart.com/art/The-clear-path-was-lost-155015937)

Storyboard

Here is the storyboard I drew out, Rob put it into a video. This is what the shots should look like.

Conventions of a Thriller with examples

Thriller Conventions

These are the general conventions which most thrillers will have.

- Darkness - Most thrillers will be set in a dark places for effect and for suspense. Christopher Nolan's 'The Dark Knight' (2008) is mostly in darkness, however the protagonist is the one in a dark costume, not the villain, this reflects the inside struggle between good and bad which Batman suffers with throughout the film.

- Music for effect - For example Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' (1960) has the infamous shower scene with high pitch screeches of a violin immediately creating a danger effect. Again with Stephen Spielberg's 'Jaws' (1975) two notes create suspense, and also tell audience that danger is near.

- Vulnerable victim, usually female - Ridley Scott's 'Alien' (1979) has Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) who is the only character left alive besides Jones, the cat. She single-handily fights off and kills the alien.

- Serious Baddy/villain/Antagonist - James Cameron's 'Terminator 2' (1991) features T-1000, an advanced cyborg sent back in time to kill John Connor. This is the ultimate Antagonist as he seems to be indestructible.

- Narrative Enigma - A question which is usually resolved at the end of the film David Flincher's 'Fight Club' (1999) is an example as right at the end the audience find out that Tyler and the Narrator are the same person.

- Mystery - Thrillers must convey a sense of mystery for example the opening in The Wachowski Brothers' 'The Matrix' (1999) there's a phone call "You sure this line's clean?" What line, who's the woman and man talking, who's the 'one' why are they going to kill him?

- Suspense - This the edge of seat, nail biting which a thriller relies on. Alfred Hitchcock is reguarded by the experts at Radio Times as "The master of suspense".

Another Opening.

The Dark Knight (2008)

URL - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYBEquZ_j0

Mise-en-scene
Again, like the Matrix, Warner brothers logo appears before anything, this time with a blue tint, therefore in this film the running colour scene would pressumeabley be blue. Legendary Pictures logo and DC Comics logo also appear in a tinted blue. Fades to black, blue cloud/smoke swirling fades into screen, it then becomes slightly more obvious that it's the aftermath of an explosion. It spreads out the frame. To above a building, zooming in onto the side of a black glass building straight ahead there's an explosion of glass, it cuts to a man in a clown mask with some sort of weapon, which he has just used to break the window. This creates character enigma, who is this man/why is he wearing a mask. He reaches onto a table where another guy wearing a clown mask is standing, Loads his weapon, it becomes clear that this is a harpoon, leading the audience to think that these are not nice characters.
A man, carrying the same style mask and a bag stands on a street corner with dark clothing on, creating a sinister atmosphere, even though it is broad daylight. He carries a blue bag over on shoulder. A silver car stops next to him, he walks to the car and gets in, putting his mask over his face.
It goes back to the men in the building one standing on the window ledge, one getting up onto the legde, it cuts to one of the men (probably the one who fired the gun) moving equipment down this make-shift zipline, the two men follow. This shows that they are secretive, as they aren't using conventional mentions like doors, to get around. Both are dressed in dark clothing, therefore look like dark evil characters.

Sound
Unlike The Matrix, the Warner Brothers logo appears in silence, creating an ominous and uneasy feeling. The Legendary Pictures logo also appears in silence, there is a faint beat when DC Comics logo appears still keeping tension to a high. 30 seconds into the film and still quiet, which keeps audiences on the edge of their seats.
There is a faint non diegetic beat as the camera zooms in, There is diegetic sound of the glass breaking and the man loading and firing the harpoon. The beat still goes on throughout, there is a non diegetic flat monotonal note being held as the camera zooms in on the mask, which the man is carrying. As the car stops on the corner, next to the man the note stops, there's diegetic sound of the brakes of the car squeeling, and diegetic sounds of the man opening the door. The beat turns into a slight string sound as the men on the window ledge prepare to jump from the ledge.

Camera
Camera moves towards the black building in an establishing shot which tells the audience that it's day time. Side mid shot shows the audience; it's a men, he's masked and he has a weapon which he just broke the window with. Straight cuts to a high angle shot of the man loading his weapon, the camera pans to the left to show the man firing the weapon so that the audience can see the rope attached.
The body shot of the man shows he's in a long coat looking down, adding to his character enigma. It zooms in on the mask, this shows that the mask will be important in the film, as it is a clown mask, the audience make the obvious link to the joker.
The camera follows from a low angle the man getting into the car, the audience can see when he turns to the side that he's put on his mask.
The camera is level to the window as the guys climb onto the window ledge, it shows one of the guys in a close up of his upper body and head, pushing the bag they have along the zipline. Cuts back to where the camera was previously then as they jump out the window, it cuts to a long shot of them traveling down the line, this shows them to be professionals, as they were so clean and quick, and also risk takers as they were at such a height.

Editing
Long take of camera moving upto the building. Staight cut to the man wearing a clown mask. Straight cuts again to show the man loading his weapon this is on screen for nine seconds this shows how fast the man can load the weapon and fire it, showing that he has done this before. Straight cut again to a long shot of the guy holding the mask and bag on a street corner, this adds to his mysterious appearance as it is a long take, he make be important adding to the character enigma could he be the Joker?
Straight cut to the guys back inside the building, creating more of a fast pace, as they are getting the equipment and themselves over to the roof.

Analysing Existing Thriller Openings

The Matrix (1999)

Mise-en-scene
First is the Warner Brothers logo, in green spinning into it's usual position. It fades to black, suggesting darkness. Straight cut to the Village Roadshow Pictures company's logo, with is also tinted green, it is apparent that green is to be a theme, green is suggested to be linked with the early model computers, the green foreshadows the links to computers and technology. Letters and numbers scroll down the frame in green, this makes a stronger link to the old generation of computers. Camera begins to zoom in on the letters which spell out "THE MATRIX" in an off white.The letters fade and are replaced by a green cursor, another referral to the old computers. A code scrolls along the screen as if it's being typed, another referral to computers. Straight to black, it is replaced by another message 'typed' in green "Trace program: running". Straight cut to green numbers, which rapidly change, the camera zooms in as columns disappear, numbers appear at the top.
There's a graphic match as the camera zooms into the '0' which seems to melt into black. A white dot appears, it grows closer and bigger as the camera zooms in at speed the camera pans slightly to the left to show a policeman holding a torch.

Sound
The WB logo is accompanied by a sci-fi soundtrack with sounds like a computer/machinery which merges into wind/horn instruments.
The horn instruments grow louder and more intense as the letters fall and make "THE MATRIX" this is to make it seem more dramatic and important.
When the cursor is flashing, there's a non-diegetic sound of a phone dialling, a phone conversation goes on with a woman and a man, about a "him" and "The One" the subject reminds anonymous, creating an enigma, "The One" makes him sound like an important person.
The woman apparently hears a noise and the says "Are you sure this line is clean?" this creates mysteries to the audience as to what 'clean' means. "I better go." This leaves the audience hanging, as they don't know who she is, or where she is, so it creates a situation enigma.
There is more computer/machine sounds as the camera travels down through the '0' in the background, fainter than for the horns play the same notes as before making it apparent that important parts are coming.

Editing
Most of the editing for the opening sequence is either straight cut or a slight fade, mostly to black.

Titles
The only titles there are in this sequence, is the film title "THE MATRIX".

Evaluation of Final edit

Personally. I believe that our work was pretty imaginative, and that we set out and completed what we aimed to do.
The sound wasn't very good in quality or volume when the actors weren't right up against the camera. If I was to go back and do this again with more equipment, I would use mics or I would get a camera with a better inbuilt mic.
The editing looks slightly unprofessional and jumpy, if I were to do it again I would spend more time on editing, using more dissolves, instead of all straightcuts.
Even though there was some shots were varied, I'd like to explore different camera angles, if it were ever possible a tracking shot when the pizza man was walking to the door could have been better.
Another thing I would change would be the lighting and setting however as we were restricted with equipment and location, that became an impossiblity.

Editing Cont.

We finished editing in this session.
We chose to turn the picture to black and white to make it more dramatic, and also to cover up the slight light changes and the harshness of the strong lights we had as they couldn't be adjusted while filming.
We finally got the hear our work for the first time, there wasn't all that many faults with the sound, however they're were bits of whispering which I edited out by replacing the sound track with ambient sound.

URL - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLr7s5cQZ6A

Editing

I started on editing the beginning, however there was no sound so it was rather hard, I helped Ash and Trisha with the basic editing skills and labelled the clips. Ashley carried on with the beginning from where I'd left off, getting to near the middle of the clip, I began with the shots of money we had which we'd done at slightly different angles, to the end. We got about half way through editing, so it was pretty productive. However, we probably would have had more done if Trisha had played more of an active part in the group.
With the trouble with sound, we'll have to sort it out next lesson, and hopefully finish editing.

Continued Filming

We set the lights up slightly different for some of the shots, as the faces needed to be seen, when we tryed them the same as last time Catherine came out looking orange so we tryed to change that with subtle lighting.
We used red paint to dye Ash's t-shirt to look like blood, simply because none of us had any fake blood.
Trisha took a small role in the production today, taking a "backseat" approach to the filming.
We finished filming today. However, after having a conversation with our teacher, we realised we hadn't changed the white balance for each shot as far as I could tell through the camera it hadn't made much of a problem.
We captured the film and put it on the PC for editing next lesson. Hopefully we should be well into editing next lesson.