Friday 18 February 2011

Research on how sound is used in the openings of thriller movies.

Most thrillers tend to use the same sort of music for the opening part of the movie. The sound tends to involve tense music and special effect sounds.

Music:

Typically, the music used will start with a slow tempo and fairly quiet, as the opening scene progresses the music will normally gradually get louder and faster paced. Reasons for this are due to the fact that typical thrillers will usually give the viewer an insight to the action that will occur throughout the thriller in the opening sequence: This is the case for most thrillers. However, crime and action thrillers tend to have a faster paced start that psycological thrillers. The music will have to suit the mood and the tempo of the acting. For example a crime thriller will usually show the build up to the crime and maybe the start, however a typical convention would be to not show the whole crime, as this will be shown later in the film, in contrast: Another typical convention would be to show the murder and maybe use the rest of the film for investigation and solving the murder. Therefore, he music used in the opening sequence will have to keep the audience engaged and interested.

As part of our research, I will be analysing various opening sequences of thriller movies and stating why I think that the music and sound effects have been used.

Resevoir Dogs:

Reservoir_Dogs_Game_PS2_Front_Cover

This film is set around the 70's. The first 8 minutes of the opening scene shows a group of middle aged and older men having a conversation in a cafe. After this they all leave the cafe together, as the music starts we see them all walking down a back street (the majority wearing black suits and sunglasses). They walk down the street in slow motion with some 70's blues kind of music in the background. After we see them as a group, the music carries on playing as a character motive introduces each character seperately. Below is some pictures showing this:

Picture 14 Picture 15 

Overall, I feel that this is a good example of how music and sounds are used in crime thrillers, reasons that I think this are that the style of music gives the audience an insight to when and where the film is set, it also fits with the dress code of the group of men. Instead of the music fitting the tempo of the filming, the filming has been edited into slow motion to fit the blues music. The characters are also introduced slowly to fit the soundtrack. The soundtrack does not last long, however it manages to serve its purpose of introducing the characters and the plot, and giving the audience an insight of what may happen later on in the film.

Monday 14 February 2011

Top 10 Filming Tips

  1. Keep the camera steady.
  2. Don't leave tripod in shot.
  3. Plan shots before filming.
  4. Make sure everything you want captured is in the shot.
  5. Make sure shot is in focus.
  6. Make sure filming location is safe.
  7. Ensure that lighting is correct (fully visible, not too bright and not too dark)
  8. Continuity.
  9. Repetition of shots to ensure the best outcome .
  10. Leave time before and after shots to make editing easier.
These are our top 10 filming tips which we will aim to follow during our filming.

Target Audience

The target audience in which we are aiming for would be 15 +. Although this is an extremely wide audience to try and aim for, we believe that the movie cannot appeal to just certain ages, but to thriller film lover's in general. This is therefore why we have made the target audience (ages) as varied as it is.
Although the film could be said to be mostly male orienated we are aiming for both male and females. For much the same reason as above, that thriller enjoyers cannt be classified to sex's, but also because while males might enjoy the violent edge the thriller contains, a female might enjoy the complexity of the opening, such as the non-linear structure and the mixed parallel shot editing use.

Existing films which our target audience would be along the lines of 'criminal minds'. These sort of thrillers are such that contain violence, without actually showing any typical gore, and have sophisticated scenes showing how crimes are worked out.

To engage the audience we will try and create dramatic tension. To create this tension, we are firstly incorporating a non-linear structure. We are showing the end of the film at the start, therefore this mix up should engage our audience straight away as they will be eager to find out how the ending has been built up. Also by using parallel shooting between a POV shot and a CCTV image, we will ingage the audience by building tension through this, and therefore not boring our audience.

Monday 7 February 2011

analysis of Action thriller

- Different countries, very conventional
- Hero and villains
-  jumpy
- dramatic
- predictable, follows conventions

Analysis of a crime thriller

- Tension built by using flashbacks and omnius music
- mysterious background of characters
- confusing, in depth plot
- criminals and villains and heroes - binary opposites
- Protagonists needs to be drawn into the mystery and at some point be in danger
 

Call Sheet

Filming commenses Monday the 14th of February-at around 5pm
A list of participators is found below:
-George Glover
-Martin Lively
-Dan Infield-Solar
-Tyler Martin

Location
-The filming will mainly take place on Kings Parade and Trumpington St, in Cambridge
-Much of our film is planned to be set in an underground tunnel adjacent to these streets

Costumes
-Casual Clothing for normal teenage boys
-Murderer wearing tatty clothing and has an unshaven face

Props
-Camera needs to be arranged for borrowing on the specific date
-Knife of some kind needs to be bought in-Fake

Tips to successful filming

  1. script writing 
  2. walk through
  3. location Recce
  4. Digital storyboard
  5. shot list
  6. test shots
  7. shooting schedule

Reflection on childrens film

Strengths
  1. We used a wide range of camera shots to engage the viewer
  2. The music effects went well with the atmosphere ofthe opening scene
  3. The editing was done effectively to make the opening scene look smart and professional
Weaknesses

  1. Camera shots were unsteady
  2. A tripod was left in the background (we need to observe the area more carefully and make sure it is suitable to start filming)
  3. We were wearing different clothes on different days of filming (we need to have a plan of what costumes we will use and be consistent on following the original plan)

Friday 4 February 2011

Script

-Point of view of murderer seeing dead body
Point of view/Hand held
-Long Shot from a far distance
Long shot/Use of tripod
-Walking slowly towards the body
Tracking shot
-Zooming in from the long shot to represent getting closer to the body
Zoom/Long shot 
-Flicking to a CCTV shot
High angle
-CCTV shot from above, High Angle shot
High angle
-Flicking between both of these shots for 30 secs MAX
High angle/P.O.V/Hand held
-Then flick to 30 min previous (before murder)
Range of shots - High angle/Long shot/P.O.V/Hand held
-3 friends (played by us) saying goodbye to one another
Mid-Long shot
-POV shot from murdered showing he is about to stalk one of us
P.O.V/Hand held


Repeat in Detail through flashback and repeats -

-CCTV shot of murderer gaining on the victim
High angle/
-Switching from POV shot to CCTV shot continuously to create tension
 High angle/P.O.V/Hand held
-High angle shot of murderer over body of the victim
High angle from murderer/Low angle from body
-Zoom shot, switching between CCTV and POV of dead body
Tracking/Zoom
-Flash back of the murderer previously stalking the victim and his friends throughout the day
All previous shots used

Story board and shot ideas




Possible Health and Safety Concerns

Throughout our filming process we will have to be cautious of various health and safety issues that could potentially affect us, or our filming.

As we are filming in town, possible issues could be as follows;

Traffic/ Cyclists- Moving vehicles or bikes could pass by as we are filming or moving around location, therefore we must be aware to look after equipment carefully and also ourselves.
Passers By- Civilians walking past or through out filming may have issues toward being filmed, or suspect that they are being filmed and this could lead to a conflict.
Dangerous Items- As we are filming in a town alley way, this could be location to various illegal acts such as drug taking ECT, so we would have to be aware to check our location to ensure all is clear.
Thieves- We will be walking around with expensive equipment which could attract attention from the wrong kinds of people.
Personal Well Being- Staying together at all times as we are filming at night time in a big city
Transport- Ensuring we all have appropriate and reliable methods of getting home safely.

We will be aware of all of the previous whilst filming to ensure we and the equipment remain safe at all times whilst filming our thriller.

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Dates That We Are Filming.

We are planning to do a practise shoot and a loactaion recce on Monday 7th Feb. We will shoot the rest after we have looked back on our work from Monday. We will be taking a digital camera as well as a video camera so that we can take some photographs of the surrounding area. We will also be taking notes of things that we notice. This way we can find problems and solutions for the place that we will be filming.