final thriller piece

This is our final thriller piece. The finished product.

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:



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:

 

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.

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

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)

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

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.

Preperation Tasks Left To Complete-

• Shot List - A list of shots in an order that we are planning on using. These could be phtographs taken at the scene that we have chosen to use, either this or drawings of individual ideas.
• Story Board - drawings/photographs of shots that we are intending on using. These will involve foreground, mid-ground and background ideas and what will be happening in this frame. (Mis-en-scene)
• Practice shots - If we have time we may go to the chosen location and take some practice shots to get use to the equipment and the scene.
• Scene Recce - Someone in our group will have to go to the scene not long before we shoot, in order to find problems/solutions, make notes and take photo's.
• Final Script - What will be happening, speech, mis-en-scene, time, length of shot etc.

Film title - 'Through my Eyes'

we have named our film 'Through my Eyes' because the scenes will be captured with point of view shots as it is in the eyes of the murderer.
it will be a small and simple, eerie font size possibly red to indicate blood.

10 second breakdown of the 2 minutes

1st 10 seconds:

- Victim saying goodbye to his friends after a day out. He starts to walk alone.

2nd 10 seconds:

- Boy being followed down a back alley using a point of view shot of the murderer.

3rd 10 seconds:

- The boy begins to get paranoid and speeds up, it is then clear that he is being followed. We only see short clips of the murderer as he is a mysterious figure.

4th, 5th and 6th 10 seconds:

- These will all link together to be a chase/murder scene.

7th, 8th and 9th 10 seconds:

- Cliff hanger of who the murder is, and him filming the body.

910th , 11th, 12th 10 seconds:

-The boys find the body and using parallel filming we will show them looking for the murderer whilst the murderer also searched for them.

Mood board

This is our mood board. To create this we have collected several images that have influenced certain character or scenarios that we would like to include.

Mise-en-scene of our thriller

Props-

• Knife for the murder
• Camera
• Tripod

Costume
Friends -

• Casual, normal
• Clean ,well dressed 

Murderer-

• seen from behind, long jacket
• hat
• dirty

Lighting-

• Drained colour slightly
• Darkish
• Set in the daytime
• Natural lighting

Colour-

• Slightly drained-black and white 
• Industrial colours-drained

Set-

• Industrial setting to cover up the murder
• To match colours and lighting
• To show the normality of the origanal equilibrium  

Basic Narrative of our Thriller Opening

- Opening scene of boy being stalked by an unknown actor.
- The boy is alone, tension gradually builds up.
- The murder will be taken on a video by a mysterious character by using a point of view shot of him filming.
- CCTV shots of murder
- murderer/filmer never revealed or shown throughout movie.
- Using parallel filming, we will build up a dramatic tension in the opening sequence of the friends and murderer becoming closer in the set.
- This will be a good finish to the opening due to the use of a tens cliff hanger.

Location Research

We would locate our film in Cambridge city as there are a large variety of places to film such as parks, back streets, and main roads
We will focus on filming the majority of out thriller on Trumpington st as there is an underground, dark alley way/path where we can filmthe spooky parts of the opening.
We will also film in springfield terrece off chesterton road as there is also an alley way where we can shoot some good shots.
Another place for filming could be in the center of town near the market square as there are some old school, quiet and atmospheric places with lots of space to film.

Our Thriller Classification

12-Discriminatory behaviour is unlikely unless clearly condemmed
    -Drugs will rarely be used without being condemmed
    -Moderate threat may be used
    -Nudity is allowed, although sexual content must be brief and discrete
15-No discriminatory language or behaviour
    -Srong horror threat is allowed
    -Violence may be strong but should not dwell on detail
18-where the material is in breach of the criminal law, or has been created through the commission of a criminal offence

-Our thriller will be classified as a 18- due to the murder scene, violence and gore.

Ideas/Outline For A Plot.

Our thriller will be set in and around Cambridge as this is a central point for us all to meet. This is also quite a large place, therefore our options for filming are vast. Due to the fact that we have chosen crime as our sub-genre we will base our thriller on a mysterious murder.
Basic ideas:
-Murder/crime scene at the start
-Investigation begins
-Characters introduced
-Dark setting-industrial
-Group of mates investigating their mates murder
-Go brutal on the killer
-Opening clip would introduce the boys and show them looking for the killer without the police knowing.

Our logo

For out thriller logo we decided to create a logo that represented various possible conventions of a thriller. For instance we picked the colours that we have used to represent different events that could appear in a thriller; for instance dark colours to show an evil character or event  causing problems.
We have made the tear stand strong in the fore ground,  representing issues of conflict, sadness and other negitive events that often occur throughout various thrillers.
Making the eye a strong blue green colour stands for the hope that characters often possess. this could be hope to find a missing person, solve a recent crime or over come traumatizing issues. Connotations of what blue and green stand for are rife, so this is why we picked these colours to represent their meanings.
The dark background was mainly to make our image stand out, but also to represent the dark and mysterious events that take place in thrillers.

Sub-Genre Decision.

After researching a number of varied Thriller films, we have come to the conclusion that before we think of our title we will had to decide what sub-genre we are going to use and also the plot. After discussing the possibilities in a group we came to the conclusion that we are going to use 'crime' as our sub-genre. We chose this due to the fact that we feel that after the preliminary task and our research this sub-genre would suit our style of work best. Below are some examples of 'Crime Thrillers' that we may base our work on.

Resevoir Dogs (1992) -
                                                 

                                                             

  

The Departed (1995) -

No Country For Old Men (2007) -

The three films listed above all have different story lines. However, all of the story lines are based around crime. We may use some ideas from these thrillers to help us make ours. Typical conventions used in these films are; investigation, murder, mystery, the unknown, protagonists and antagonists, flashbacks, twisted narrative and a confusing plot.

Student Video

Negative

We have alanysed the Thriller Opening Video; Negative

• Holding a Shot Steady:

All of the shots were very clear and help with no movement to confuse the audince. Possibly shot with a constant tripod, if not then hand held camera was extremely still.

• Framing a Shot Including& Excluding Elements

The framing of the shots was used very appropriatel, for instance the close up frame of the Pearly eyering that fell, excluding all other props 

• Variety of Shot Distances

There wasnt an amazing amount of variation between shot distances, but i found this appropriate to the opening as it suited the events much more

• Shooting Material Appropriate to the Task

Appropriate material was selected such as the use of a camera room, which obviously goes hand in hand with negative images

• Selecting the Mise-En-Scene 

Location and lighting was appropriate, generally mise-en-scene suited well.

• Editing So that Meaning Is Aparent

Editing such as using a reverse of what has happened, but making the audio negative therefore complies with the title which makes the events apparent 

• Using Varied Shot Transitions and Effects

The negative effects suited what was happening, as the title was 'negative' so this suited perfectly

• Using Sound With Images

The sound provided was extremely wel produced and suited the opening very well, adding to the success of the opening.

• Using Titles Appropriately 

The title was used very  well and showed clearly what it was called, as well as using interesting ways to display the title and credits

Marking Criteria for thriller Project

-60 marks for the video
-level 1 up to 23 marks
-level 2 24-35-basic
-level 3 36-47-profecient
-level 4 48-60 excellence

• holding a shot steady where appropriate
• Framing a shot including + excluding elements
• Using a variety of shot distances
• Shooting material appropiate to the task
• Selecting mise-en-scene
• Editing so that meaning is appropiate to viewer 
• Using varied shot transitions + effects
• Using sound with images
• Using titles appropriately