Thriller

03/03/09 

Today we looked at our classes thrillers. There were four thrillers in total to watch. We were told to make notes on each thriller.

The first thriller we watched was ‘Illicit content’ by Corinne, Candy, Jordane and Abdul. We are shown a street that shows some houses and someone goes and posts a letter into one of the houses. We are introduced to the main character quite quickly. The music is very good because it relates to the main character who is a young girl who looks as though she has just come in from a late night out. Rather than violins playing in the background we hear music that sounds as if it could be played at a club. This good because it relates to the main character.

They also had a variety of shots from close-ups to wide shots to long shots. The close-ups added more detail to what was happening e.g. the letter dropping through the letterbox and the close-up of the water running.

Another group we watched was ‘Happily every after?’ by Cassie, Patrice, Abubakar and Ahmed. Their thriller was about a sister who was playing in the park with her little brother and they were being watched.

Luckily, my class watched my group’s thriller. This was good because we were given feedback and we were able to hear other people’s opinions on our thriller. All of the feedback we got was good. Some of the feedback we got was that the flashbacks gave the audience just the right amount of information. They learnt that the characters went partying the night before and something bad happened which led to one of the characters ending up dead. The class also said that the flashbacks told them that the characters knew each other. Also the title relates to the flashbacks and gave them an idea of what the story was about.

The class also told us that our use of point of view shots were very effective and also added a thrill.

We were also told that it was very good because it did not reveal too much about the film, which is good because it’s only the opening and we do not want the audience to know the whole story from the beginning because they won’t want to watch it anymore.

I was quite happy with the reaction we got from the audience because they seemed very interested in the storyline. They were lots of questions so I knew we had drawn them in to want to watch more.

The third thriller we watched was ‘hostage’ by Rudo, Claudia and Tara. Their thriller was very well put together. They had many different shots and lots of match cuts which worked very well together. The lighting also added to the fright in the thriller.

pitch

before we began filming the first time we had to present a pitch to the rest of the class. we had to talk about what our ideas were for the opening of our thriller and what would make it a thriller. we also had to talk about the setting and what time of day we would be filming. we also had to present our story board to the class. we had to talk about what was going to be our very first shot and the different types of shot that we were going to use.

Thriller Blog, Lamar Fergus-Palmer

Week Beginning Monday 8th December 2008

This week we began with creating a plot for a practice thriller. My group, consisting of myself, Kai, Karel and (Temi)Tope, had to begin thinking about the qualities of a Thriller and what would make the thriller interesting. We were given the subject of a card game.

We also had camera Tutorial with Micky the technician.
We were shown how to use the College video camera's, Casio XM1 and XM2. The functions were basically the same although there were some slight differences.
We were given tasks to...

. Insert the battery
. Enter the tape
. Open and close the camcorder
. Record
. Playback

My group was given the XM1

We were also shown how to use a Tripod .

. Put it up
. Set different levels
. Attach the camcorder.

Each of the groups were a given turn to use the equipment and set it up.

After this, we were allowed to start filming our practice thriller.
The practice thriller task was to film a card game, Tope came up with the idea to use a library study room as our setting. we used lighting in order to make the film more thrilling dramatic.

The basic themes were using different angles to create uncertianty, we didn't show the faces of the actors until the middle of the scene to create suspense.


Week Beginning Monday 5th of January


This week we began with watching the Shining



This is one of the most prolicic thrillers ever made.

Through watching this film, I saw that a film is not always all about the acting, but the technical alspects too. the camera angles , the misc en scene, the diegetic and non diegetic sound.

The film had several scenes which showed the importance of cinematography.

The scene when the Father tries to break into the bathroom.

The use of Shot reverse shot through the door itensified the suspence of the moment and the escalating fear of the wife. The non diegetic sounds also add to the atmosphere giving the feeling of impending death and violence.

Also the several cut-scenes with the Twins and the blood splattered corridor.

These are beautifully choreographed scenes with the minamalistic approach, they only made what needed to be in the scene be in it, making the Twins and the blood stand out. perfection.

With the reverb on the twins voices adds to the thrilling factor and also gives spookiness to the scenes whilst the gushing sound of the blood in the corridor adds to the atmosphere perfectly with the dynamics of the sounds.

Lastly the maze scene.

The use of a dolly to get a steady-cam shot whislt the boy is running is sheer class for its time and gives the idea of someone running with him, keeping the theme of the audience being a silent witness. The clearness of the shot allows us to see the expressions of everyone in the shots.

A deliberate decision made by the team:

Due to the fact that our opening is not 2minutes long, as a group we decided that at the end of our opening when the title comes up; we should have twelve seconds of the music playing until it fades out whilst the title is stationary. we decided to do this becasue it would give the audience time to reflect and grasp what they saw and also it also gives them time to meditate on why our opening is called "The Night Before".

A guide of how to use the camera

In this lesson in which we had Andrew as our teacher; micky (the technician) came in our class room to give us a demonstration of how to use a camera and the sort of things that we should avoid doing when filming.

For Example:

• we were told to avoid getting the camera wet as it could damage the camera and our filming.
• We were also told how to open the camera and also how to insert and eject the cassette.
• Another good advice that we were told was that when zooming in, we should always focus the lense in order to get a good zoom.
• we were told how to make attach the camera oto the tripod and we were also told a good way of checking if the tripod was safely attached to the tripod. If we were able to lift the camera by holding the handle at the top whils it is on the tripod then we wpuld know that it was securely attached.

These tips were very helpful especially for those such as myself that wasn't good at doing things without a manual.

setting and location for our opening

Thriller final edit