MOODBOARD FOR 'MONDAY'

This is our mood board consisting of pictures of Brenda Ann Spencer, guns, the 'police line' and, of course, the title of 'Monday'

Research on Thriller films

My group's initial idea is in the sub-genre of a Crime Thriller so I decided to look into the sub-genre of Crime thrillers and films within the genre.

The Godfather (1972) Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

The film starts Marlon Brando and Al Pacino along side each other portraying Don Vito Corleone and Michael Corleone from the novel by Mario Puzo of the same name. The film is mainly set in New York with some of in Sicily to portray the family's roots. The plot shows the conflict between Sicilian Families living in New York, with the main focus being on Corleone Family. One conflict causes the main protagonist Michael Corleone to leave New York to Sicily for a little while. For the majority of the film the story focuses on Michael’s evolution to be the Godfather.

There are many codes and conventions portrayed in this film, some being that there is a lot of dark lighting to evoke a mysterious vibe, the main theme is played constantly throughout the film to gain a familiarity with the characters.

The Fast and the Furious Franchise (2001-) 1- Directed by Rob Cohen 2-Directed by John Singleton 3-6-Directed by Justin Lin 7-Directed By James Wan

The main plot for the of the seven films are based on the illegal street racing scene the main cast consist of Paul Walker and Vin Diesel portraying Brain O' Conner and Dominic Torretto. The story mainly focuses on the criminals which in this case are deemed as anti-hero's which is a typical element to the crime thriller sub-genre. there is also a twist in that Brain is a cop but is also an avid lover of fast cars and racing and gets involved in the illegal street races.


Reflection on research: I will take these codes and conventions on board that I have learnt. I will have to make sure that my anti-hero of the story is shown more than the other characters which is evident in my initial idea and I have to add a mysterious vibe and not to give to much away in my titles to add tension into the view and also include a red herring: a must in all thriller films.

Reflection on the BFI Making Film Openings trip

Today our class went on a trip to the BFI to help us with our coursework in Media. We were shown two PowerPoint's:

Film openings 1 copy from petefrasers

Film openings 2 from petefrasers

After seeing these, I was contemplating my initial idea for my film. I already understood the codes and conventions of a title sequence (As my posts on analysing and deconstructing them suggests) however we were constantly told not to neglect the actual titles themselves as this will push our marks higher.
The second PowerPoint was more of  an eye opener into my actual idea as we were told not to have a generic opener (slide 26) and not to make it trailer-like (Slide 27). My production team's initial idea, in my opinion was relatively solid and instigated a lot of ideas but after today, I wanted to change some aspects of it.

Thriller Film Survey and Analysis

Survey Link Here is our survey on Thriller films.
We asked 13 people and out of those 8 people said they enjoy to watch thriller films.

Here is our video Through doing this we can see that people do not want a predictable plot line and the characters have to unpredictable as well. Also they didn't seem to mind what gender the leading character would be and the majority of their ideal opening would be a flash forward referring to a crime scene. We have mentioned in the video that not everyone we interviewed has watches thriller films and therefore the latter part of the video is only focused on the people who said 'yes, they do watch thriller films' in order to meet the need of our target audience. We chose the age range of mid teens to adult as our film is aimed at that audience.

Analysing Title Sequences (2)

Skyfall (2012)
Designed by Daniel Kleinman

Skyfall's title sequence has a lot of mise-en-scene in which target boards of James Bond can be seen showing he is a threat to some people in the film. Right at the start he is dragged down into the water by a hand which appears to be feminine showing that the woman around him are dangerous and put Bond in danger. Further into the title sequence can be seen guns and knives: Bonds choice of weapon in which mise-en-scene is cleverly used to make a graveyard with the guns and knives to highlight on death and the destruction caused by such tools. A Celtic Cross can also be seen which embraces the title 'Skyfall' as during the film they go to Scotland (which has Celtic heritage) and this is a place of significance. Fire and dragons can also be seen which are relevant to the Chinese culture and Bond travels here to solve the mystery.

The soundtrack 'Skyfall' by Adele is played throughout the titles. This has a very orchestral sound and sounds very dramatic and therefore intensifies the titles.

Cape Fear (1991)
Designed by Elaine and Saul Bass

The visuals in this sequence are mainly water based which signifies that this many be an area around water and this could signify danger. The font style is rippled which broadens the water element in the titles. There is a hawk which highlights on a predator and therefore makes it obvious that there is a killer. You can also see faint reflections of people and  a silhouette in the water which elaborates on the danger element.

The music is very suspenseful. Semitones and tremolo are used constantly throughout the titles to evoke tension. An ascending crescendo is heard in which the brass becomes the more dominant instrument and sounds dissonant making the viewer fell on edge.

School of Rock (2003)

The titles start of with various mise-en-scene: a big one beginning the setting, a rock club. Various symbols like the Anarchy symbol, posters and the neon 'The School of Rock' also set the mood for a concert venue. We then see closes ups and mid-shots of the band playing their set which gives the tagline of what the film will be about. The camera mainly focuses on Jack Black the main actor which shows he is has a significant character in the film.

The music is 'Fight' by No Vacancy (the made-up band for the film)  which shows what the music will be like for the rest of the film. It sounds very gritty and raw making the place seem underground. The audience don't seem to put too much focus is put on the band as they maybe classify them as amateurs, mediocre and 'poseurs'.

DECONSTRUCTING TITLES

In Media, we watched 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)' title sequence and deconstructed it. we were then asked to do 5 more at home, here are my five titles, four of which are in the Thriller genre. Click on the title of the film to see the video. (Purple-Above the Line Blue-Below the Line)

'Se7en' (1995) (Total Time 2.09) (THRILLER)

0.03 New Line Cinema Presents
0.07 An Arnold Kopelson Production
0.10 A Film By David Fincher
0.14 Brad Pitt
0.18 Morgan Freeman
0.23 SE7EN
0.30 Gwyneth Paltrow
0.34 Richard Rountree
0.39 R. Lee Ermey
0.42 John C. McGinley
0.46 Julie Araskog,
        Mark Boone Junior
0.54 John Cassini
        Reginald E. Cathey
        Peter Crombie
0.57 Hawthorne James
        Michael Massee
        Leland Orser
1.04 Richard Portnow,
        Richard Schiff
        Pamala Tyson
1.11 Casting by Billy Hopkins
                          Suzanne Smith
                          Kerry Borden
1.17 Music by Howard Stone
1.21 Costumes Designed by Michael Kaplan
1.24 Edited by Richard Francis-Bruce
1.26 Producton Designed by Arthur Max
1.35 Director of Photography: Darius Khondji
1.40 Co-Producers: Stephen Brown
                                Nana Greenwald
                                Sanford Panilch
1.44 Co-Executive Producers: Lynn Harris,
                                                 Richard Saperstein
1.50 Executive Producers: Gianni Nunnari
                                           Dan Kolsrud
                                           Anne Kopelson
1.53 Written by Andrew Kevin Walker
(1.56 Se7en)-unclear if title or not
1.59 Produced by Arnold Kopelson
                             Phyllis Carlyle
2.06 Directed By David Fincher

Buried (2010) (Total Time 2.16) (THRILLER)

0.04 A Versus Entertainment Production
0.11 In Association With
0.14 The Safran Company
0.17 and
0.21 Dark Trick Films
0.25 A Rodrigo Cortes Film
0.30 Ryan Reynolds
0.38 BURIED
0.48 Sound Mixer: Urko Garai
0.52 Make Up: Monica Alarcon Virgili
0.55 Costume Designer Elisa De Andres
1.02 Art Directors Maria De La Camara
                              Gabriel Pare
1.07 Visual Effects: Alex Villagrasa
1.11 Sound Designer: James Munoz
        Re-Recording Mixer: Marc Orts
1.17 Post-Production Supervisor-Marino Liwski
1.21 Main Titles: ROYALCOW
1.24 Line Producer: Oriol Maymo
1.30 Edited by Rodrigo Cortes
1.36 Music: Victor Reyes
1.43 Director of Photography: Eduard Grau
1.48 Executive Producers: Alejandro Miranda
                                           Rodrigo Cortes
1.55 Screenplay: Chris Sparling
2.02 Producers: Adrian Guerra
                          Peter Safran
2.11 Directed by Rodrigo Cortes

Red Lights (2012) (Total Time 1.54) (THRILLER)

0.03 Cillian Murphy
0.07 Sigourney Weaves
0.12 And Robert De Niro
0.19 A Rodrigo Cortes Film
0.21 RED LIGHTS
0.27 Toby Jones
0.30 Joely Richardson
0.35 Elisabeth Olsen
0.40 Craig Roberts
0.44 Ariane Lenox
        Leonardo Sbaraglia
0.50 Casting: Ronna Kress C.S.A.
0.54 Sound Design: James Munoz
1.00 Production Designer: Anton Laguna
1.03 Edited by Rodrigo Cortes
1.08 Music: Victor Reeves
1.13 Director of Photography: Xavi Gimenez
1.17 Executive Producer: Cindy Cowan
1.21 Executive Producer: Irving Cowan
1.26 Executive Producer: Lisa Wilson
1.33 Produced by: Ardrian Guerra
                              Rodrigo Cortes
1.39 Written and Directed by Rodrigo Cortes

School of Rock (2003) (Total Time 2.58) (COMEDY)

0.23 Paramount Pictures Present
0.28 A Scott Rudin Production
0.38 A Richard Linklater Film
0.46 Jack Black
0.48 (THE) SCHOOL OF ROCK
0.55 Joan Cusack
0.59 Mike White
1.03 Sarah Silverman
1.07 Lee Wilkof
        Kate McGregor-Stewart
1.12 Adam Pascal
        Suzzanne Douglas
1.16 Miranda Cosgrove
        Kevin Clark
        Joey Gaydos JR.
         Robert Tsai
1.20 Aleisha Allen
        Brain Faldutto
        Catlin Hale
        Maryam Hassan
1.25 Casting by Ilene Starger, C.S.A.
1.29 Music Score by Craig Wedren
1.36 Music Supervisor: Randall Poster
1.52 Costume Designer: Karen Patch
1.58 Edited by Sandra Adair
2.04 Production Designer: Jeremy Conway
2.09 Director of Photography: Rogier Stoffers. N.S.C.
2.27 Executive Producers: Steve Nicolaides, Scott Aversano
2.35 Produced by Scott Rudin

Signs (2002) (Total Time 1.46) (THRILLER)

0.03 Touchstone Pictures Present
0.09 A Blinding Edge Pictures/Kennedy/Marshall Production
0.14 Mel Gibson
0.20 Joaquin Phoenix
0.26 SIGNS
0.30 Cherry Jones
0.34 Rory Culkin
0.40 Abigail Breslin
        Patrica Kalember
0.44 Casting by Douglas Aibel
0.51 Music By James Newton Howard
0.59 Visual Effects Supervisors: Eric Brevig
                                                    Stefen Fangmeier
1.04 Costume Designer: Ann Roth
1.09 Edited by Barbara Tulliver A.C.E.
1.14 Production Designer: Larry Fulton
1.19 Director of Photography: Tak Fujimoto A.S.C.
1.24 Executive Producer: Kathleen Kennedy
1.29 Produced by Frank Marshall and Same Mercer
1.34 Written, Produced and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Music Terminology Powerpoint

Hey guys,

I made this PowerPoint, as an ex-Music student, to help aid my Media class in music terminology when analysing music in the Thriller Genre
 
I used the Psycho theme, the Jaws theme, the James Bond theme and a composition I made in Music in year 10 to explain the terminology (the slide with Drone in a hyperlink is this bit)
.

 

Thriller Film Titles Analysis

Hey guys. my Media teacher set homework to analyse 3 thriller film's titles. There are links to the titles on the name of the film.

Strange Days (1995)

Title Designer: Kathyrn Bigelow

The titles start with different colour font of green, purple, red and yellow. The yellow font shows the date and time of what we hear to be a robbery. The whole shot is in the point of view of one of the robbers. You can hear a lot of swearing and jeering to portray strong characters. The movement of the camera is very swift to intensify the robbery. By the end of the scene the police come and a helicopter spots two of the criminals. The person who has the camera attached to them attempts to jump across a building but falls down, the camera cuts out showing colours of purple, green, yellow and red, just like in beginning. There is no music heard but at the beginning when the time and date is up it sounds like a bomb ticking off, this can show the seriousness of the task and they have a time limit to do it in.

Se7en (1995)

Title Designer: Kyle Cooper

At the start, the camera is focused on a open book, making it seem an object of significance for the whole title sequence. There are two different style of font which flicker, making the protagonist a twisted character. The book turns out to be a scrapbook of some kind that contains negatives, pictures and text from a book. The whole title is in some sort of point of view shot showing that the book belongs to the person. A stand out point of this is when the dollar bill is upside down with a main focus on the 'In God We Trust' part. This can resemble that the person is doing something that is against God's words. Later on, the word 'God' is taken out of the dollar which could symbolize that he is doing something that is bad.

The music sound very industrial and artificial, almost synth like. The bass line is constantly repeated and sounds very alien-esque. There is a lot of dissonance and the dynamic of the music goes from piano to forte.

Red Lights (2012)

Title Designer: Jorge Calvo

The title starts with a shrieking string ensemble. The violins make a pizzicato effect with correlate with fast motion of the lights which fade into the writing. There are various close ups on an alien like hand, eyes, a Jesus figure, some photo's and several other items. This is the use of mise-en-scene which shows relevant objects to the film. There is a lot of crescendo used to build tension in the music and long sustained notes. The base line sounds military-like showing there could be a political element to the film.

Film Treatment

We discussed our film opening and decided what would happen if we were to carry on with the film and this was our idea

'After the opening scene we are revealed into the world of V.I.R.U.S. They take on board broken children and make them replicate previous serial murders. Throughout the course of the day (29^th of January) we get flashbacks of her joining and training in the V.I.R.U.S. These will be very dark and disturbing. The police do not know about the cult only until she reveals them on her interrogation after the shooting has occurred. She gets the same sentence as BAS (25 years to life).'

Monday-Intial Idea for Film Opening

My production brought together our ideas from our pitch and our final outcome was 'Monday' which incorporated ideas from mine and Katie (camerawoman).

The plot foresees a girl obsessed with Brenda Ann Spencer (BAS: a girl who conducted a school shooting on an American high school in Cleveland) and the title starts off with snapshots on her posters of BAS. It is set on the day of January 29 2013, 34 years after the Cleveland school shooting. She then hears on the radio that ‘students are slowly going to be subjected to the V.I.R.U.S'  (RED HERRING: it is not a biological virus but an underground cult standing for Villainous Intelligent Rebellious Underground Service)

She is then on her way to go to school and meets  dark figures on the way. She then starts monologuing about her life.

The camera ends on face saying ‘I am the V.I.R.U.S.’ which the end of her monologue.

This is my PowerPoint on the Thriller Genre

This is another PowerPoint I have done to show research into other film genres

Film Genres (Media Studies) from Mediagrrl1574

Storm Films, Inc Psycho Trailer

After watching Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, we had to create a trailer based on the film, hope you enjoy :)

Storm Films, Inc Preliminary Task

Hey guys, 
Here's our preliminary task video from Storm Films, Inc.

Camera Angles

 
 

Establishing Shot

 

This is an establishing shot. The effect of this type of shot gives the audience an idea of the time and location in the film or TV show.   
 
 


Long Shot

 A long shot can give you the perspective of the characters body language and shows you in full what they look like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Low Angle Shot

 
A low angle shot can make the character have a high status as it looks like they are looming over you.

 

Mid Shot

A mid shot gives you a deeper insight on the character's body language and you can clarify their expressions better.

 Close Up

A close up is usually of the head and shoulders, this allows the facial expressions to become more visible and less ambiguous. 

 Extreme Close Up

Extreme close ups are used to intensify the tension in a scene, the ambiguity of the eyes can portray a person's emotions more vividly.

 Over The Shoulder Shot

This allows the audience to see what the character, whose shoulder is present, is visualising and the person who they are interacting with. It lets us in on how they are feeling.

 Two Shot

A two shot shows the relationship between the two people present. This can be a happy relationship (as shown) or something more serious.

High Angle Shot

This shot makes a person look more timid and vulnerable showing they can feel insecure

Summer Project for Media Studies

Hey guys,

This was my summer project for Media Studies

Hello,

I am Aycan and I'm doing AS Media Studies, hopefully my blog will give you some inspiration and help for your coursework.

Thank you :)