Evaluation

Evaluation

In our opening we used a series pans and establishing shots to convey movement and progression to the destination off our film  also to introduce the building to our audience. We challenged the conventions by having mostly fully lit scenes, such as the roof scene we also included no violence or aggressive behaviors in our opening which normally is convention for some thrillers, Se7en and Salt for example. Also we choose an unfamiliar set to film on, challenging in thrillers the idea of having a recognizable place in which the film is set, normally a conventional landmark, name or buildings the audience can relate to. We wanted to keep our audience which a sense of confusion.

In our film we focused on stereotypical behaviors more than social class and age, so in our film we have only teenagers playing the parts which is common in most horrors but not so common in thrillers such as in Inception and Se7en which are some examples. Our opening presents teenagers in two juxtaposed ideas, on the one hand we are following the stereotypes of teenagers going to a place they shouldn't, they are also not damaging the place in any way just taking photos and exploring. Portraying the idea that their intentions are good but are reached through harmful means. Our film doesn't show much variety in social class as the main three characters are shown to be of a somewhat working class (due to their expensive looking cameras, shows they have money to carry out their hobbies to the fullest extent), it's also the same with age as all the characters in our opening appear and are around the same age of 16 - 17.

I played the only ethical character in the opening  to avoid prejudicial attitudes and also being I wanted to feel more involved in the opening.

Our project would be presented and distributed by film companies such as Legendary Pictures or Relativity Media mainly due to Legendary Pictures being a good stable and reliable company which would give us good backing for the film, which we would intend it to be a smaller independent film being backed by one of the to companies but only as a sponsor. Though Legendary Pictures has released big blockbusters such as The Dark Knight, 300, Watchmen we would be aiming for box office earning similar to the film Ninja Assassin.

I would like our film to be published in various film magazines like Focus or Sky Movies, not on the front page but with just a mention or small preview on one of the pages, also i would want it advertised first to a British audience. With the backing from Legendary Pictures and the advertising in Sky Movies I feel our film could be successful in reaching our audiences, likes and difficult preferences in this ever changing decade of film.

In TV I would expect less, if nothing at all seeing as its independent film i wouldn't be to reliant on a TV consumer base audience, with my film being advertised in Sky Movies magazine I plan to grab the attention of the film lovers and enthusiasts.

Our main audience would be film enthusiasts, people who enjoy films in general not because of who's starring or the amount of CGI in it. People who enjoy thrillers also people who could relate such as teenagers of the same age or just people who have had similar experiences in general. For example someone who's been in an abandoned building\house\warehouse and understands how creepy and unsettling it is. Though our film has no gender,ethical,age boundary, I don't think it would be enjoyed by younger children because its very dark, with little variety of colour which is unappealing to children. Our specific audience would have to be teenagers to people in their early twenties.In terms of genre our film would be mainly Thriller with a sub-genre of Mystery and Our film would be rated 15, although we have no explicit violence or disturbing scenes in the opening it would change as the plot developed. 

One way we have succeed in capturing our audience's attention is by out film location and storyline, as one of the film opening's strongest aspects is its location and progressive plot throughout the opening, we have an extensive amount of dark and interesting scenes with added mise en scéne props in the background such as broken glass, old pipes and derby which adds to the intensity of certain scenes making them more believable for example the scene where 'Sam' is being left behind while the other two walk off into the distance, then the camera shows Sam looking at them in the distance with a slight focus pull putting emphasis on the background objects like the derby. The titles we produced where quite basic, just a simple black screen and the title mainly because we wanted to keep all importance on the title's name itself rather then have a flashy animated background, our title has a message. One good way we set the scene and grabbed our audiences attention was with our choice of music we used Radiohead - Lotus Flower

I would advertise/market my film at cinema's by having different types of promotional goods from different cinema sponsor's such as Cineworld, AMC, Odeon. I would have them produce different stickers/tickets that each member gets with each meal they purchase and can be redeemed to get posters, T-shits. badges, downloadable content when ever they collect enough or certain ones. This event would run 2 weeks before the film's release to when the film stops being shown in cinemas. Also as stated before i would have it in a Sky movies magazine, also i would have posters of the film around the cinema with some HD TVs showing off one of the films trailers a month before the release up until it stops showing in cinemas. The stickers/tickers idea would get my audience involved and build up anticipation of the fill as well as getting the film out into the public, getting more people to hear about it, talk about it reaching to an even larger demographic.

I've used similar programs before due to also taking AS level graphics, like After Effects which is similar to Final Cut Pro but is used for creating special effects and animations mostly. But in the video making park I have learnt quite a bit in terms of camera angles and shooting distances while actually filming. This was the first time I've ever filmed something, i have done a bit of photography in the past but never any filming, doing this opening has thought/shown me the difference in actual planning and filming, how to pan and focus pull on different types of scenes effectively. It's also thought me a bit about teamwork how much cooperation can play while creating a film and how we have to combine our ideas and views into one idealistic image. The blogging aspect has thought me to pace myself not only with writing entries but with other things such as my graphics work and English assignments.  

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American independent horror film directed by Tobe Hooper, who cowrote it with Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Paul A. Partain, Jim Siedow, and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the hitchhiker, the proprietor, and the main antagonist, Leatherface.

An unusual horror base one true events in texas, the film has quite a grusome start complying to the standards of most horrors. 

It starts with flashes showing quick shots of a corspe, presenting an unclear view of what's being shown and slowly building tension, also showing the obvious connotations of death, malice and corruption as we see something left unatrual to our daily rountie, next is a  track out of the decomposed body with commentary, revealing the harsh reality of murder with low key lighting to give the effect of something being hidden, and slowly being revealed. Red and black sihouettes are used during the title sequence following the codes and conventions of Horror.

The narration in this is done through a mix between digetic and non-digetic voice overs, the daunting narration is a police report of them finding the body, this narration is used throught the whole opening making us the audience feel involved with the case and story of what's going on from the start.

We can hear a dilibrate poor quality auido, with the digetic sound of digging which connotates to burying, something being hidden, death, graves. There is no pace or ryhtem throught the opening scene its just very distant and abstract, feels like the omission something conventional like the killers body or recongnisable features of the killer.

We aren't told who the voice is, it could be a policeman or a reporter reporting the crime as they have a toneless broadcasting voice showing little to no emotion. One notable analogy is " Red sky at night, Shepherd's delight, Red sky in the morning, Shepherds warning" suggesting that red sky, with the silouetted red we are shown is symbolic and meaning for us to be warnful of what's going to happen next which is more brutal killings.

Role Allocation

I am working in a  group of 3, our group consists of :

Jamal Leigh-Hanson (me)
Alex Hawkesford
Samuel Walker

We all put our ideas together in writing as the story is a result of compiled ideas, Alex Hawkesford was our cameraperson, as he was the most familiar with a camera we also had a helper offscreen. Our onspot director would have to be split between me and Alex Hawkesford as we had mostly the same vision on set for the film. Lastly our editor was Sam Walker, due to his previous use of sony vegas and other movie editing programs.

We all produced and directed the film as a whole. We each played an acting role in the opening also to cause less hassle with filming schedules.

StoryBoard

 Here is the storyboard I created for our opening, we knew some of the buildings layout already so this made it easier to version our ideal opening on paper.

Codes and Conventions of a Thriller

Codes and Conventions of a Thriller

Codes and conventions of the thriller genre mostly take advantage or the sound, mise en scéne and editing to induse tension and suspence while keeping the audience on the edge of their seats, carrying small shocks at some unexpecting parts.

With camera quick pans, cuts and stable shots and unusual camera angles, showing only parts of the body to keep the audience guessing.

Heres an example of that.

Here they have close upfollowing her feet as she in running to heavily emphasis a sense of panic.

Sound plays a big role in thrillers because its one of the main points when building tension, strings of quiet reacurring sounds that get louder and louder gradily can be as easy as it gets, but different sorts of sounds cause the audience to react in different ways, high pitched noises are mainly used for films which have killers or  psychopathical themes a good example of this is the famous film clip with the woman in the shower sihouletted with a guy about to stab her with a knife by Alfred Hitchcck in 1960, the sound used is this high pitched repeative instrumental that even today proves to be very effective. 

Mise en scéne mostly consists of dark lighting and unseen figures, its often confusing and misinterprete. Thrillers are quite close to horrors in this area they both mostly have dark, eriee, unsafe settings some we are familar to and others complete cliches like Zombieland (where they end up in a theme park fighting off the endless zombie horde) it helps get the audience into the right frame of mind when building tension or suspence.

Research Into The Thriller Genre

Research Into The Thriller Genre

Thriller is a genre of literature, film, video gaming and television that uses suspense, tension, and excitement as the main elements. The primary subgenre is psychological thrillers.

Most Thrillers present some kind of crime theme about the story or have psychological  elements to them, to show uncertainty which helps build suspense and tension which again are key in Thrillers.A genuine, standalone thriller is a film that provide thrills and keeps the audience cliff-hanging at the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax. The tension usually arises when the character(s) is placed in a menacing situation, a mystery, or a trap from which escaping seems impossible. Life is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspectingly or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation.

Thrillers mostly take place in ordinary suburbs/cities. Though sometimes, they may take place wholly or partly in exotic settings such as foreign cities, deserts, polar regions, or the high seas. The heroes in most thrillers are frequently ordinary citizens unaccustomed to danger.

The reason they are mostly set in cities is because, its some where familiar some where the audience can relate to, cities can be very daunting at certain times or when one is alone and most of us have experienced times when we feel uneasy in a safe or known enviroment.

The Pitch

The Pitch

Opening  Pitch- 

We wanted to create a tension building thriller which followed the exploration of three characters through an abandonded building, unknowingly there is a 4th entity lurking in the shadows.

Mise en scéne-

The main goal we are trying to achieve is suspence, so our mise sen scéne will be he layout of an abandoned building, with cracks in the walls and abandoned junk all over the floor. Unlit rooms presenting one direction of light would set our scene. Mostly low key on lighting haveing rooms with very little to no light source. We would have shots of our characters on a roof which would be fully light but then as they enter the light would dimmer and dimmer which would show their descent into darkness.

Character Highlights-

Originally- originally we planned to have four characters we wanted each character to go againist the many sterotypical views of characters in films.

Male leader type character to boost the moral of the group and reassure everyone in the group that everything was ok, he was going to be the positive person out of the four as he was the adventurous one. We wanted him to look pretty normal, with no defining characteristics e.g. height, clothes, scars.

Scared character who would be one of our sterotype breaking characters, hew as going to be tall and have a big build and also have a alpha male type attutide. He would dress in lacoste or Jd sports clothes to make him seem like a chav but instead he, himself would be really scared of the building and would often get left behind and end up being the one lost. His girlfriend would be the complete opposite and not scared at all.

Techinical character, the tech guy he would operate the camera and have some first person shots of his journey through the building. He was going to be best friends with the leader and also be positive but passivly, he wouldnt scare easy or feel the need to turn back. We also planned for him to mischievous like he would provoke the scared character and make fun of him and cause him to become even more paranoid.

Brave unamused character, this character would be the scared character's girlfriend who wanted to join the exploration, and instead of being scared find the place boring and but get more into it the further she went in. Being the scared character's opposite she would slowly start to leave her boyfriend to venture with the other two.

Our final character design was that we dropped the brave unamused character and changed the qualites of the scared character, instead of him being notiably out of place (due to his size and his clothes, which would make the audience question what he was doing there with theother two) we make him similar to the other characters and kept him being scared and wanting to leave.

In the end the three character we kept were the Male leader type character, Scared character and the Techinical character.