Progress Report

Conventions of Genre

This was a little presentation I created with the help of Hannah Costen and Katie Offer for the voiceovers. Unfortunately when uploading it to youtube it swapped some of the images and sounds out of order. However it was complete and it took a lot of time as I drew each picture individually in Paint on my little old laptop.

Dexter Remake

When filming dexter I filmed with Megan Hertzl and Sophie Butcher, however due to production groups being set up and the way work was completed I edited with Hannah Costen and Rosie Harvey. I have proof of filming with the first group which will be added, along with the embedded video that I helped edit.

On the Set

Final Product

Previous film opening research

I gave this Opening a low level 4. The editing and use of sound, not just with the soundtrack but the foley as well, was creatively used. The only thing stopping it getting a high level 4 in my opening is that there were not enough titles used and they didn't create their own distrubution logos they used new line cinema. They clearly had a good sense of the genre, filming in graveyards, eery music, they new how to create the fear factor.



I gave this a high level 3, it had some titles but not enough and sometimes I was confused as to whether the genre was horror or thriller, there wasn't a clear grasp on either. Aside from that the use of foley was great and imaginitivie with the repition of words in whispers, and the phone ringing, dropping to the floor and call ending. That is why it got a high level 3.



I gave this opening sequence a level 2. There was no use of foley where it definitly should have been used, for example the knocking on the door, the key in the lock, footsteps, simple things like that, there was no sountrack, no clear sense of genre and one title throughout. The camera also seemed very handheld at times when it should have been steady.

Idea Presentation

Brainstorm

This is the brainstorm I created with ideas for a pitch for the opening scene of a thriller.
I decided to do a crime thriller aimed at males between 18 and 25 because I enjoy TV series such as Criminal minds and got ideas from thriller films such as Resvior Dogs, the kidnap scene gave me the origional idea, The Butterfly Effect, the idea of having the protagonist have flashbacks or designing a non linear effect came from this film and the torture scene from Casino Royal gave me the loaction idea.
The kidnapped man will be an average guy, a family man with a wife and children in a dangerous job, a detective that has gone wrong and landed him in more trouble than he can handle. The opening scene will show him sitting in a chair, with music playing in the background, a small non-fatal amount of blood staining his clothes his detective badge on the floor by his feet while a suited guy stands and watches holding a rope in one hand and reading a case file that's in the other. There will be flashbacks to the man with his family, with his colleguges at work then as the title comes to an end it will cut to black and show the words '48 hours earlier'.

Collage

Red Riding Hood Spoiler Review.

Red riding hood is a fantasy thriller set in a medieval village that is haunted by a werewolf. Inestead of going down the disney route the 2011 version of this film goes back to the very dark Brothers Grimm tales, throwing in pleanty of twists and the main enigma of who the wolf actually is.

The story starts with the main character Valarie revealing that she is in love with the woodcutter Peter and has been since they were children. She learns however that her parents have aranged for her to marry the wealthier blacksmith Henry Lazar. As Valerie and Peter plan to run away together their plans are put on hold when the wold breaks his truce not to harm the townspeople. Valarie's older sister Lucie, who it transpires was out on a wolf night under the impression she was to meet Henry who she is secretly in love with, is killed by the wolf.

Angered by the break in the truce the local preacher calls in help from a famous witch hunter, Father Solomon. Father Solomon convinces the townspeople to venture to the wolfs lair and kill it so they divide into groups, and Henry's father Adrian is killed moments before they manage to slay the wolf. When Valarie finds her mother mourning Adrians death she learns that Adrian was her mothers first love and Lucie was actually Henry's half sister which is why Valarie had been engaged to him and not Lucie.

The next day when celebrating the death of the wold Father Solomon reveals that had they actually killed the wolf, he would have returned to his human form, instead this was just a common grey wolf. He also tells us the meaning of the blood moon week which is revealed to be the only time of year in which a wolf bite will turn you into a werewolf yourself. No one believes Father Solomon however and that night there are celebrations with pleanty of drink dancing and fun. Valarie find her father passed out on the floor in a pool of vomit and send him home before noticing that her friend is dancing prevocativley with Peter. She too grabs a dance partner and attempts to make Peter jealous. Her fioncee Henry interupts the dancing to argue with Peter about the events of the night his father died and before anything can happen the real werewolf appears.

Everyone flees to the church as the wolf can not step on holy ground but Valarie's friend has lost her little brother Claude so they both go looking for him. The wolf finds them and talks to Valarie communicating telepathically with her, he tells her if she doesn't leave with him, Valarie will be killed, but the wollf is chased away before she gets the chance to make a decision and the wolf vows to be back.

Being that close to the wolf she takes note of the colour of his eyes which only increases her paranoia as every person she meets from then on has the same colour eyes including her Peter, Henry and even her Grandmother.

The next day cClaude is captured after doing a magic trick and is accused of being a student of the dark arts and put into an iron elephant torture chambre to try and reveal the whereabouts of the wolf. To try and save her brother Valarie's friend who witnessed her communicating with the wolf sells out Valarie in return for her brother. By the time the elephant is opened though Claude is already dead. Father solomon believes that Valarie is a witch and captures her to display in the town square to lure the wolf.

To save her Peter and Henry realise they have to set their differences aside and team up. Peter is Captured and put in the elephant while Henry helps Valaire escape. Father Solomon orders Henry to be killed for this crime but the preacher instead who saves Valarie. Henry takes Valarie to the church but they are attacked by the wolf who ends up biting off Father Solomon's hand. They then kill Father Solomon as he did so many others to prevent him turning into a werewolf. The wolf tries to cross to Holy Ground but burns his paw so instead is forced once again to flee.

Valarie has a nightmare that her grandmother is the wolf so goes to check on her but first she retrieves Father Solomons hand as the nails are silver plated and will kill wolf. On her way to her grandmother's house in the woods she is intercepted by Peter who has escaped from the elephant, after noticing the burn on his hand similar to the burn on the wolfs paw, Valarie stabs Peter assuming he's the wolf and rushes to her grandmother's house.

When Valarie arrives at her grandmother's house she learns that her grandmother has been killed by her father after her granmother learnt that he was the wolf. He then explains that the curse was passed to him by his father and he hopes to do the same for Valarie. He explains he killed Lucie after learning that she couldn't communicate with him and therefore wasn't his child, he killed Adrian after learning that he was the affair that fathered Lucie and then he asks Valarie to come away with him.

Peter comes to the rescue (limping a little after being stabbed!) and is tossed to the side and bitten by the wolf. He quickly manages to throw an axe into his back however and while the wolf is distracted Valarie stabs him to death with Father Solomon's hand. Valarie and Peter take the body out to the peir and fill it with rocks and dumps his body into the river so that he can never be found and upon learning that Peter was bitten they spend one last day together before Peter leaves to learn how to control his curse.

The final scene shows Valarie living in her granmother's house in the woods, leaving her old life in the village behind, she's standing outside waiting for something and the film ends with the wolf approaching her.

As a thriller film this could be argued sucsessful or not depending on personal taste. For me baring in mind the key elemets to a thriller are suspense and mystery I found this very sucsessful. I was on the edge of my seat half the time in anticipation of wolf attacks and the mystery of trying to work out who the wolf was kept me interested throughout the film. I certainly never suspected the father. I therefore give this film 4 out of 5 stars.

Falling Down Sound Edit

For this task we had to add the sound effects to the title sequence from falling down. We had to add the foley sounds to create effects such as the breathing and the children playing and the flies. To improve this we should have played a sound track over the foley sounds to create a layered effect. Sound affects are especially important in thriller films to help create the atmosphere of suspense. For example in the falling down sound edit the laboured breathing combined with the look on the mans face automatically makes you think that something has gone wrong or something is about to happen.

The sounds starts at 0.38 seconds and runs to 2 minutes 30 seconds.

Preliminary Task and Directors Commentary

For this task we had to practise using the camera to film while using techniques such as 180 degree rule, Rule of thirds, Shot reverse shot and when editing we needed to add some match on action shots. This was a good practise for our own thriller film. Below is the directors commentary where we have identified all of the mistakes we made while filming.



The main mistake that we identified was the positioning of the camera. It was either in the wrong place so things such as the lights were in shot. We also didn't balance the camera properly so that sometimes the shots looked titled. 

Inception Spoiler Review

The story of inception follows the main character of Dom Cobb and the lengths he will go to to get home to his family.

The story starts with Dom being washed up on a beach and being arrested and taken to an old man who talks of 'dreams' and a spinning top that he'd seen years ago. This is all very unclear at the start of the film and within the first 5 minutes of the movie the veiwer is already asking questions about what they're seeing making this film stay true to the nature of thriller films.

We then jump back in time to the younger versions of the two men in the very same room. They have a short conversation about extracting ideas and again refering to 'dreams'. When Saito (The old man who is now young again) leaves the room, what appears to be an earthquake happens and we are in a different room now however the same characters are still there. The difference this time is not in their ages and physical appearance but that they are asleep. A man walks over to check on things and we can see see needles sticking out of the sleeping men. A disturbance is happening outside this appartment that we are now in.

We are then taken back to the first location yet the disturbance that is happening in the second location appears to be affecting the first. Dom's business partner poses the question 'What's she doing here? We're here to work.' and we meet an attarctive young woman  who seems to have a past with Dom. Dom referes to her as 'Mal' and although he tells her he misses her, he also adds that he doesn't trust her. When she asks 'Do the children miss me' we automatically assume that these two are romantically involved. Dom completes his mission by taking files from the safe but he is caught by Mal and Saito. Saito tells Dom that is aware they are dreaming and by doing so tells the audience that the first location is actually a dream. Mal informs us that killing people in a dream in fact wakes them up. The dream quickly begins to collapse as the people dreaming try and wake up and Dom tries to read the information that he stole from the safe however bits of it are blacked out and missing.

From the second location one of the men from inside the dream and the origional man attempt to wake dom by pushing him into a tub full of water. All the men are then woken including Saito. The men attempt to interigate Saito and find out the hidden information until he reveals that he knows this is also a dream. We learn that they can achieve things such as a 'dream within a dream'. Saito congratulates the men and tells them he was auditioning them for a job he wants doing and they passed.

Saito tells them that he wants to end the company competeing against him by planting an idea inside the deceaded owner's son's head. He doesn't have to continue his fathers legacy. At first they decline but when Saito provides a barganing tool aimed directly at Dom, Dom assembles his team and they agree to the work. Saito tells Dom if he completes the task,he will be allowed to fly home to the U.S to his children, we arre not yet sure why Dom can't go home but it's clear there's a serious reason why he's in hiding.

Dom and his partner Arthur go to Paris to find a new architect called Ariadne. It becomes clear that Dom can't be the architect anymore as Mal, Dom's deceased ex wife, attempts to defeat him every time he creates the dream as it's his own subconcious. It'll be Ariadne's job to create the dream and design it.

Dom explains more about how parts of the dream work but this is also for the viewers benifit so we don't get too lost. It's explained that 5 minutes in normal time can be up to an hour in dream time. Dom explains that the people in the dream are populated by his subconcious, you can extract information from the dreamer by talking to these people or by creating a safe place such as a bank vault where the dreamer automatically store their secrets. As Ariadne starts experimenting witht he dream world the subconcious projections begin to notice it's a dream and become violent until Mal appears as part of Dom's subconcious and wakes them up by killing them.  Dom explains to Ariadne that she must have a totem to tell her whether or not she is dreaming, his is a spinning top, if it keeps spinning he is dreaming, if it stops and falls over he knows he's awake.

Ariadne shouldn't have to come into the dreams at any point but after learning that the reason Dom can't go home to his family is because he was accused of killing his wife and the reason he can't be an architect is because his guilt causes projections of her that cause the mission to fail, Ariadne has to come along to protect the others and make sure Dom doesn't know too many details about the dream.

 When the owner of the company that Saito wants bought down the team board an airoplane and drug his son, Robert Fisher and go to level one of the dream. Level one is set in the back of a taxi where Fisher is kidnapped and lead to believe he is being held hostage with his dad's business partner and best friend. 'Uncle Peter'. However in the chase Saito is shot and they find out if they die in this dream they do not wake as there are too many levels and they are too heavily sedated, instead they would actually die. To relieve Saito's pain they quickly put everyone into a deep sleep and proceed to the second level.

The second level is set in a hotel, Dom tells Fisher he is dreaming so as to earn his trust and they manage to pin point the blame on Uncle Peter, they say he is behind the extraction and is trying to get him to collapse his fathers company. To get to the third level of the dream they disguise a member of the team as Uncle Peter and pretend to go inside his subconcious to find out why.

The third level of the dream is set on a mountain in the snow but as Saito is quickly losing his life Ariadne is forced to reveal the short cut of the maze and let Dom in on the secrets of the level. Mal quickly shows up and caused trouble by killing Fisher. Dom takes Ariadne and follows him down into limbo, the place they go when they die.
Ariadne manages to save Fisher however Mal says they can can only take him back if Dom agrees to stay there with her. Here the twist in the story is revealed. Although Dom never actually killed his wife we are convinced of his innocence throughout the whole film. When talking to Mal however he reveals it was him in fact who planted the idea in her head that the real world was a dream, the idea that ultimately made her kill herself.
Ariadne takes Fisher back up to the third level by riding the 'kick' and Dom kills his projection of Mal and goes to find Saito who has died so that he can bring him back to honour his promise to send Dom home.
Back on the third level Fisher goes into the vault and it's a hospital room with his father in. His father tells him that he is disappointed he tried t be like him and when opening the safe Fisher finds a picture and a windmill he made for his father as a child. Fisher, Ariadne, Arthur and the rest of the crew try and find their way back up and out of the dream.
We then return to the first ever scene we saw with Dom being washed up on the beach however this time the conversation about dreams, regrets and things that happened a long time ago make sense. Dom asks Saito to go back with him.


All the characters wake up on the plane. Fisher is deep in thought contemplating breaking down his fathers company unaware that the idea was given to him by the inception team.  The team look around smiling at each other proud of their accomplishment and Saito makes a call and gives Dom the nod. When they arrive in the U.S Dom gets through customs with no problem and goes back to his house.
He spins his totem to check it's not a dream however his children run towards him before he has a chance and he forgets about it to be reunited with them. The film ends on the wobbling slightly, but still spinning, totem so we don't know if Dom has really been reunited with his family or if it's all just a dream.

This film is an excellent phycological thriller, it poses thousands of questions to the audience and even after you've watched it, possible endings because of the cliff hanger have been debated and still are two year after it's release.

The rating I would give this film is 4.5/5 Stars.

Module One Self Assessment

Level 3- 15- B

Targets to improve

1. Make sure to meet deadlines, post the day before it's due.
2. Improve presentation, images and embed clips, style of post, review needs rating etc.
3. Put time in after school to complete tasks that can't be done at home 9,10,11

Se7en re-edit

This task was to teach us how to use final cut, the editing program that we will be using for the rest of our media studies projects. We learnt how to use effects, text and how to import videos and images. We had to recreate the Se7en title sequence using the images and videos provided so we created a title sequence in the style of se7en.

Sound Terminology

This is a mind map of the sound terminology, quick notes made in class to learn the definitions of each effect.

The Butterfly Effect- Spoiler Analysis

The Butterfly Effect, where to begin? If a thriller focuses on mytery and suspense then this is one of the best I have seen. The story begins with a man, hiding under a desk writting a note explaining that if it is found, he is already dead and he is trying to make everything right. Our first question is more of an influx of questions. You're given a glimpse of what you can expect and you're so caught on the 'Who, what where when and why' you know you will sit through the movie, whether you think it is good or bad, just to answer the questions that the first five seconds spark!

 Then we go back to 'Thirteen years earlier' and see our main character at seven years of age. The character struggles with blackouts and loss of memeory in crucial moments of his life. We first see an example of this when his teacher at school shows his mother a picture that he has drawn, it depicts a man standing over two bodies with a knife in his hand and when asked why he drew it, he can't remember. We learn that his father is insane yet we don't know why and his mother takes him for a check up at an instution, pleading with the doctor to tell her he's not got the same symptoms. When Evan is taken to meet his dad he is asking questions when he blacks out, the scene cuts to Evan being pinned down and strangled by his father as he screams 'This must end with me!' The father is killed and Evan released and we know that whatever illness his father has, although the doctors can't see it, there is something wrong that his father is trying to prevent.

We then watch as four children, Evan (our main character), Kayleigh, her borther Tommie and their friend Lennie, head down a completely disastrous path, yet parts of the story are missing from the gaps in Evan's memory. We see Kayleigh and Evan playing in the garden then Kayleigh's dad offers to make a movie with them and next thing we know both the children are standing in the basement without their clothes and Tommie is watching from the stairs, Evan having no idea what's happened. Next we see them playing with a stick of dynamite, putting it in a letter box but before the explosion occurs, we cut to Evan lying on the floor of the woods and his friends screaming to help them with Lennie. We have no idea if Lennie is hurt, we only know he is taken away for a while. When Evan tries to recall the events of the explosion at the cinema by asking Kayleigh she begins to cry and he kisses her, this is witness by her brother who then has a psychotic break at beats up a stranger queueing for popcorn. This raises the question as to what problem Tommie has with Evan and his sister being together? Could it have something to do with what happened in the basement? The last clue we're given is the day Lennie comes home from wherever he was taken and in a junk yard they come across Tommie tying up Evan's dog and dousing him with petrol. As Evan and Tommie try to fight Kayleigh steps in and both end up badly injured. Evan blacks out and when he wakes up Lennie is crying, all that's left of the dog is the charred bag he was put in. This is the final straw for Evan's mother who promtly packs them up and moves out of town, with Evan holding up a sign to Kayleigh promising he'll come back for her.

Evan is now fully grown (in the marvellous form of Ashton Kutcher) and studying at college, living with a scary looking room mate who apparently (for some unknown reason!) gets a lot of sex. Evan comes across the journals he was asked to write as a child to help cure his blackouts and after celebrating seven years without them, after reading a few lines, blacks out and is transported back to the moment in question. Being a teenager again, in surprise, he drops his cigerette and burns himself, when he wakes up he finds the scar on his stomach and we ask ourselves the question that his voice echos "if I can casue scars can I heal them?" Can he change past events and is his memory coming back to him? Evan tries to find the adult Kayleigh and ask he what happened the night they were both in the basement, although he doesn't remember it causes some very painful memories for her and she commits suicide that night. Upon hearing of the death of his oldest and most loved friend, Evan picks a starting point for redemption and attempts to go back to the basement and change the events. When he wakes up, Kayleigh is lying beside him, beautiful and alive but after having so much of his memory altered Evan is confused and has a terrible nosebleed. He quickly catches up with current events and tries to live his life until the return of Tommie who learns that Evan is once again with his sister! In a battle witnessed by Kayleigh, Evan kills Tommie in self defense and is sent to prison where he is ridiculed and raped by the inmates. Knowing there is a way out, he asks his mum to bring his journals and makes his escape by once again altering a huge chunk of time in his life.

Every time Evan alters history something drastically wrong happens, he goes from killing Tommie to institutionalising Lennie for the murder of Tommie, from being the 'it' couple with Kayleigh to her living in squalour and prosituting as he tries to convince her they were once happy together. When seeing a psychic more mystery is added to the already twisted plot as she tell Evan he has no life line, he shouldn't exist. In one of the final changes he makes, he attempts to save the woman and her newborn baby who we learn died in the explosion of the mail box but while doing so gets caught in the explosion himself. He wakes up this time with no arms and everyone around him seems better off. Lennie and Kayleigh are together and happily in love, Tommie is no longer muderous and twisted but relgious and thriving at college and Evan can see that his meddling has caused more harm than good. When he tries to kill himself at this stage, he is saved by Tommie, he doesn't even have control over his death anymore. He learns his mum developed lung cancer after chain smoking because of his accident and when vowing to save her he attempts to alter history again and we watch as he accidentdally kills Kayleigh as a child and then wake up in a hospital, his mum healthy, although the damage caused to his brain is extensive and fatal. When trying to rectify his mistakes through the journals the doctor explains that they don't exist that they are a cover story to mask his guilt and we are left wondering if the whole film we have just watched is really all in his mind?

Then we return to the beginning of the film, all our questions about to be answered. Evan has some home movies and attempts to alter his life through them. He watches the one of his birth as he writes his goodbye note and we hear in a voice over the voice of the psychic telling him he doesn't exist, Kayleigh telling him she would've gone to live with her mum and left her abusive father if she didn't stick around for him, his mother explaining about her previous pregnancies, all still births and how he was her miracle baby.. and then we are transported into the video. Something is going wrong with the birth, the baby is losing oxygen and dying, Kayleigh and Tommie move in with their mother, their life is better, Lennie celebrates his birthday with family, his life is better, the mother comes home with her newborn baby, no explosion, their life is better. Even now right at the end when it shows Evan's mother in a hospital bed we're kept guessing, will a doctor come in and hand her a baby? But it seems Evan did the right thing, he ended hi life before it began so the others had a chance, in the future we see Tommie as valadictorian, Kayleigh getting married... a happy ending for an otherwise thrilling film.

Thriller check list

• Do I think the film held the right amount of mystery and suspense? Yes.
• Do I think the plot was portrayed in the right way to create questions for the audience? Yes.
• Were the characters believable and convincing adding to the mystery? Yes.
• Were the plot twists enough to play with your mind and keep you guessing? Yes.

Therefore, do I think this was sucsessful as a thriller film? Yes! The final twist being the death of the main character before his life began cutting out all of the events of the film! Every time an event changed as did the plot, as did our characters and as did the questions that we needed answering. What I liked most about this film is it did answer every question, at the beginning Evan is found with a knife and doesn't remember why he has it, later on when he goes back in time he picks up the knife to rectify an event that went wrong, the smallest details are considered to answer every question that the audience might have yet every time one is answered a new one has to be asked. An excellent psychological thriller.

The rating I would give this film is 3.5 out of 5 Stars.

Thriller Film Iconography

This collage depicts thriller film iconography. You can see I've screen capped props such a totem and matches. There are also scenes from thriller films that I have screen capped, you can tell these are typical thriller settings as the lighting is dim, the colours are dull creating an air of mystery and they are all places from the 'adult world' such as office blocks or roadsides. Movie posters and DVD covers have also been added in the case of Se7en, the butterfly effect and shutter island. These are some examples of psychological thrillers and even the way they are presented on a shelf for you to buy them from looking at their covers screams thriller. Negative colours or single colours are used to draw focus and there is always a sense of mystery such as what's in the background or who are the characters on the cover? All of this combines to create a collage of thriller iconography.

Thriller Setting

I took this photo as the setting for a thriller film as the photo is of an office, more importantly part of the adult world.  This could serve as a crime office, where an investigation could occur, or even an office of a main character within the film.
This office was originally brightly lit however I edited it, and darkened the contrast, to create a more atmospheric setting.

Coursework Deadlines!

What makes a thriller?

Timeline of title sequence- Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

This task taught the amount of people that are involved in a the making of a film and just how many slates are needed to credit those involved. These have to be included for legal and copyright reasons and it's up to the director to find interesting ways to included them without losing his audience.

6 Seconds

9 Seconds

12 Seconds

15 Seconds

19 Seconds

21 Seconds

25 Seconds

28 Seconds

33 Seconds

36 Seconds

39 Seconds

43 Seconds

50 Seconds

1 Minute 3 Seconds

1 Minute 5 Seconds

1 Minute 9 Seconds

1 Minute 14 Seconds

1 Minute 19 Seconds

1 minute 21 Seconds

1 minute 24 Seconds

1 Minute 28 Seconds

1 Minute 31 Seconds

1 Minute 34 Seconds

1 Minute 39 Seconds

1 Minute 46 Seconds

1 Minute 50 Seconds

1 Minute 54 Seconds

2 Minutes 8 Seconds

2 minutes 21 Seconds

Here is a paper copy of the timeline including information about the music.