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.