In To White

Cape Fear

How is sound used to create suspense and other effects in the scene?
-Cady's Release (Cape Fear)

This clip shows the release of the antagonist in the film being released from jail after a sentence, he has been waiting for this day for years to be able to get revenge on the man who sent him there.

The music is spine chilling for the viewer, loud and uncomplicated as if to represent the antagonists point in the scene. As the camera moves out from the wall onto the man the music changes slightly when focused on him to a slightly quieter sound but giving the same affect, it makes the focus more on him than the sound to emphasize his presence in the scene. The music is repetitive until the guard says 'the moment you've been waiting for', there is very little speech in this scene which I think enhances the fear of him being released and the significance it holds for the film, marking in your memory. This speech also highlights the importance of the time he has been waiting for and that this moment means he can accomplish the revenge that he seeks later on in the film.


This picture shows Cady moving towards his freedom, past his fellow cell mates and in front of the guard. He walks in time with the pace of the music however it goes from being very loud to very quite as if to highlight this moment, the moment when he walks out of the prison, there is very little noise other than a few quite rattles of the other cell mates cell bars. This emphasizes the movement making it seem as if the antagonist is so dangerous that he brings everyone else to utter silence, including all other dangerous men and prisoners, this shows how powerful he is, that he will bring everything to a stand still and silence.

Survey Analysis

I wrote a survey to find out information about how audiences feel about thrillers and what they enjoy within the films. my results were interesting and a lot backed up my ideas about the audience research that i did.

This graph shows the results for question four on my survey, out of the people that answered it shows that females like the idea of having both lead characters male and female, so a mixture. However many females said they would like a good looking male to be the main character, if not then female. This was interesting because in my research i found that most people could connect better to the characters if they were the same sex as themselves, but this proves that this can be true but it isn't always the case, many said that if the actor was nice to look at then they would prefer that to having the same sex character.

This is my table of results about music in the thriller genre and whether people think it is necessary to include it to create atmosphere and suspense, or if they just prefer these qualities to be inflicted by the actors. My results showed that no one thought that music shouldn't be included at all throughout, which i feel is good because adding music for ambiance will transform a scene from something slightly uninteresting to haunting. However some people felt silence would give a mysterious feeling to the scene, meaning we will have to find the right balance with the music we use and whether it is necessary as many of the viewers have different opinions.

 For this question i asked which sub-genre they preferred to watch and its clear that action is very popular with the younger generation, making the thriller genre more appealing to them. It would be hard to make a good action sequence with a lack of funding, otherwise it would look cheap, so i feel the next best option for us would be to stick to the horror side of thrillers, it will be the easiest for us to make but also the most attractive to our target audience.

This image shows the results for question 8, which asks what their favourite thriller film is, the most popular proved to be 127 hours because it does not have any scenes which are to dramatic. This is useful information as we cannot afford to create high action scenes in our thriller, but we hope to achieve the same excitement for our viewers as a film that does include these scenes.  The other films that prove to be popular are films that come under the sub categories of horror and action which gives me a good indication of where we should target our films towards and who we should target them too as well.
With the information I now have we can create our thriller based around the ideas that these people have given us, and categorise our film into those which people seem to most enjoy.

Footage Response

My first response to the footage was good, i think we got all our shots right and they look like they will be able to create the best possible film. When we first started to edit with final cut express, it was difficult to get used to the different software and how to use certain controls. The first thing we have done to our piece is to get all the correct footage into our time line and get them at the right lengths. We then overlapped them and i have changed the opacity levels to create a layer effect to show the movement of time passing as Thomas moves down the track. We are now at the stage of adding fades in between each clip of footage to make our piece more fluid.

Filming Process

We have now filmed our piece, and have got the footage that we think we need to be able to create the best piece we can. I filmed a good amount of the work and throughout the day gave my own opinions on things we should improve and work on, to get the best possible outcome we could. Amazon and Ben equally did the same amount of work, we all put in our own ideas to get the best overall to be able to get the footage we intended to.

Difficulties:
We found it difficult to get the horizon line straight on the day because the ground wasn't flat, making the tripod wonky and uneven. Another problem was using an animal for our first production, the dog (Meg) was good but had a tendency not to do the things the way we wanted, but we had to work with what we had and not worry. Another problem was that we only had one day to shoot all of the footage that we needed, therefor being no room to make mistakes and we could only film a few takes of each sequence because we were conscious of loosing the natural light of the day.

Adaption:
We managed to keep our footage similar to the storyboard, not changing much however we have changed it from our very original plan, as we excluded the background story of the murderer, where there was a scene where we wanted Thomas to find a newspaper with the murder stories over the front,  so it gave the audience something to be anxious about, with regards to the boy, however we decided that all the covers we came up with looked tacky and cheap so we decided it would be best to leave this out. Something that we found we had lost in footage when moving our film across to the computer was the opening sequence of the surrounding area, which we regret not re-doing, however we have a few seconds worth the same at the beginning of one of our takes.

Shots:
We used different shots for our sequence to add different point of views and interest for the audience. We used an establishing shot, for the first sequence of Thomas and the track, we then used a long shot to capture the distance he had travelled. For parts of the track and following Thomas and Meg we used a zoom for different sections. For the part where Thomas finds the collar and lead we used a close up shot then zoomed out to give the overall perspective of the scene and to show the murder while he's in shot. We found them relatively easy to film however we struggled with keeping the zoom going in and out at a steady pace, but we re did certain shots to maintain a good end piece.

Story Board

This is our story board, which i wrote and drew for our group, we decided the rough idea together. I chose to depict the actions with small drawings of the scenes we hope to create while filming. I have put an explanation to the scene underneath in the dashed box, and underneath that i have put an estimated time frame for the shots, within our 2 minute limit.
I have added an initial idea to the shots we want for each sequence, previewing our first idea's on how we want the scene/shot to look like. The stick man represents Thomas and the small dog beside represents Meg (the dog), i have added arrows to appropriate shots to show the movement of the scene and the direction of the movement, any that are pointing off the side represent the character moving off screen or a transition into the next shot.I think that having made this our filming will be easier and more fluid throughout the day.

Film Inspiration

For the opening sequence of our film we got our main ideas from 'A mothers son' a three part drama series on the BBC, it showed a young girl running away from something. we loved the dark spooky feel the scene gave off, they used clever camera shots, such as a distinguishing shot to establish the surroundings, it made the character seem very alone, but as if someone was watching her. The scene is dark, filmed at dusk. She is panicked, for ours we want Thomas to feel this way and realize how alone he is and how far he's gone. For our opening we want a shot of the surroundings and how they might make someone feel if you were there alone, feeling trapped in such an open and vast space.
This is the Video showing the opening sequence of the TV drama:

For the woods shot our inspiration came from a sequence that i suggested from the film 'Hide and Seek' it shows a young girl running away hiding in the woods. While watching this we felt on our toes and terrified for the girl, anxious for her well being, we want our audience to feel the same way when they watch our scene that is slightly similar in style. If you watch this video then it shows the sequence at 2:00 minutes:

Script

We don't have any dialogue in our thriller apart from the lines

Thomas: "Meg, Meg, where are you?"

we felt that actions spoke louder than words and therefore don't have more than one line, we felt this line was needed to explain the scene and crucial for the boy's sudden desertion and panic.

Casting

Casting
This is Thomas who is our main character in our thriller, he's 13 years old, we didn't have many other options for someone his age and height, however he was perfect for it and cooperated well with us to get suitable footage.
He fits our character background profile as he looks innocent, he isn't 12 , he's 13 but he doesn't look any different. It didn't matter that he doesn't live by the coast because that's where we filmed it.
We had an idea to use a young innocent boy because a naive girl is very predictable in this type of situation. Also as we used a dog as another character we wanted to portray the feeling of 'A mans best friend' type of relationship with the two together on screen. Inspiration for this character came from the film 'Hide and Seek' as it also shows a young person lost in the woods being scared about their surroundings, and stuck in a bad situation.

Character Background

- Boy:

An ordinary boy, innocent and unaware of the horrors going on in his small town on the coast. Aged 12 he is oblivious to the biggest headlines in the news and the potential dangers of the isolated woods by his house.

-Antagonist:

Opening will not include any dialogue or much view of this character as his role is to be a mysterious one and he isn't seen much throughout the opening. character is masked but has been sighted around the area where the boy lives several times. Not much is known about the killer but it is clear something in his past has encouraged him to act the way he does so we are going to try to help views paint their own picture of his characteristics and his past through scenes involving him.

This was written by Ben however we all came up with the ideas and agreed with each other on the views and characteristics of the characters.

Song Choices

This is the video, demonstrating two of the songs we may use in our final film. Ben was assigned this task for finding the music then we gave our opinions on what he found, we felt he would be best for this as he has a very musical background and he was interested in doing this. Both tracks would be good to use for the opening sequence, as i feel they are haunting enough to set the scene, and give our calm footage a chilling effect. The first song i can see being used when the attacker appears on screen and starts to follow, however it would also be effective for the walk up to the woods, to let the audience know the boy is heading towards danger. The second song would be good to use when Thomas is looking for Meg, making it feel rushed as if he knows he's heading for danger and that Meg is also in danger. We will decide which song we use, if not both for multiple effects throughout, when we have edited our footage.

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Character info

- Boy:

An ordinary boy, innocent and unaware of the horrors going on in his small town on the coast. Aged 12 he is oblivious to the biggest headlines in the news and the potential dangers of the isolated woods by his house.

- Killer/Bad guy:

Opening will not include any dialogue or much view of this character as his role is to be a mysterious one and he isn't seen much throughout the opening. character is masked but has been sighted around the area where the boy lives several times. Not much is known about the killer but it is clear something in his past has encouraged him to act the way he does so we are going to try to help views paint their own picture of his characteristics and his past through scenes involving him.

Costumes and Props

In our planned thriller, we intend to have only three characters; a small boy, a dog and an unknown and unidentified silhouetted figure.

Therefore  we aim to keep our costumes fairly simple. The young boy will wear a red t-shirt and plain jeans. We chose red to warn the viewer of what's to come. Red is a colour of danger and blood, so by choosing this colour for our costume we could indicate to the viewer what is about to happen. It is a subtle warning of danger to come. To keep consistency and to show that theses characters are linked, we chose red for the dogs collar as well.

Our third characters costume will be completely black as we wish to only show him as a silhouette, covered in shadow. Therefore we wont necessarily need a costume for this character, as long as the clothes are dark and makes them unidentifiable to the viewer.

Our only prop will be a newspaper that is folded so that the front page is visible, and the same silhouette of the man is visible on the front page.

This was written initially by amazon, however we sat and discussed our ideas and made final decisions together. 

Equipment & Schedule

The equipment list for our shoot & editing process:

• Digital camera sony HDR-HC9
• Tripod
• Mini DV tapes
• Camera charger
• Imovie
• Access to an apple Mac
• Props

The schedule for our shoot:

Wednesday 31st October 2012; 

• 12:00pm: Meet on location in Wells-next-the-sea.
• 12:15pm: start filming- film initial shots and "
• 12:45pm: re-film any shots that have gone wrong. 
• 1:00pm: Start filming scene 2-
• 1:30pm Start filming scene 3
• 2:00pm Start filming scene 4
• 3:30 Allow one hour for any complications or things going wrong- contingency time!
• 4:30 Departure.

This post was written by Amazon however we all contributed to the time and the general running of the day.

synopsis

Are working title is: Lost but Never Found

Lost but never found is a story about a boy called thomas who manages to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. To start, he innocently goes for a walk with his dog, they play and walk down the misty track towards the beach, he realises after a while that he has come along way and its getting later and darker. Once the boy and dog reach the outskirts of the beach the dog runs off, excited by the beach and soon Thomas can't find him and starts to panic, he looks around but the dog is no where to be found. Eventually he finds the dogs collar and lead on the floor, understandably he gets panicked by the sense of being alone and without his beloved companion. The scene ends with the boy looking out towards the woods behind is the siluote of a man but he doesn't know that the man is there.

Survey

This is my survey for Thriller research, please help by filling in this short Questionnaire.

<a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8PMLKSB">Click here to take survey</a>

How can I make my Thriller appealing to my audience?

I have done research looking into the people who watch thrillers, where thy watch them and how much the thriller genre make. In this post I will be looking at these areas to grasp an understanding to how my thriller will grab the widest variety of viewers so it is appealing and within their interest.

This table was produced by the BFI 2012 showing where the percentage of films have been viewed in the UK last year. It tells me that releasing our thriller online means that 2% more people are more likely to watch it than the percentage of people that would see it if we were to pay to screen it in a cinema. It also shows that a huge percentage of people would rather watch a film once or twice and not pay for it, by watching it on television rather than paying for the DVD or going to the cinema. The estimated size of the audience for online viewing was 277 million in 2011 in the UK meaning there is a vast spectrum of viewers that can watch our thriller via the Internet. We will release our film on the Internet as this seems the cheapest, widely viewed option.


This graph shows us that if we target our film to the age group of 15-34 years old then we are grabbing the attention of over half of the people that go to the cinema. It shows that if we make our thriller appealing to these age groups then the majority of people that go to the cinema will see our thriller, this is also good as we are in this age group so we can relate to them and if we make it appealing to ourselves then we have made a thriller attractive to a huge audience of people.

This table shows that two thrillers with an above average audience were in the 15-24 age group, which is the majority of our target age group, proving that thrillers are attractive to the audience we want to catch the attention of. Therefore backing up other research that we are targeting the right ages for our thriller.

These tables show the which gender preferred the top 20 films in 2011, I'm looking at thrillers so 'Black Swan','127 Hours' and 'Tinker,Tailor,Soldier,Spy' were in my interest to research. This shows that 22% more females saw Black Swan than males and interestingly 36% more males saw 127 hours in 2011. This may not seem that important into my research however it tells me whether this is by coincidence or not Black Swans lead role was female and 127 hours lead role was male and therefore appealing to the same sex as the actor. This is something I will discuss with my group while planning our thriller and is something that we will consider when choosing our actors as it seems viewers can relate to the same sex actors better then the opposite sex. The table shows that 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' has an insignificant percentage difference between male and female viewers meaning to appeal to my audience it is important to get the right balance to encourage both male and female viewers. This is also interesting as the lead roles for this film were balanced between male and female actors which is also something I will consider with our actors.

This table shows how much money the thriller genre made from the amount of films released in that category in 2011. It shows that even though the thriller genre isn't making as much as other genres, there is still an audience watching them and there is still a market to producing them. It is also making a significant amount more then the lower grossing genres for example the genre below,Drama, made 9,494 but thrillers made 13,161 which is a huge leap making thrillers the lowest in the bigger grossing genres but also considerably more than those under 10,000. This has proved to me that thrillers still appeal to the population and there is a gap for more, and more money to be made from their popularity.

This table shows what socio-economic background people are from and which top 20 films they watched last year. This shows that people from an AB audience watched more thrillers that those from a DE audience. We ideally would like our thriller to appeal to both the DE and AB audience, therefore we will to cater for the needs of both. An idea to do this would to not you clever language or anything that would be hard for someone to understand, or feel uncomfortable to watch, as this could result in a loss of viewers if a scene was to complicated or hard to follow, meaning we will limit the speech to create the atmosphere. Something that may not appeal to those in the DE audience is flash backs as they can be hard to follow and understand if not explained well, we were planning on using them at first but after this we may consider cutting them or using them in a way that is appealing to both audiences.

This research has helped me to think more about the audience and to those whom I will target our thriller for. I now know how to make it appealing to the viewers through this research, all the graphs and information came from the BFI website, I also discovered interesting facts about the thriller genre and how attractive it is to the population, how much money it makes and what type of people watch films with the genre. I will use all of this information to help me and my group make the most appealing thriller for our target age group.

Film titles

This title is for the film se7en, the writing looks 'slap-dash' as if its been encrypted onto the background. The letters look like they’re not finished or broken; suggesting something or someone in the film is represented in this way. The background is dark suggesting a sense of space and loneliness, to the viewer as if they are alone and nothing is there to save them. The word has a shadow make the letters seem like they have been printed many times to suggest that the plot line of the film has happened many times or is being repeated, maybe the characters are repeating the same thing over and over. The letter 'v' has been replaced with the number '7' this possibly is to emphasise the time, that whatever is going to happen will happen seven times and no more, at a glance the word reads 'seven' like normal but once you take a better look it becomes clear that it looks and sounds different, but the way it has replaced without people noticing may read into the film as though the happenings and the story line is taking place without people noticing. I think the title for se7en is effective as it gives clues to the film about the seven repetitions.

This is the title for the film The Hunter it is minimalistic suggesting that the film may use simple techniques to create suspense and other mediums of the thriller genre. the writing is clear in white against a black background, this use of white and black is represented as good and evil, meaning 'the hunter' is represented as good but the surroundings and happenings are bad. The scale of black around the spaced white letters may suggest there is no escape from the dark black background and 'The Hunter' is small compared to the evil it is faced against. The Hunter letters are simplistic and use a readable font with no fancy lettering, exactly in the middle of the picture signifying that this is the topic of the film and that there is little around to refer to through the film. I think this title is simple and to the point, creating suspense for the viewer as there is no further indication to the film or what you are about to watch.

Setting

This is the setting for the opening of our thriller ideally we would like it to be a misty day to emphasize the mysterious suspense factor of not knowing what lies ahead for our character. The opening for A Mothers Son came to mind when we chose this setting as further along the track is the beach and the open waters giving a sense of vast open space so our character feels alone with nothing around to save him.

This is where we plan to set our thriller opening, we will film here in half term, underneath is a mind map of our ideas for the thriller, we haven't definitely decided on one yet but we will discuss it in class.

As media project 'Monster chase'

Body of Lies

"How does the location and use of light and dark depict the emotional landscape of a character?"

 In this picture we can see that the antagonist is dressed with white colours, showing stereotypically that he should be the protagonist, as good is represented in white, this may show that his actions are what he thinks are the right ones but to the viewer isn't. He is in shadow on the left side showing he is behind the scenes and not the front man of the operation, there is light beaming through behind to represent hope for him or to show he has a way out before he is to be in total darkness, by doing the wrong thing.

In this image like the one above we can see his character choosing between light and darkness, good and bad, his face is directed towards the dark but his body is in the light, possibly showing that he could make the right decision but he's already made up his mind and he is being directed towards the wrong ones. He is asleep but appears to have been reading showing he is intellectual and thoughtful. The translations are in the colour yellow to show light, another symbol of escape, and better or right choices.

I chose to include this image because you can see the man is dressed in white and his milk float is white, showing that he is the protagonist and is working for good. It is clear that he is working with the forces against the other men above, however he is clearly being depicted in white and the forces are in black. The street is empty and has been blocked off to other residents, of Manchester it shows an emptiness of feeling and dehumanization for the characters as if they have no souls and they are just mechanical workers.

This image shows one of the men from the forces moving into the terrorist's house, the house is dark showing someone from the good light moving into the bad. The forces are dressed all in black and have masks to cover their face which originally would show they are the antagonist however that wouldn't seem to be the case once the scene is over. Again this image shows no character to the men dressed in black however the use of dark and natural light would lead us to believe they are good and the men in the house are bad, showing there is no real good or bad its all the same, that there is no right or wrong answer.

Title Sequences

Se7en

The title sequence for the thriller, Se7en fits well into the the thriller genre convention, using black and white, dark and shadows it shows brings out the sinister early on, setting the scene for the begging of the film.It uses close shots showing the intimacy between you and the character, and what he is to endeavor later on. The title sequence shows his planning for murder, showing reasoning and a form of rationalization for what he's going to do. To start it is slow showing book pages then the camera moves quickly between each picture almost to keep it hidden as if a secret is being kept from you.

It then shows him cutting the skin off his fingers, as if its old and hes been working such a long time on his plans and hes becoming dead, it also could signify him cutting away his fingerprints to hide from the future deaths. Parts remain hidden throughout the title showing a darkness as if to show his dark thoughts without letting you in to his mind.

This image shows his pen and writing movements being overlapped, with a change in opacity levels, this shows repetition  to give the impression that his actions are being repeated and he has done this before or he is going to do this again. It refers back to the title and what it means, that things will happen seven times, showing again that repetition of seven in this sequence.

The music throughout is robotic and mechanical, its fast symbolizing his thoughts and how his actions are like a machine, processed and thought about but repetitive. overall the title sequence fits well into the thriller convention as it creates a dark and methodical atmosphere to start off the film, with fast and slow pace shots, creating a tempo for the rest of the film.

Thriller posters

This is the poster for Leon, the font and bold letters of the word Leon running down the left hand side of the poster seems to represent a support system for the man, its structured like the buildings reflected in his glasses, possibly the building holds a form of sentimental value to him and that's why the bold lettering stands out when looking at the poster. The man is looking up at the skyscraper that is reflected in his glasses, possibly this is because he is looking towards hope, or a target. The man in the poster looks scruffy and not wealthy, he is wearing a hat and glasses which represent a form of disguise, possibly he is hiding or he is the aggressor. There is an orange glow across the cityscape and his face this colour can be represented as danger or fire, maybe this means he is danger or the city will bring him dangerous events. There is light beaming on his face from the sun showing that the city will bring hope and that there is light at the end of the tunnel for him.

This poster was designed to look like a magazine cover, it looks used and mass produced, suggesting the woman on the front is used. The woman doesn't seem to care about the fact there is a gun resting in front of her showing she doesn't care and shes used to that, and that she is dangerous herself and isn't bothered by the consequences. her hand is covering a magazine cover showing she is controlling, also that she is hiding the content of the magazine. This hiding is reflected in the dark shadows to the left of the page showing there is a light and dark side to her or that she is being hidden from the truth. She is dressed all in black suggesting she is bad and not working with morals. In the background the blinds seem to look like bars, meaning the woman is trapped in this situation and cant escape from it, even though she looks comfortable in her surroundings, the image depicted could show a false side of her personality and that she is being made to look this way but she doesn't want to be. Overall the poster is effective and bold, making you look further into the reasons behind the representation of her character.

This is the poster for the film taken starring Liam Neeson, it shows him running down a cobbled street towards the darkness this shows how he is moving toward the bad people and towards a dark place. He is dressed all in black showing he is a bad person or does bad things. His shadow is bold and dark moving closer and faster towards the dark as if he is closer to danger and the unknown thank he thinks. There is a girl in the light behind him showing that she is his support and the light at the end of the darkness. The Eiffel Tower is very faintly in the background in the light, this may be because it shows where the film is set or where the ghost like girl is. The word taken is in red and is bold showing danger and red can represent blood.The girl is very opaque and ghost like and dressed in white showing her innocence, he is running away from her possibly because he has to go through the darkness to get to her. overall the poster uses shadows, white and dark to show meanings and to represent the characters.

No Country for Old Men

No country for old men was directed by Ethan and Joel Coen, it received many awards such as an academy award for best picture and a BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography. The film is based on the novel written by Cormac McCarthy in 2005.

A man stumbles upon a bloody crime scene, a pickup truck full of heroin and two million dollars, he decides to give in to temptation and take the money causing a domino effect of violent actions which seem unstoppable, meaning west Texas law cant control the events that occur.the cast is lead by Tommy Lee Jones who won an award for best supporting actor for the San Diego Film critics society.

Camera Angles

Many camera angles and shots were hard to shoot as the camera wouldn't hold still, and would tremor however this was useful and affective for shots such as a 'Point of View' shot as it made the shot more realistic because the movement of the character wouldn't be still. After a while of experimenting with the cameras and other shots we realised that we would get a better shot with a tracking dolly or a tripod. The cameras we were using are compatible with both therefore we tried each for different types of shots.

Some successful shots were an 'extreme long shot' because the tripod enabled us to get a steady angle on the scenery and swivel around to capture the landscape, another angle was a 'over the shoulder' shot as using a tracking dolly allowed us to get a clear shot of the characters without moving towards the back of the other characters head. I enjoyed experimenting with different shots and techniques and it helped me build an understanding around which equipment to use for certain shots and how to use the camera.

Simons cat

i love simons cat, so funny!

What is a thriller film?

A thriller film uses suspense and tension to attract an audience. A good thriller film would include crime and mystery as key elements of the plot. The plot will be carried through with anticipation and won't be dependant on action as it would therefore be an action film, and neither lots of gory elements, making it a horror film a good thriller should sit in between these two. It should keep you on the edge of your seat and each moment should be unexpected and not predictable, with an ending that wouldn't be expected from the beginning.