Thriller Conventions

A crime at the core of the narrator (often murder, but not necessarily).

A complex narrative structure with false paths, clues & resolutions.

A narrative pattern of establishing enigmas which the viewer expects to be resolved.

A protagonist who is systematically - empowered and drawn into a complex web of intrigue by the antagonist.

Extraordinary events happening in ordinaty situations

Themes of identity

Themes of mirroring

Themes of voyeurism

Protagonist with a flair which is exploited by the antagonist
Titles often reflect an aspect of the protagonists/antagonists psychological state
there is oftenn a scene towards the end of the film in which the protagonist is in peril.

Mise en scene which echoes/mirrors the protagonists plight.

Note!! this post was originally made on the 24/02/09 but had to be reposted as it would not show on my blog.

Alfred Hitchcock

Tuesday, 24 February 2009


Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock born 13 August 1899 was a British filmmaker and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in his native United Kingdom in both silent films and films with spoken dialogues, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood.Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. He remains one of the best-known and most popular filmmakers of all time.


Hitchcock used some of his own experiences as a child in some of his films such as "Psycho", Hitchcock told how his father once gave him a note to give to a policeman to lock him up for 10 minutes for behaving badly and how his mother would make him stand for hours at the foot of her bed when he had misbehaved and he uses these past experiences in some of his well known films.





Hitchcock's films were very diverse and made films ranging from romantic dramas such as Mr. and Mrs. Smith to the dark and sinister "shadow of a doubt" and "notorious".

Near the end of his life, Hitchcock had worked on the script for a spy thriller called "The short night", but the story was never filmed. This was due to Hitchcock's own failing health and his concerns over the health of his wife, Alma, who had suffered a stroke. The script was eventually published posthumously, in a book on Hitchcock's last years.


Hitchcock once commented, "The writer and I plan out the entire script down to the smallest detail, and when we're finished all that's left to do is to shoot the film. Actually, it's only when one enters the studio that one enters the area of compromise. Really, the novelist has the best casting since he doesn't have to cope with the actors and all the rest." (interview with Roger Ebert in 1969)
Alfred Hitchcock's oscar nominations were:



Best Director in 1960 for Psycho
Best Director for Rebecca (1940), Lifeboat (1944), Spellbound (1945), and Rear Window (1954).

Producer for best picture: Suspicion (1941).
Note!!
This was originally posted 24/02/09 but had to reposted as it could not be accesses for some reason.
Posted by Jordan Hunt at 12:28

Evaluation

1.In what ways does your media project use, develop or challnge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our video differed from usual thriller concepts which usually start in a dark place with ominous sounds and visuals but our video started with an establishing shot in a bright place, our project was set entirely in daytime to put across the view that the killer does not care wether he kills in daylight or not which contrasts usual thrillers where murders take place in dark areas.

2.How does your media project represent particular media groups?
The group that is portrayed in our project is the teens and young people as they are the types of people acting in the video, also it could be said to portray people around the south-eastern area of London as this is where the film is set and filmed and also the fact that most murders carried out n the UK are committed by young people in their teens or early twenties.

3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media project and why?
The Media institution that might distribute our film would be a company that makes films on a tight budget such as film 4 or united artists. this is because these companies have been known to make excellent films in low budgets and our film would definately be a gritty low budget film and these companies, film 4 especially have bought out phenomonal films at only fraction of the price of some high tech films that are not always up to the standard of there films.

4.Who would be the audience for your media project?
The main audience would be youths 16+ as in our film we wanted it to represent true events that occur day to day all over the UK and we think that people our age can relate to this as these are dangers that people face all the time. This sort of crime. teenagers being killed happens alot in the UK and you see it weekly on the news so people know this is based on a very true, very serious issue. Another group of people that it might attract are people who like to try to get into the mind and figure out hat is going on inside the head of a psychotic killer.

5.How did you attract/address your audience?
The way that we attracted our audience and adressed them by showing local areas within the community that seem normal but this view is changed after the events that occur within the said community as people are killed and the communitys image is tainted by this.

6.what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this project?
I have noticed that when i first tried using all of the technologies used in processing our film i found them really hard to use and very complicated but since i have been using them much more i can use them easily now and make good use of the oppurtunites they create in making much better films and prodicts.

7.Looking back at your prelimanary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the product?
Looking back at my preliminary task i have learnt that varied use of camera shots adds a good effect to the shot and that over the shoulder shots add a certain degree of franticness to the film. I have also learnt that it is best to film at daytime nd darken the film via editing programs rather than filming at night as it appears too dark on screen. There are a number of faults that i now know we should improve such as the establishing shot which was too long and it would have been better to use a tripod for the image of the dead body to give a clearer view of what has happened.

Thriller movie complete!

music for a thriller

The last thing to do now was to find a piece of music that could be played over the video because there really isn't dialogue and the 'actions speak louder than words as the old phrase goes as we tried to incorporate into our video, The piece of music that I have chosen is a song from one of the sites which I put up for the other people in my class to use, www.newgrounds.com . Its easy, quick to use and is full of free, legal songs to use. the song I have chosen that will play through the video is called 'silence before the hurricane' created by Luuk Meijssen.

thriller evaluation update

I Will be posting a complete thriller evaluation on thursday which i will be putting alot of effort into and hopefully will be awesome!

Questionnaire Results

My group and I decided to do a questionnaire, the results of which i am going to reveal now.
The majority of people asked were between 10-16

The majority of people asked were female

The overall favorite genre was Comedy and Romance (Shocker!)

Most people go to the cinemas 1-3 times a month

Lastly the most popular part of a film is the story-line

This draws to the conclusion that, according to our survey the majority of people (mainly female) prefer comedies and romance films to action films, gory shockers, and suspenseful films.

2 minute thriller complete!!

Last wednesday we finally managed to get the group together and finish filming I chose a different location than was originally planned to film and because of this we deviated a lot from the story board we had originally made but hopefully its alot better than it would have been. I ended up starring in it because Jack couldn't seem to run fast enough away when being chased . Tireni was in charge of the camera work and in my opinion done quite a good job, deciding about where to film in the location and what sort of shots should be used (The establishing shot of the area was great and was supposed to go straight into the next scene but because it wasn't done right it had to be cut in a different way). Today I done the editting of the video where I chopped up the video in a manner of ways. First thing that I did was as each cut occurred I lengthened the transition with a cut to a black background and each of our names appearing as though they were intro credits on a film, as this is supposed to be the opening of a thriller so it seems to fit well. A second thing to add is that the second half of the video is shot from a first person perspective (again a good choice on Tireni's behalf) so in a sense it does put the viewer in the shoes of the victim in a way, (and yes I was the one filming the second half because Tireni needed to be in the frame and so I was the only one left to use the camera). At the last part when the title of the film appears then fades off, the picture changes to black and white as to show that the murderer has got the victim in some way shape or form. This is left up to the viewer to decide how he was killed due to there being no eveidence of a weapon, the screen then flashed out to white after the sun passes in the frame to suggest the victims death, a way to show that the victim has fell but could also be seen as a metaphore for the phrase 'my life flashed before my eyes' as it could be seen that the sun actaully had moved on and it was now night, a representation of the end of life. Also i would like to post a huge thanks to Lee Russell without whom we would have not been able to finish filming so soon and it would have been much more difficult without him so cheers!

Animatic

completed preliminary exercise

We have now completed our preliminary exercise and this scene shows continuity as we have not changed our clothes or anything in the scene.

Future Posts

I will be writing some new posts this week both about what i have done in recent lessons and i will also be analysing another film.

28 days later analysis

28 Days later is a post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by danny boyle.

Scene 1: The film starts with a series of disturbing scenes of rioting and violence on a series of televisions with a chimpanzee strapped to a bed with a series of electrodes and monitors attached to him and then focuses in on another sereis of chimpanzees in small glass lined cages running from side to side and some are hammering on the cages and screaming.  We then see a group of animal rights activists breaking into this medical testing facility, obviously with the intention of freeing the chimpanzees and when they are about to do so they are halted by a scientist who tries to alert security but is thwarted, he warns them not to release the chimps as they are infected with a  highly infectious disease called "Rage" they dismiss this claim and relase one of the chimps which promptly attacks one of the activists biting her savagely he is dragged off and the woman starts coughing up blood and coughs blood into the face of another activist who then starts screaming and whos eyes turn red and we see the scientist running and then a loud scream from him ends the scene.  This is an immensely dark opening sequence with lots of close-ups and obvious uses of Film Noir as this scene is very dark and takes place in a sinister animal testing lab.  There are lots of close up shots in this scene with closeups of the chimps and the infected faces of the animal rights activists as they start coughing blood and their eyes seemingly fill with blood.  The music in this scne is slow and creepy at first but becomes faster and faster as the scene progresses and comes abruptly to a halt at the end of the scene.  The characters in this opening scene are wearing black and all are dark haired and serious looking and there are on bright clothes or props in this scene.

Scene 2: This scene is based around the character Frank (Cillian Murphy) who wakes from a coma 28 days after the infection hit hence the name "28 days later" and shows him inside a hospital waking from a coma and removing intravenous tubes and has a scar, exactly where the previous monkey had his electrodes tied in.Danny Boyle is alluding to the fact that both man and monkey in this movie are being exposed to vast amounts of violence through everyday media and it is harmful.  Frank then exits his hospital room and we hear him frequently shouting "Hello!" and he then exits the hospital and begins walking around a completely deserted London rife with signs of catasthrophe and the camera zooms in on newspaper cutting bearing various catastophy related titles such as "Apocalypse" and "Judgement day", As well Jim notices a postcard that reads "it will be your grave for you are vile -Nahum 1: 14 this is a verse from the bible that predicted the destruction of a city called ninevah because the inhabitants were wicked, later in the movie we see Manchester burning like the city of ninevah.  Jim soon finds his first infected in a church as he walks in and eerie slow music kicks in and he once again says "Hello!" and two people stand up suddenly staring at him as if infatuated and he turns to see a priest staggering in through a door.Danny Boyle uses religious symbolism throughout "28 Days Later" in the form of crosses, religious text and with a priest to relay his spiritual message. In fact Jim's first encounter is with an infected priest, who swats at the air as if possessed.There is a reference to the book of Revelations with the phrase, "The End is Extremely fucking nigh," written upon the walls of an inner city church. He is then seen running from the church in a series of fast moving shots showing Jim running for his life from some extremely fast infected and then he is aided by 2 survivors who burn the infected who seem unaffected by the fire which adds to the films catastrophic nature, showing that these infected do not respond to any kind of pain.  The infected are then blown to pieces by the survivors and the camera again follows the characters as they run through a mall to their place of hiding inside a shop with metal shutters, they are shown running through the mall in an aerial view as if from a security camera inside the mall.  This is then followed by a series of close up shots of jims rescuers.  Almost all fo the shots of deserted london were digital

Scene 3: This scene shows Jim, Selene (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley) walking to Jims parents house and Jim runs upstairs to find his parents dead on their bed seemingly from a drugs overdose as the camera shows a close-up shot of a table with wine and pills and Jim takes a photograph of himself that his mother was clutching and it says "With endless love we left you sleeping, now were sleeping with you, dont wake up.  the music in this scene is slow and sad and sets the tone for the scene.  We then see a close up of jims face with tears falling down his face as he weeps for the loss of his parents, this kind of camera shot fully shows how he is feeling.  The survivors decide to stay in the house and Selene tells jim to have no lights on or to make any noise but jim decides to light up a candle and look around the house, we see close up shots of jim looking at his parents possessions when the music speeds up and we hear a crash as an infected, later identified as Jims neighbour crashes through the window and selene and mark rush in and kill the infected but mark has been wounded and Selene thinks he has been bit although i personally think the cut on his arm looks like it came from her Machete as she was swinging it through the air as the cut is straight and deep yet Selene doesn't hang around, she sets upon Mark with her Machete killing him swiftly and tells Mark that if he gets infected she would "kill him in a heartbeat". again focusing on her face with a close up shot to see the hatred in her face as she focuses only on her own self preservation.  This scene is full of blood on the walls, again dark clothing worn by all of them and the end of the scene is Selene and Jim leaving the house after she tells Jim that more infected are on the way as "They always do" according to Selene.

Scene 4: This scene starts with Jim and Selene see flashing lights in a tower block and decide to investigate, they go into the flats and climb a stack of shopping trolleys to reach the stairs and then shows them running up the stairs. they are talking as they take a break when the music speeds up and they look down and see several infected climbing the trolleys and they begin to run upstairs.  Again the camera looks from the air as if it is a security camera in the flats as it sees Selene and Jim running up the stairs.  The camera then snaps to the top of the stairs to a large anti-riot gear clad figure with a plastic shield stepping aside for them to pass and then he kills the infected as we see a series of close up shots of the blows he deals to the infected as Selene and Mark scream at the mans daughter to open the door.  She opens the door and once again the camera goes close to the mans face as the watcher waits to see him and then we see him remove his mask to show a man seemingly of good nature who invites them to stay although it is evident from the start that he has other plans that the needed other people alive for.  The tone of this scene radically changes extremely fast, from the tense chase up the stairs to sitting inside a flat drinking Creme de Month in celebration as frank calls it takes no more than 30 seconds and features very fast camera work.  Frank tells Jim the next ay that they are running low on supplies especially water and cant stay for long so they decide to go to an army blockade that may not have been overrun so they get in franks taxi and head to Manchester.

To be continued...

Alfred Hitchcock

• Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock born 13 August 1899 was a British filmmaker and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in his native United Kingdom in both silent films and films with spoken dialogues, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood.Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. He remains one of the best-known and most popular filmmakers of all time.

• Hitchcock used some of his own experiences as a child in some of his films such as "Psycho", Hitchcock told how his father once gave him a note to give to a policeman to lock him up for 10 minutes for behaving badly and how his mother would make him stand for hours at the foot of her bed when he had misbehaved and he uses these past experiences in some of his well known films.

• Hitchcock's films were very diverse and made films ranging from romantic dramas such as Mr. and Mrs. Smith to the dark and sinister "shadow of a doubt" and "notorious".


• Near the end of his life, Hitchcock had worked on the script for a spy thriller called "The short night", but the story was never filmed. This was due to Hitchcock's own failing health and his concerns over the health of his wife, Alma, who had suffered a stroke. The script was eventually published posthumously, in a book on Hitchcock's last years.

• Hitchcock once commented, "The writer and I plan out the entire script down to the smallest detail, and when we're finished all that's left to do is to shoot the film. Actually, it's only when one enters the studio that one enters the area of compromise. Really, the novelist has the best casting since he doesn't have to cope with the actors and all the rest." (interview with Roger Ebert in 1969)

Alfred Hitchcock's oscar nominations were:

• Best Director in 1960 for Psycho
• Best Director for Rebecca (1940), Lifeboat (1944), Spellbound (1945), and Rear Window (1954).
  
• Producer for best picture: Suspicion (1941).
  

Thriller Conventions

A crime at the core of the narrator (often murder, but not necessarily).

A complex narrative structure with false paths, clues & resolutions.

A narrative pattern of establishing enigmas which the viewer expects to be resolved.

A protagonist who is systematically - empowered and drawn into a complex web of intrigue by the antagonist.

Extraordinary events happening in ordinaty situations

Themes of identity

Themes of mirroring

Themes of voyeurism

Protagonist with a flair which is exploited by the antagonist
Titles often reflect an aspect of the protagonists/antagonists psychological state
there is oftenn a scene towards the end of the film in which the protagonist is in peril.

Mise en scene which echoes/mirrors the protagonists plight.