Thriller Ideas

i was put in a group with Bella and Sola. I was happy with this as they are both creative and good with the camera. I knew they would have good inputs to the idea. Before we discussed our final idea each individual developed some ideas of our own.

My first idea was a girl levitating. The clip would begin with lines dropping down from the top of the screen and spelling the title in red. This idea was inspired by Saul Bass' work. It would then cut to a girls face. The  white balance would be high, especially on the face- so you would only really see the features appearing (eg eyes). The screen would then flash black and re-appear on the girls face with a normal white balance.The camera would then be guided along each body part, with soft yet creepy, ghost- like music playing in the background. The camera shots would be close up, going through from the head to the feet. The camera movement would be slow and steady. This would last the majority of the clip. The audience would not know the girl was levititating yet. However the clip would seem creepy and make the audience uneasy. The titles would be appearing at this time. The music would then suddenly change to a high pitched fast sound getting higher and loader. As this noise came, the camera would zoom out as if it was hand held. The audience then realise that the girl os floating in mid air, and behind her in the corner of the room in an old lady on a rocking chair. Screen goes black.

My second idea began with a close up shot of feet walking. Close up of bottle of petrol. Shows waist below walking with petrol being poured on the ground. The camera then cuts at the same angle as the petrol on the floor. The camera follows the petrol and titles begin to appear in the trail. This the cuts to the mans face with low light so you cant make the identification completely. He drops the rest of the bottle and it leeks off the edge of the pavement. Close up of the petrol dripping off the side. Scene then cuts to black. A match lights up in the centre of the screen and the title of the film appears from the match light. The music throughout is tense and sinister.

Coursework Defined

Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. Both preliminary and main tasks may be done individually or as a group. Maximum four members to a group.

What is a Thriller?

Thrillers often get mixed up with Horror movies and people find it difficult to differentiate from the two unless you know more about films. We learnt that thriller films are more about the built up tension and the suspense in the film. However horror movies are more to do with gore and people being killed aggressively and shown to the audience. It is more graphic.

Alfred Hitchcock's movies such as 'Psycho' would be classified as a thriller as it gives the audience's mood a high level of anticipation, anxiety, uncertainty and surprise. Along with many other of Alfred Hitchcok's movies he helped to shape the modern day thriller genre. Fritz Lang and Hitchcock started this by introducing the film 'The Lodger.' The clip below is the trailer for the movie and you can already feel the suspense the audience was intended to feel.

There are many sub genres to thrillers, such as psychological, crime, mystery, political, and spy thrillers. In all of these the main aim is to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

Feelings Of My Prelim Task

I think my prelim task went well and i am happy with the final video. However i  think we could of done something more interesting in the clip such as adding a sound bridge as this would of been more unusual and made the video more interesting for the viewer. I think we also could have focused more on the idea of the the girl setting the alarm off. However i am happy with all the shots we got in the lesson and didnt feel the need to go back and take different shots during editing.
We did have a few problems during editing as the actors didnt use the exact words in the script and so we found that often the words were repeated and this meant that the choice of shots we could use was fewer, or else we would have repeated words in the video.
This was not a big problem as we had taken many shots throughout the lesson and we had left the camera on for the whole script in each angle, so we had enough shots to edit together.

Prelim Task

This was my prelim video.  We used different camera angles to create effects in the clip, such as behind the shoulder shots of the girl to allow the audience to position themself in that situation and feel the characters vulnerability as she is being forced to do set of the alarm. The close up shots of her face also allow you to see the expression in her face clearer. The close ups of the boy makes him seem more intimidating as you can see the anger in his expressions. We also shot the door handle opening and closing as we thought this would make the clip more interesing and add a greater affect to the tension when the boy left the room.
When we edited the clip we used FinalCut Pro so we could make the shots flow through to each other without any repeated action which would distrub the flow of the video. To ensure this each shot had to be cut at the right second. The program was hard to use at first but after a while it became easier and we discovered ways we found easier to edit.
This task really helped me understand how to use the camera properly and put everything i learnt in the camera lessons into action.

Prelim Storyboard

This is our story board that we base our prelim task on.

Coursework Defined

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.