What is a Thriller?

A thriller is a very broad genre used in many films. The aim is to play with tension to stimulate the viewer's mood so they are constantly anticipating future events.They tend to be fast-paced, full of quick shots and are total adrenaline feeders.

This broad genre can be split up into sub-genres: Psychological thrillers, crime thrillers, mystery thrillers...
No matter what the sub-genre, they still aim to set up a major conflict that the protagonist must overcome.

Alfred Hitchcock was the man who really introduced thrillers as a genre that was accepted. One of his earliest thrillers was 'The Lodger' which was made in the 1920s.He did a few thrillers around this time, but it was only really after 1935 that he spent most of his effort into making his film thrillers.

Some examples of a pschological thriller are:

'Psycho' - Alfred Hitchcock. An incredibly famous film who's most celebrated scene is the shower scene in which we see a naked woman begin brutally stabbed. It is a psychological thriller because Norman Bates, the killer, is an incredibly strange and messed up man. It is in his craziness that he kills all his victims.

 'American Psycho' -Mary Harron (based on Brett Easton Ellis' novel)

This is a perfect example of a psychological thriller and is actually what my AS film is taking ideas from. It focusses on a succesfull wallstreet stereotypical yuppie. His mental state causes him to become blood-thirsty and turn into a serial killer. We see his instability a lot when he uses a voice over to show his inner thoughts.

Some examples of a crime thriller are:

'Silence of the Lambs' -Jonathan Demme. This could also come under the psychological thriller heading too as it is about a serial canabalistic thriller. What makes it a crime thriller is the FBI aspect of it and how he tries to solve this gruesome crime.

'Se7en' - David Fincher. This is about two homocide detectives that come together to get deeply involved in a case that deals with a serial killer who has cunningly planned out his murders to correspond with the seven deadly sins.

2nd Production Meeting

We had two additions to our group today, as Helena has decided to leave Hurtwood - unfortuneately for us. In her place we now have William S and Charlie F, which is great because I have worked with them before for the prelim task and we worked really well together and agreed on (almost) everything.
We began to think who we might possibly want to cast as our young journalist and our blonde woman. A very unlikely but top choice would be Tom Mison, because he visually fits the character perfectly - but realistically there is no way he would agree to do our film because he is a working actor and is clearly very busy.The second man we talked about to play the journalist was Paul (the media technician) because we think he is also quite fitting. We haven't asked either of them yet so it is possible that we will have neither of them.
In order to explain the idea to Will and Charlie we began a very rough storyboard and managed to get down about nine shots  (not all in order though). We feel we have quite a strong opening few shots that will really help push that slight background weirdness. Then we have a couple of shots for a little later on in sequence.
I think that our group is really working well, Willam and Charlie understandably haven't contributed to the idea as much as Alex and I but I think that once they are more familiar with the idea they will be contributing loads!

Pitching

We pitched our idea to Matt and Adam the media teachers. We went in strongly with the idea about the young journalist. We explained fully and gave great detail about the journalist character. Matt helped us realise that our opening sequence literally gave the whole story away, and it was more of a end scene. Matt thought that our character was a really strong one and we should focus on him more. Our idea focussed on the weird with a undertone of normal, we needed to make it so that we focussed on the normal and hinted the weird.
Together we decided that we would use internal voice as an overlay to hint the weird. Rather than showing the whole lab we would show the journalist on a date with an incredibly boring girl and he his thoughts are projected outloud about the inapropriate things that he is thinking (for example 'I would really love to shove you in my car boot') His thoughts would start normal and slowly getting weirder and weirder and more inapropriate. Right at the end of the sequence maybe we would show him walking into his lab.
I was really worried that our ideas where going to be totally thrashed and demolished, but actually they liked the basis of our idea and thought it was doable - which was the big thing!

First Production Meeting

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The first production meeting went well.  We started off by explaining our ideas to each other. As a group we decided that one of my ideas was something that was possible.  The idea is my hospital idea – but we expanded it even more. We drew what we would like the set to look like. When it comes to location, we have found out that Ewhurst has a basement in there house, which is a possibility for a site we can use to shoot on. Located hospital tools shouldn’t be too hard to find and costume will be easy, as I believe the costume department already has scrubs and lab coats.

Character: Young journalist, who is killing women and taking their body parts. He is also leading other journalists and the government in the wrong direction by slightly changing events and evidence on how they’ve gone missing. He uses his charming persona to lure these women in to house, he is also very attractive and youthful.

His reason: He is creating the perfect women for himself, as he believes no women he has ever been with was good enough for him. He feels they only fell for his looks not him. So he is cutting them up and using their body parts to create the woman who will love him conditionally, because she has to and because she isn’t alive to have a mind.

A Contemporary Frankenstein.

Rough sketch of what we picture the lab to be like.

Opening Title Ideas:

Some rough ideas that may or may not be possible to film, but they are ideas that can be molded to work with our time and facilities.

“Awake”

Black screen. Dodgy lights flicker on and we see a wide shot of a makeshift surgical room. In the middle of the room is a table covered with a sheet. The camera follows a man around the room (we only see his hands). He touches all the surgical instruments as he passes them. His nails are ugly and has mud and blood under them. Eerie music plays, a chiming like noise – as if the surgical instruments are clanging. The hands uncover the table, and a body is lying there. A woman in just her underwear, she is very pale and looks dead. We see the dirty hands put gloves on. The camera pans up the body of the girl. Starting at her toes all the way up to her face. Close up on face, music silences. A moment of still silence. Girl’s eyes open and she gasps, as if for air. Her eyes are bloodshot. Title flashes across the screen, “Awake”. Black.

“Pop Goes The Weasel”

Wide shot of a hooded man processing photos in a dark room. We can only see him from behind. He is humming “pop goes the weasel” to himself quietly. Cut to a male student, (tall, lean, glasses but good looking), walking with photography gear to dark room. Cut back to man processing, he hangs up his photos on pegs. Cut back to student walking, another student calls ‘Hey Weasel!’ – Weasel responds by waving and smiling. Cut to hooded man, taking of his latex gloves and then exiting room. Weasel enters dark room and turns lights on. Photos of weasel dead and bloody. Close up on Weasel’s face, pure shock and fear. Close up on a post-it notes stuck to a photo, it reads ‘pop goes the weasel’

“A childhood obsession”

Child is drawing a picture. Cut to old man drawing. Child is cutting things up and we see he has a scar on his right hand. Cut to an old man cutting things up, he has the same scar. This is because the child is a flashback of the old man. Cut to child cutting bits of yellow string to stick on his picture as hair. Cut to close up of old man’s hands cutting up real blonde hair. Cut to see child's bright blue eyes, quick cut to see old man’s eyes. Cut to see child finishing his picture and sticking it on the wall. Zoom out to reveal a wall full of pictures drawn by little boy – all of the same blonde girl. Cut to old man sticking his picture on the wall. Zoom out to reveal a wall full of images of a dead blonde girl and newspaper clippings in which the girl is pictured. Cut to child smiling. Cut to old man, he looks serious. Then after a while a slowly makes an evil smile.

“Run for your life”

Male athlete is running on track, he has earphones in. He has clearly been running for a long time as he is quite breathless. POV shot from behind him. It seems that someone is running behind him. He turns there is no one there. He continues to run at a faster pace now. Cut to POV shot closer to runner. He turns again, no one there. He runs increasingly faster. POV shot almost right behind runner. Runner turns and trips. POV shot comes and stands above runner looking down. Runner screams. Black.

Final Groups

Our groups for our main task have been chosen. This was done but shoving all the names into a hat and picked at random. Having said that, Adam did do some slight shuffling around and I was moved into the group that I am in now. The group I am in a group with Helena Burroughs and Alex Wadstein. We have never worked with each other before and I am only in one other class with Alex, so we don't know each other well. I think we will be able to work well together because we are clearly all into media studies and want to do well. I am interested to see how we work together.

Coursework Task defined

This is the actual coursework task defined by the exam board.

Video

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.

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.

Kyle Cooper

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 Kyle Cooper is a well-known title sequence designer. He has created some of the most interesting opening sequences in a lot of our well-known and loved films. He has been credited as the man who single handedly, made main title sequences a form of art. He is founder of two L.A based film design companies, Imaginary Forces and Prologue Films. They are both internationally recognized and are very influential in their field.

A piece of work that has been imitated and mimicked many a time, is his work on the ‘Se7en’ opening title sequence that was created in 1995. This piece of art changed the way we think and view title sequences today. The New York Magazine confidently named it “One of the most important design innovations of the 1990s” Cooper is particularly interested typography and how it can contribute to the plot,‘Se7en’ is a prime example of this. The sequence uses a handwritten style type; this is to mimic what the character in the title sequence is doing. The type seems to deteriorate and destruct itself; this could be to foreshadow future events within the film. This links to another favourite area that Cooper loves, movement. In every opening sequence, or in fact any work he has done, he revolves the type and titles around movement. The dynamic effect of this is what makes his work so great.

Microorganisms under magnification also particularly fascinate Kyle Cooper. He enjoys seeing something so small look so incredible, and so he aims to recreate these things for his title sequences. In ‘The Island of Moreau’ main titles, we can see this fascination in action. Using the knowledge I have on Cooper and how he thinks that an opening should reflect what is important within the storyline of the film, I can gather that some sort of scientific aspect is going to be portrayed in this film. The type used is reasonably standard to suggest a sense of formality, perhaps due to the scientific register. It then begins to get a bit manic, suggesting that there is more of a cryptic vibe about all the science that goes on in this film. Again, he uses constant movement to keep the opening sequence interesting and dynamic.

Another great title designer is Jamie Caliri, he is slightly different to Cooper as he has a major passion in stop-motion animation. He describes his design process as different to many other designers. He believes that the best way in which to create a sequence is to find the beats of the story and then fill in the gaps once you have decided on the definite poignant moments. In one of his most famous sequences, ‘United States of Tara’ we can see his love for stop motion being used. He believes that every little move made by these animated characters has a reason. For example, in the ‘United States of Tara’ opening a cockroach scuttles across the floor. Rather than stepping on it directly, she places a hankie over the bug, steps on the hankie and then vacuums it up. This suggests something about her character, she may like to order and perfection. You could go deeper to say that rather than facing a problem head on, she covers it up and then deals with it. All this is being said from a mere three to five seconds of film. Another incredibly famous piece of work by Jamie Caliri, is his animated end credit sequence for ‘Lemony Snickets – A Series of Unfortunate Events’. This sequence earned him a lot of respect and credit in the world of graphic artistry and animation.

The Finished Piece

Here is the finished piece of film.

Editing: Lesson One & Two

 Lesson one:

In this lesson we got to grips with the software we would be using, Final Cut Pro. It was quite a lot to take in, as there were loads on tabs and togs that we should click, and multiple that we definitely shouldn’t.

We checked in our work and began the editing process. To do this we had to find our groups work on the server and open it up. We then created a folder called “Rush Bin’, this is where we put all of our clips, including ones we were definitely not going to be using. From here we created a separate folder, called a “Log Bin”, this is where we copied the clips that we had filmed, that we would be using in our prelim. It was interesting to see how the clips we had shot looked on screen compared to how they looked in reality.

We had the storyboard next to us whilst editing so we could follow it exactly, or as closely as possible. Our group couldn’t follow it exactly due to a lot of errors with delivering lines, so it never fully matched the storyboard.

One thing that I think let our group down was our idea. It was a pretty rushed and not particularly thought out theme. What happened was, because the actors were wearing masks, we couldn’t see their mouths moving.  Which ultimately took away from the whole point of the activity. In some senses it made our editing process easier because we didn’t have to match up the words to the mouth, because there was no mouth on show.

We didn’t finish editing in this lesson, but we had more or less half of it completed.

Lesson two:

This is the lesson when we ran into some bigger problems. One thing, although drilled into our head a million times, didn’t factor in with us. Saving our work. After completing almost all of our sequence, Final Cut crashed. And with that we lost our days work. It was incredibly frustrating that because we had simply forgotten to click ‘command S’ we had completely lost all of our (what I thought was reasonably decent) editing. After dealing with the dilemma, we watched our piece back. Here we spotted a few issues. The first, a very stupid mistake – you could see the directors’ (me) and the camera operator’s reflection in the window. Very annoying, but easily done. The next was that we had some awkward pauses that we had to sort out. To do this we had to cut the sound separately, as we had the track of one clip which we had layered other action clips over the top. This was a bit fiddly but we managed to do it. We then finished our film. To be perfectly honest, I’ll be glad if I never have to see that piece of film again – it’s really not a very interesting or inspiring piece of film. Having said that, that was not the point of the exercise. The point was to practice our camera and continuity skills, not how interesting we could make a one-minute piece of film with a very limiting script. I wouldn’t say I’m one hundred percent happy with my product, but as a first try I think it’s reasonable.