Preliminary task

Preliminary task

             

For our groups preliminary task we decided to make a short film based around drug dealing and being discovered by the undercover police as it was a thriller movie opening which we had to be working on in the end we thought that this would fit in nicely with the rest of it, the opening shot after the title uses a match on action transition not once but twice, during the first one we also include a fade as sam is seen going around the corner, the match on action itself is sam going around the corner and changing camera shots so that we get a different point of view on the scene while the action is still being performed.
We left out all of the dialogue between the characters as we had decided that it would be better to not use it mainly for the fact that we did not have a dead cat and there was a lot of wind interference during the recording of it so we decided to go without and actual audio from the scenes and just decided to edit any audio in which we would need such as music or sound effects. There are many numerous things which we can work on and improve when working on  our later projects such as making sure we have a working microphone, looking at the weather before we go out to film during that day and we could also make things a bit more dynamic and could have added a bit more action or at least made it a bit more interesting by adding something a little bit more fast paced.

Match on action:
The match on action that we used was showing sam going around the in one continuos motion while switching camera shots, we did the same shortly afterwards while doing a match on action with Azimul as well, i believe that both match on actions were done well and look really nice with the editing together to make sure that it one continuos motion with no flaws i and no jolts within the motions.

Eye-line match:
The eye-line match that we did was during the scene where James looks past the camera and then it switches to the shot of destiny peeking over the wall, this is pretty well done as it begins with James looking at something off screen which the audience cannot see to begin with, but then the next shot is showing what the initial person was looking at.

Risk assessment (Media)

Location (media)

Location- Illuminate

In our Media film 'Illuminate', the location that we chose is my (Sam's) house (Picture 2). To be more specific, the setting of most of the film will be in the outside shed (Picture 1), but due to a lack of Google maps skill, the picture that was taken was the best that could be taken. The living room of my house is also a location where the film takes place, and features in it. There is also a number of scenes that takes place in 'sibling's room', which is just another location in the house that is not referred to being in the house, and is supposed to be in a different house.

Characters and props (media)

Characters and Props

Character Name:Prodigy
Costume:  Light coloured top Darker coloured jeans/ Trouser Casual shoes	Props: Whip Newspaper Phone
Character Name:Sam
Costume: Torn and ripped shirt Torn and ripped trousers  Scruffy hair	Props: Fake blood  Bounding rope Chair
Character Name: jacque
Costume: Dark coat Jeans	Props: Phone

Illuminate animatic (media)

Illuminate animatic 

Storyboard for illuminate (media)

Storyboard for illuminate:

this is the collection of pictures used in the storyboard for the film which we are going to be making; illuminate, all of the shots are in order going from top to bottom and all of them or at least the majority of them w should be using in the actual film. 

 

media studies-birds analysis (finished)

                                       The birds-1963

"The birds" is a thriller movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock and was originally written by Daphne du maurier, this movie stars famous actors such as Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren and Suzanne Pleshette.
This movie although a thriller follows a different set of rules to the standard movie plots of this genre as opposed to the normal villains or threats being psychopaths or crazed individuals, this movies villain is instead NATURE, this movies villain is the birds specifically, the "heroes" do not know it is coming and neither do the audience as it is completely unexpected for birds to attack humand where as we are used to psychotic killer or crazed gunmen and Hitchcock uses this very much to his advantage, the audience are not expecting the threat to be a bunch of seagulls but at the same time this is why it is frightening as the thought of animals turning against humanity is terrifying for humans as there are so many birds in the world that they could easily overpower humans three times over and that coupled with the fact that the setting is in bodega bay so there is no where to run except from one bridge which is later blocked off in the movie, this gives a sense of isolation and loneliness to the audience as there is no where for the protagonists to run to, they have to stay there and put up with the birds as there is no where to go.
While thrillers generally have a main villain in the movie, this is not true of "the birds" while the civillians and towns people do have a threat to them and it does appear as nature itself is bringing down her wrath upon them there is no real set villain although like traditional thrillers the "heroes" do still have to overcome obstacles and traps which the villain sets up in some sense, an example of this is when the birds seem to like constantly surrounding them and enclosing them either within their homes or within a building where a lot of them are present at the time during these points in the movie the heroes then have to find a way to either escape or to get rid of the birds and scare them away, while this movie does see them scaring away the birds a few times it is mainly them either escaping from them or it is with sheer luck in which the birds decide to leave. 

Another key action in which thrillers are known for is in their use of suspense and the birds is no different if anything they use the tool of suspense very well especially in the scene where the crows are slowly gathering behind the main woman of the movie, while we can slowly see them gathering and starting to form together possibly for another attack, the character cannot see them behind her so this creates a great deal of suspense and can lead to Many of the audience even shouting at the screen to alert her to the danger that is coming her way, of course we know that something bad is going to happen and that for us makes it even worse when it does actually happen and the character begins to freak out. Hitchcock liked to use a lot of things which had different underlying meanings such as the children singing inside of the school, while at first it seems innocent and sweet at first it is also one of hitchcocks devices, the signing of the children is seen as almost satanic and is in direct contrast to the evil of nature as displayed by the birds, it is almost like the children are signing satanic hymns to the birds even though it is just simply a child's school song, while on the subject of sound it is worth noting that throughout the whole film there is no non-diegetic sound except for one electrical music score but nearly all of it is just diegetic and all of it is contrapuntal meaning that any noises or music or talking that you hear in the movie is also what the characters and the actors in the movie are hearing themselves, this works very well for a movie like the birds as it puts you in the shoes of the men and women seen in the movie and 

unknown (finished)

unknown blog

Unknown was directed in 2011 by Jaume Collet-Serra and tells the tale of  man who has awoken from a coma after a car crash only to find that he has lost some of his memory as well as his identity and no one will believe who he is, not even his own wife while some mysterious stranger has taken his place and his whole life. 

This movie tends to use one of the most essential thriller devices known very well and this is the use and build-up of tension within the movie, this is very notable in the scene in the hospital where the protagonist is captured by an unknown assailant and is reaching for a pair of scissors which could lead to murder, this is done well with the use of close-ups of the protagonists face and the close up of his hand reaching for the scissors on the ground and the sound is also very key in this scene with it being very disorientating and sounding muffled to some degree as if the only thing he is focusing on that point in time is simply escaping. 

Another classic thriller device which is well used within this movie is the use of the McGuffin,  the McGuffin is the device which sets up the story and gives the initial driving purpose behind main character and what he is doing in that particular setting and then is also the reason as to why any following events unfold, the McGuffin in this movie is quite clearly the concept of prince shall and his interest in world food, the audience is only really interested in Liam Neesons character however and the McGuffin as well and Neeson's reason for being involved in the first place is quickly forgotten and instead replaced with intrigue and focus on what Liam is going to do within the rest of the movie, however it is the McGuffin which gives the movie its initial driving force.

A couple of the film and media theories do apply to this movie as well the most notable for me being the idea of the classic Hollywood narrative structure as this movie is very chronological and does not have any sub-plots at all really, the movie knows where it is going and what its one main story is and sticks to it, Todorov's theory is the other main theory which i could pick up on during the movie and this theory is about the 4 main stages during any movie and Todorov believed these four stages could be placed onto any thriller movie regardless of what it was like, The first of these four stages is the idea of an equilibrium and that everything is as it should be within the heroes life at that point in time which is true to begin with as Liam Neeson is simply on a business trip with his wife and is booking into a hotel until the second stage arrives which is "disruption", this is the stage where something comes into play that throws the equilibrium out of place and more or less ruins everything for the main characters and can be very disorientating as this is different to what they are used to, in the case of this movie the disruption is when the car crash takes place and is also when Liam's identity is taken and no one will recognize or believe him not even his own wife, the next stage is the resolution and this is true of the movie as this is the point where the truth is revealed to him and why no one believes who he is as he discovers that he himself was an undercover agents for an organization and the reason why he cant remember himself properly is because he was confusing his really life with his cover, and finally the last stage is called the "new equilibrium" and this is also true of the movie as it is where Liam resolves the problems and kills his former employer and continues to lead a normal everyday life among society.

psycho (finished)

Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock:

Psycho was directed by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1960's and was written by both Joseph stefano and Robert Bloch, first things first the movie uses a classic thriller device known as the red herring, the way that this particular movie uses this device is that in the beginning of the film the audience initially believes that it is all about the $40,000 and the murder which then takes place becomes a massive shock and scare to the audience and puts them on edge for the rest of the movie setting them up for the fact that anything could happen at any time and anyone could be killed in any instance, however Hitchcock also followed a strict belief inn this movie that he stuck to, this was the idea that as the suspense and apprehension increased the violence and gore would decrease as so to keep the movie flowing nicely and the audience fixated to the screen.

this movie just like many other thriller movies are extremely fast paced especially during the scenes regarding the shower, car and staircase another instance that makes this movie fast paced and action packed is the fact that there is clearly something wrong with the character of Norman Bates who is introduced very early into the movie, this instantly puts us on edge from the get-go, we just sense that there is something wrong with the way which he acts and his personality and straight away makes us very uncomfortable, another commonly used thriller device is the hero having to overcome multiple obstacles and problems introduced to them by the villainm so the movie is very villain driven however this is not really the case with "psycho" sure the villain carries on murdering and putting the "heroes" on a wild goose chase but this is not villain driven as it is more the heroes trying to find a missing person on their own accord while the villain attempts to cover up his own tracks.

The true brilliance of this movie comes from its construction and the way in which Hitchcock throws unexpected instances and scenarios the audiences ways and during the whole movie there are two whole major unexpected moments which catch the audiences attention, these two moments are during the shower scene and at the end during the final revelation about the mother, although a major unexpected moment during the whole movie is at the beginning with the very early exit of Janet Leigh and the reason why this is considered to be so unexpected is that from the beginning of the movie we accept her as the main character and expect her to be the survivor which solves the problem however she dies and this leaves the audience in a sense of disbelief with no idea as to what happened and the audience is then further confused when the point of view switched to that of Norman Bates. 

This movie uses the device of the "mc-guffin" which is the thing that gives the movie its driving force and causes all of this action to happen however it is not really ever spoken about once the action has started and is quickly forgotten about, during this film the mc-guffin is very clearly the stolen money from the beginning and soon sets off all of the other events during the rest of the movie.

The shower scene is arguably the most important and breathtaking scene in the whole movie in the way that is is both conducted, unexpected and the first real instance of violence and gore within the cinema industry and it could also be said that this scene alone changed the face of cinema forever and introduced real horror to the thriller franchise, however no matter how much it is argued that this scene is grossly violent and gory you never actually see anything, the scene just switched between the close up face of the screaming woman and the slashing motions of the arm we never actually see the knife make contact at any point in time and never see it pierce her skin or cause any harm at any frame, it is all simply what we believe has happened and the power of our imagination which makes us believe that the murder has taken place, the murder itself is only hinted at on screen. 

media theorists (finished)

Media theorists:

There are five main theorists when it comes to talking about film and media and when it comes to talking about the different aspects within these areas:

1. Barthes - enigma codes
2. levi Strauss - binary opposites 
3. traditional Hollywood narrative structure - 3 acts (linear)
4. todorov - narrative theory - 5 stages
5. propp - character type 

Traditional Hollywood narrative structure: 

This is also known as the three act structure and is the traditional Hollywood narrative when it comes to film making, this theory states that all film especially traditional Hollywood made films follow a three act structure of set up(25%), confrontation(50%) and then climax(25%, this theory also states that the story line is linear and follows the chronological pathway with few sub-plots and if there are any then they tend to be towards the end of the movie and closure.

Roland Barthes - enigma codes:

This theory talks about enigmas being within the movies and there being a lot of underlying mystery, Roland Barthes talks about all texts being "complex" bundles of meaning and when enigmas codes or "problems" are introduced it is normally within the disruption stage it also talks about open and closed texts, open being when the movie and problem is not resolves at the end and closed texts being when  the problems is solved at the end, finally it also talks about polysemic texts beings texts with bundles of different meanings. 

Levi Strauss - Binary opposition:

He said narratives can be organised through binary opposition -  two things opposed – often dominant vs subordinate - e.g. male/female, hero/villain

Todorovs narrative theory and the 5 stages:

in 1969 todorov developed a theory which he said could be applied to any film and he believed that they all followed the same narrative pattern these patterns and stages are as followed:

1. state of equilibrium (as it should be)
2. disruption of order of events
3. recognition that disruption has occurred
4. attempt to repair the damage cause by the disruption
5. a return or restoration of a new equilibrium

Vladimir propp:

Propp analysed traditional folk stories and quickly identified 8 key character roles in any text these consisted of the hero/villain/helper/donor/father/dispatcher/princess/false hero. 

Note however that one character can perform numerous roles out of the 8 and it doesn't have to be one person to one role