How to film a thriller

How to film a thriller:

Thrillers have many aspects of cinematography,sound and other devices which make it a thriller and make it easily identifiable to be a thriller, these aspects are known as "thriller conventions" and the majority of them are all outlined within the film clip below. When we talk about filming a thriller and the key aspects which make up one we normally talk about a couple a couple of main features, we normally discuss the shot types, sound, mise en scene and editing as thrillers have a particular way of going about these features and i am going to be observing and talking about all of them within the thriller scene below.

Editing

During not even the first minute of this short movie there is some editing immediately thrown into it, we begin with a fade which is a classic thriller editing techniques used to show the passage of time and is mostly used during a longer driving/walking scene and is used to speed things up, throughout the film there are also many consecutive straight cuts which are mainly used to speed up the video as well and are the simplest but also arguably the most effective way of using transitions mainly due to the fact that  the cuts are "invisible", this means that we do no really point them out or dwell on them too much and that we just continue watching the movie as if it is just one continuous recording which is great for any film maker as this allows them to do multiple shots without bothering the audience too much, this type of transition is especially useful when it comes to thriller movies as there are so many shots that these types of movies use the best way to get between all of them is through straight cuts. 

Cinematography

 The cinematography for this clip is very good as it accurately portrays any and basically every thriller movie as the majority of them will have at least one of the shots which are present within this miniature film, the most obvious shot which is in the clip is the close up as many of them are used to prtray the main characters feelings at the time and to show that he feels he is in trouble without actually saying anything or doing anything outright the close up on the facial expression is more than enough to convey to the audience the feelings of the character and the fact that he feels as if he is in danger. The other shot which also conveys to us this sense of danger is the medium shot of the passageway which gives us this sense of somebody watching the man and what he is doing and making it very ominous, the final shot worth noting in my opinion is the steady-cam shot at the end of the film which is used in many other thriller films when following the main character as it makes you feel as if you are actually following them yourself and part of the action and great escape yourself.

Sound
Sound is also a major role within any thriller film and this short one portrays the correct use of it very effectively, at the beginning before any danger or worry is present there is just the happy sound of birds chirping and the outdoors however once the man enters the seemingly abandoned ruins all of this happy and upbeat audio immediately stops and is instead replaced by ominous diegetic sounds such as water dripping and footsteps and really gives off this sense of danger and worry which really works together well with the creepy surroundings. Once the man leaves the ruins again and his heavy breathing has slowed down it goes back to the happy sounds and the sounds of the birds again to show that everything has gone back to normal. 

Thriller titles

Thriller titles:

This title opening is a great exam of a modern thriller opening as it is mysterious seemingly dark and does not tell you much about the actual film itself while giving you enough to keep you interested and want to continue watching the actual movie itself.
All we see during the opening really is a hand that is seemingly scraping dead skin off the fingertips or keeping them clean however the curious thing about the seemingly harmless activity is the fact that he/she is using a razor-blade of all the available tools to clean his hand with which is a bit suspicious as when we think about  razor blade we normally think about it cutting into something so this will motivate us to watch the movie as we will want to find out why that razor blade seems to be so significant during the opening scene.
The opening also seems to be mostly based around numbers and seemingly information such as in books and articles, we will also want to continue watching in order to find out what the big deal with all this information is as the man seems to be crossing out specific words and even roping together pieces of article.
The title sequence does a great job at keeping the audience wondering and watching without giving away too much or too little and risking driving away the audience from the movie and making people want to leave due to either boredom or knowing too much about the movie without actually watching it, 

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

Styles of editing (finished)

There are many different styles of editing when it comes to movies and film producing and many different types of transitions or "cuts" throughout the whole film.
straight cut:
This is the most standard form of transition or editing which can occur in films, a straight cut is when one shot moves instantaneously to another without attracting the audiences attention, straight cuts are "invisible" to the audience as people do not generally pick up on them and do not worry about them they just view the movie as normal, this helps to retain reality.

dissolves:
A dissolve is when one shot fades off screen while another fades in screen and takes its place, the audience will be able to see both shots on the screen at one during the "midpoint" of the dissolve this type of transition is generally used if the director of the film wants to show a connection between two characters, places or objects.

Fade:
The fade is a gradual darkening or whitening of the screen and image until it eventually becomes fully black or fully white, one shot will only fade until eventually nothing can be seen apart from that one colour which it faded to, it is generally used to show the passing of time in a movie.

wipes:
a wipe is when one image is pulled off screen by another, the image can be pulled off screen either to the left or to the right, it does not matter however it is more common to be pulled off to the left side of the screen as this is better associated with time moving forward.

jump cut:
this transition is where the audiences attention is bought onto something very suddenly, and it "jumps" to the object of interest, it appears as if a section of the film has been lost or removed and continues with a different section.

graphic match:
This transition is when the film maker chooses to place shot in a certain order one after another to create a smooth visual transfer from one object to another, the two object or scenes have to generally look similar as to create the smooth transition.

"rope" blog (finished)

"rope" blog

The director of this movie is Alfred Hitchcock it is based off a play by Hume Cronyn from Patrick Hamilton, the play itself is said to be based off the grisly Leopold and loeb case of 1924, the case itself involved the two upper class law students murdering a lower class teenage boy which they knew and done it simply because they believed that they could and would be able to get away with it due to them being higher class than the victim and they believed also that their intellectual superiority made them void of any punishment from the law which the rest of us have to obey.
Thriller movies themselves are mainly characterized by the films fast paced and frequent action, this is true for rope as throughout the whole movie from the point where the body is hidden all the way to the end where the body is discovered all of the characters are in the same room as it and the trunk without even realizing even to the point where they are eating off the trunk where the body is hidden and still do not realize at all, this definitely gives the movie its fast paced action as we want the people to just open the trunk and find out about the murder which was committed however every time that  any of the characters even get remotely close to the body they are asked to leave the trunk alone and to not open it up, however as the trunk get closer and closer to being opened and they are stopped in their tracks this raises more and more suspicion with one of the other characters who almost plays the "detective" role in ultimately discovering the body, this movie does a very good job of keeping us on the edge of our seats at all times. 
However the other main aspect which thrillers are known for is the idea that the villain or villains are the ones which create the obstacles and the problems which the heroes then have to overcome this is only true to some extent with "rope", instead of the villains throwing multiple obstacles which our hero has to overcome there is no real indistinguishable hero and the only main obstacle which they have to overcome is simply just finding the body and solving the mystery behind the murder. Another two devices which this movie seems to use very well is suspense and the use of dramatic irony, throughout the whole movie there is suspense, we do not know if the body is ever going to be found with the idea of it being able to be found at any moment and at the same time the two villains keeping everyone away from it extremely well, this creates suspense as we know that anything can happen at any moment also dramatic irony comes into play with the audience being the only people besides from the villains to know about the crime which had taken place and where the body is
located i think this is a very well used tool as it creates tonnes of suspense and a lot of fast pacing throughout the movie as well and works a lot better than if we also did not know the body was there, another reason why i believe it is better that we know is that it makes the audience almost wish that they could jump into the big screen and tell everyone what had happened and thus gets you directly involved with the movie.
I think that the editing is done very well considering the fact that it was all done in one massive take and each time the cameras closes up up onto something that is when the ten minute reels are changed and when the cuts take place and the fact that the chest is always in shot fits very nicely into this, it is always reminding us of where the body is and gives us this sense of claustrophobia with the box taking up a seemingly large portion of the screen at all times, the continuous editing as well also gives us this idea of it all happening live in front of us as one massive play which gets us even more involved with the movie and makes us feel more as if we are part of it. 

past student thrillers (finished)

previous media studies thrillers

Hidden:

I think that while this is a good idea and a good concept it is not really carried out as well as it could have been and a couple of the shots within the sequence are very out of place, for example at the beginning there is a very unnecessarily large amount of walking down to the girls house and could have easily been either edited out or should not have been shot at all as it is just too long and the walking takes up too much time of the whole thing, another shot which i did not really like was the over the shoulder shot of the girl, while it was a nice idea to have an over the shot of the conversation we are instead greeted by glaringly large light coming off the street light, and finally the last two shots do not make really any sense at all, all that we see is a straight cut to the boy dead then it cuts to black at the end with the girl looking out of the window with a scream, we really do not have any idea what has happened and a lot of it is left to the imagination, even if there was some grabbing at the end that would have made it somewhat slightly better.

After Eight:



I believe that this one is done really well and keeps us well informed and filled in as to whats going on throughout the whole thing that is up until the end, what i mean by this is that we can clearly see at the beginning that the man has came home from work or school while the woman is cooking dinner for both of them as the guy has finished in the shed doing what he needs to he sits down reading a newspaper until the dinner is done and while this seems a bit boring what i like about it is that there are a couple of things that they do not openly explain or show us that keep this interesting for example the man seems very shifty always looking around when he is walking up to the shed then he is seen reaching into what seems to be a freezer but he does not pull anything out or put anything inside of it and once he is finished and returning the way he came he seems to have had a change of clothing for no apparent reason most notably losing his coat and the goes to sit down for dinner as if nothing unusual has happened in the first place, the thing that further enforces this sense of mysteriousness and danger is the fact that we are not shown what the girl is cooking until the very end and to me seems to be some kind of hand/finger and they both act as if it nothing unusual where it then cuts to the title screen, all in all this is a great set-up for a horror movie and the editing is also done very well even if the only transition used was straight cuts it work extremely well in this clip to help build that worry and keep the pace up as well as keeping an eye on both of the characters, it just all works very well together.

studio idents (finished)

Studio Idents

All films have at least one film company or studio idents backing them, a studio ident is a company that specializes in making and helping to produce films so i guess you could also call them production companies however in this we are talking about when a studio or multiple idents which help the movies director to produce their film through funding and also advertisement/propaganda for the movie for example posters and television advertisements, there are many different studio idents out there and you will always see them during the opening of the movie by their unique opening sequence and after watching or seeing them quite a few times you will almost always instantly recognize them without having to watch the entire sequence play through as the majority of them or at least the major ones have been around for a very long time and have backed many,many movies especially the major titles which we all love and know such as matrix, titanic, aliens etc. here are some great examples of some of the biggest studio idents out there:
Walt Disney:

20th Century Fox:

Warner Brothers:

Modern thriller openings

Modern thriller openings: 

mise-en-scene (finished)

mise-en-scene:

mise-en-scene is used in every movie that you have watched throughout your whole life, it is a french term which translates to "in the scene or frame" and means is basically anything which the viewer can see in that particular scene of the movie.

mise-en-scene has a lot of different elements to it and is not just one thing, it is a collection of different things and themes for example mise-en-scene is normally referring to 5 very specific things which you can see within a movie these five things are as follows:

1. setting and props
2. costume, hair and make-up 
3. facial expressions and bodily language 
4. lighting and color 
5. positioning of characters and objects within the frame

These are the main five things which we discuss when we are talking about mise-en-scene however when we are talking about these we also like to include two other aspects or ideas and which we talk about these are denotation and connotation.

• Denotation is the literal description of an idea,concept or an object for example if a movie has a scene where a person is injured then it fades to white and a scene where he is not present the denotation of that would simply be that it became lighter and bright all of a sudden.
• Connotation however is what we associate with a particular idea, concept or object so if we again talk about a scene where a man is injured, it fades to white and then he is not present our connotation of that would be that either he is in hospital or more than likely has passed away, this is because we frequently associate the bright white with heaven/afterlife 

When it comes to both connotation and denotation color can play a very big and important role within these two as color often creates moods within the sub-conscious mind.

So in short when we are talking about mise-en-scene we are not talking about editing necessarily or what we can hear/dialogue we are just simply talking about what can be seen in that frame. 

Thriller conventions (finished)

Blog one-thriller conventions               

A thriller is classified in many different ways but the main two ways in which a movie is classified as a thriller is if the movie has fast pacing or frequent action and the main plot is nearly always driven by a villain whilst the hero reacts to the things which the villain throws his way, a great example of this type of plot is in basically all of the James bonds films where the villain is always trying to take over the world or attempting to blow it up, in thrillers the hero always has to be resourceful also finding alternative and interesting ways to defeat the villain from using the environment to his advantage when fighting as shown during the scene where he uses the sink in the bathroom to drown the enemy to using his own wit and smart judgement to escape from the enemies traps.

In a thriller there is always a lot of action all of the time and in those rare moments in which there is no action then instead there is a lot of suspense and a lot of build-up to the action which is going to be coming along shortly, to complement this in most thrillers the hero's are hardened warriors accustomed to fighting and near-death situations so none of these horrific encounters and treacherous traps phase the hardened warrior at all whereas it would shock the audience, although most heroes appear to be hardened veterans there are many cases in which ordinary everyday people are dragged into the action packed situations of heroes and villains and this is very popular with older thriller films such as north-by-northwest and many other of Hitchcock's films, along with this the hero is mainly a male who appears tall and well built as evident with basically all of the James bond films however thriller films have recently more and more often been using women instead of mean as the main character, this is also very evident the film aliens in which the main character Ripley is attempting to hide and escape from the threat which is the alien.
Some people may accidentally confuse thriller movies for mystery story movies however there are many differences between the two, the two types are most easily distinguished by their plots and the way in which the story progresses, in a thriller the movie involves the hero attempting to stop the villain from finalising and acting upon their evil schemes as opposed to mystery movies which involve the hero or mainly the detective in uncovering a mystery/crime which has already been committed, another difference between the two is that in a thriller movie you generally know the identity of the bad guy throughout the whole movie and it is not kept a secret whereas with a mystery story the identity of the villain is kept a mystery throughout the whole movie that is until the end where the identity is the big reveal.
The main way of telling whether a movie is a thriller or not is simply if it thrills you, it is supposed to thrill and excite you as opposed to being mysterious and building suspense, it is supposed to simply keep you on the edge of your seat. 

North by northwest blog (finished)

North by Northwest assignment:

In this assignment we are going to be looking at north by northwest and will be focusing on cinematography,sound,editing and mise-en-scene but the main scene we are going to be looking at is the famous crop-duster scene with the section where roger Thornhill is attempting to escape from the plane that is trying to murder him and we are going to be mainly observing the cinematography in this scene out of everything else.
The cinematography is very widely used throughout this whole scene and lots of different types are used such as the beginning shot which is the wide shot and is used to display the main characters surroundings showing what he is seeing along with displaying this sense of loneliness on the main character and isolation as he is located at that point in time in the middle of no-where with nothing around him, this shows his extreme discomfort and the fact that he is far away from the city and home, the two places where he feels the most safe, this wide shot and pan shot is also used to show how long roger is waiting for this mysterious Mr. Kaplan to show up and that he is looking about everywhere for him.

The camera will then zoom in onto Rogers face to  show a close-up shot once the plane is in motion and is attempting to shoot him, this shot is used to to how his shock and fear that the plane is attempting to kill him while he is in the middle of no-where it could also be said that this shot is used to show Rogers sudden realisation of the fact that there is no Kaplan but instead was all a setup for Roger to be murdered, this however is not an extreme close-up but instead is a normal close-up.
Immediately afterwards there is a low-angle shot to show the plane just passing over his head nearly killing him in the process and this shot is especially low-angle to show exactly how close the plane was to decapitating him.
Finally we end this sequence with a tracking show as Thornhill is running away from the plane which is in hot pursuit and thankfully the plane has to pull up just before the bullets which it is firing comes into contact with Roger killing him, all of these "special effects" such as the explosions,gunshots and the plane are not CGI, graphics or animations these are instead all done live and are all done by trained professionals so when you find out that this is all done by the crew and not the computer then this makes the movie much more impressive.
The sound plays a very important role in this whole movie as basically all of the sounds are non-diegetic and there is no music at all, all of the sounds are sounds in which the character "Thornhill" would actually be able to hear himself such as the plane flying overhead or the gas tanker exploding, or even the cars and bus driving past him, the only diegetic sound which you can actually hear during this sequence is the sharp pitches or tunes which play whenever the plane fly really close to thornhill overhead nearly killing him in the process, the use of sound is extremely effective for this movie scene as it puts us in roger Thornhill's situation as we can both see what he is seeing through the use of many P.O.V shots combined with the use of non-diegetic sound really puts us in his shoes and makes us feel like we are in his place and are in imminent danger just as he is.

North by northwest is very much a villain driven story and narrative just like many other thrillers from this movie era were, other great movies which are villain driven from the same time as this can include any of the James Bond movies from back then all the way up to the present day, the way in which you can tell that it is villain driven is that the good guy as such in this movie never really provokes the villain themselves and never will directly attack the villain instead it is just the villain which is always throwing obstacles and traps in the path of the hero which he then has to react to and in the process stop the villain from achieving that which he is attempting to (which is generally something i the way of world domination). In the case of this movie the "hero" is just an ordinary everyday person going about his daily routines until that is when he is mistaken for another person who is an agent working for the government hot on the trail of one of the biggest criminals at which point he is dragged into this insane world of heroes and villains, this is one of Hitchcock's famous devices which he uses in many of the movies which he has made it involves the audience "dipping their toe into the cold water of fear" what this means is that he is scaring the audience in the way that this kind of thing could happen to any one of them just as it happened to Roger Thornhill, this makes them worried that they too could could be going about their daily routine and all of a sudden be dragged into a world of danger.
Another one of Hitchcock's famous devices which he uses extensively in this movie is the concept of "the male gaze", this is the idea that the movie focuses greatly on what males would be looking at themselves, this works well seeing as the main character in this movie is a male the shots and scenes always see the women as objects of male erotic desire which is true within this movie as most of the movie is based around this one woman which Thornhill has fallen in love with and although a large amount of the story involves her she never moves the plot forward herself which is again true for the concept of the "male gaze" in which the plot is only driven forward by males.

Sound film and evaluation

Sound exercise:

This is our sound exercise. Although we lost the audio for half of the footage we decided to make up with it by adding in more audio and sound clips during the editing process of the video, and we also decided to add in some subtitles as well to cover the lack of dialogue. 

we decided not to spend too much time on it due to the fact that it was just a practice film which we were doing to get used to the sound and audio, if we were to spend more time on it we could have re-filmed the parts where we had no audio so that we would actually have something which we could listen to.  the main reason as to why we had no audio was to the fact that the boom had cut out half way through and left us with nothing.

We will be using this older film as a reminder that we should always check the boom is functioning properly before we actually go on to film anything and we should also save enough time during recording for us to go on and continue recording or re-record some stuff if we ever need to which is what we did not do during this one, we rushed it and did not leave enough time for us to back and do anything that we needed to do. 

cinematography filming exercise

Genre

Genre 
Genre is typically a type of topic which a movie is based around, normally there is a main genre that the movie is focused on such as horror or action or sci-fi but then other sub-genres can be added in with the main one. For example you could have a romantic comedy or a action adventure or even a sci-fi horror, some examples of this include "aliens" which is both a horror and a sci-fi movie and grown ups which is both a family movie and a comedy movie. These movies with sub-genres are seen more and more commonly throughout the movie industry with a film rarely ever sticking to just one type of genre or idea. The reason why movies have genres is so that they can be classified and put into groups which is extremely useful when labelling, selling and even giving out rewards or trophies to movies, they are also classified in this way so that it is easier for the public to determine what type of movie it is and if it would be of interest to them this helps when customers purchase a film as they can look for similar films in the same genre and buy them too but not something from another genre as they know they would not be interested in it.