My ideas for an opening Thriller sequence...

In our media groups we each brainstormed four possible ideas for our Thriller/Horror opening sequence. Using my mood board, previously shown. I came up with these four ideas..

·        The mind of a Terrorist

Opening sequence of terrorists making plans and methods of how to undermine the government, Show CCTV subverted- terrorists watching the government and police.

Shots of documents and train maps being analysed (can be used to show names for credits) – cutting into air control at airport- Terrorists listening in.

POV shots and mix of non-diegetetic and diegetic sounds to create psychotic atmosphere.

·        Human female sex and drug trafficking

young girl shopping with her mum , mum goes to try piece of clothing on, girl gets called outside by young good looking man , talking to man beside road , not realising a set up , a van pulls along and grabs her into van and speeds off.

Mum exits shop in hysteria- flashes of shots of her thought process of abused young females subject to drugs and the human trafficking trade.

·        Vaccination/ flu jab

A new common flu jab been given to people, but somehow it has been contaminated. Affects of a person received jab to change become mentally deranged and start attacking people

·        Being followed

  Hand circling routes of a way home from a night club. Switches to an unidentified person walking and watching girls come out of night club having laugh, then continuing his marked out route and following them. Increase diegetic sounds of breathing. Girls split up to walk to houses. Individual advances and the girl turns around recognises individual and says “oh you scared me” smiling but then unknown individual stabs her .

I  based my ideas on what would scare me and taking the more thriller approach. However i then discussed my ideas with the group who advised me to think about the practicality of the ideas.

The Class Horror anaylisis

Other members of the class also presented opening film sequences, which we then adapted notes on and discussed as a group. One sequence i found particularly interesting was the Sweeney Todd opening titles.


Here are four pictures of shots taken from the opening sequence ..

The Directors have thought carefully about the font, colour and placement of the titles. The producers have created a unique approach in still providing the viewer with a grusome horror whilst incoporating animation.

Film Editing

Terminology ...
After viewing several film and T.v sequences we realised our weakness was talking about Editing. To help this we did a class on adapting our terminology further and reconsidering the meaning and affect of editing.

• Editing works through the juxtaposition of different shots
• There are several editing techniques. The most common being a cut...

Matched Cut
A cut in which a familiar relationship between shots make the change seem "smooth"

Jump Cut
An abrupt switch from one scene to another, used to make a dramatic point

Motivated Cut
A cut used to show the viewer something not immediatelyvisible

Cross-Cut
A cut from one narrative of action to another

Preliminary Task

In Our Preliminary Task we combined our previous getting use to the camera to produce a short scene incorporating matched cuts Through editing.

For this we used a storyboard and had to achieve its different demands of dialogue shown from different angles.

At first this was a challenge but soon after we created our office set up, directed our actors of were to deliver each line. Then continued to shoot the scene from over each actors shoulder, side profile and face close ups (reaction shots). To do this we filmed it all through from each angle until we were happy with each filming.

 This then allowed us to make fluent edits and cuts on the computer in final cut pro. This allowed us to make the scene work visually well for viewers.

I felt we worked very well and our outcome was successful for a first official filming and editing task.

Story boards

Learning how to storyboard...

·         Storyboards are a series of graphic organizers such as drawings or digital images

·         They are used to pre-plan any visual production ranging from a simple digital photography sequence to a complex film.

·         The idea of storyboarding in the form that it now exists in has been developed in 1930s at the Walt Disney studio in 1930s.

·         In film production the storyboard is essentially a large comic used by cinematographers and directors to visualise scenes beforehand.

·         For other thriller we would have to create a storyboard previously to aid our film day

In order to prepare for the creation of our own Thriller/ Horror opening sequences. We were given the task to produce our own T.V drama series. My group Brainstormed on stereotypical ideas, t.v dramas contain. Then made a list of main themes an audience would relate with and what representations we could portray for a audience to be interested in.

We eventually came up with the idea of  dramatic scenarios around an Airline service creating both stereotypical and subverted characters.
We then had to storyboard a scene including the information about type of shot, shot duration, angles and type of cuts.

Horror and thriller thought process

In class we viewed and analysed several horror films including "don't look now" and "Vertigo". This helped our process of considering techniques and devices directors use when approaching Thrillers and Horrors. I specifically made notes on the use of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, timing and suspense set up for the viewer.

Our Film anaylisis

We were given the exercise to take a scene from our favorite thriller film and present it to the class. We had to talk about :

• Editing
• The use of camera /Camera conventions
• Sound Effects
• shot duration
• Mise-en-scene
• Lighting

I selected the phone call scene from the film Taken

We then had to choose just a opening title sequence from a thriller/ horror film and talk about the same aspects as well as considering positions of the titles and actor/director names. I selected the opening of The Strangers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWp14gtZ-u0

I particularly liked the documentary style and how it suggested it was introducing real life occurrences. This was enhanced by the plain orange writing on a black screen with a low pitch neutral voice giving facts. The use of dissolves and fades enhanced a psychotic feel of a dreamy memory. The directors used a pan along villages portraying isolation and traveling further from society. I thought this sequence was done very well as a set up of suspension for the viewer

Mood Boards

To aid our planning of our horror/thriller opening sequence we put together ideas on a mood board of things that scare us

Two links to clips of thrillers that my ideas revolve around:

 Taken Thriller - YouTube link


Human trafficking-YouTube link

The use of images...

Making a horror film poster...

On our third week we had a pratical session which involved mixing our previous knowledge of phtotshop to edit images that we took ourselves.



This task was extremely beneficial as not only did we get used to using the camera but also using the thought process for creating a certain Mise-en-scene to match the film genre.

To create our horror film cover we looked for darker areas of the school to make it gloomy, however we soon realised this would have to be a photoshop job, as it was the middle of the day. We used several photoshop tools to create our image below..








  

Getting used to some media vocabulary..

In our starter lessons of media we have been getting used to a variety of media signs..


Another way to distance our analysis is to break down the elements of text into "signs"
we can break into two levels of analysis:
Denotation- Describe what you see
connotation-Discuss what the element means
Semiotics- meaning the study of signs
signifier-the object in the picture
signified- the impressions(such as expressions) of that object in the picture
sign- combination of signifier and signified


Mise en scene : putting the scene together, refers to settings and props, costume, body language, facial expressions and the use of colour and design

Introduction to Photoshop

I chose to do media after being strongly enthused by reading about the course and the way Hurtwood are very practical and hands on with all the aspects.

I had a thoroughly enjoyable first lesson and we encountered a lesson on how to use Adobe Photoshop. At first i found this challenging but soon got to grips with the tools and was able to edit pictures and film posters to enhance and portray different effects using various tools like the "Lasso" , "burn" and "stamp" tool.

We then extended are skills by mixing and recreating film posters, getting used to the "layers", which many of us experienced some "issues" with.
other editing aspects of photoshop were covered as we learnt how to change effects like colour, tone and use the "liquidate tool" allowing us to soon able to produce our own perfected photoshop images.

A little bit about myself..

Amy Louise Rumble

i'm Amy, i am seventeen years old and i was born in Scotland, before moving to Leeds and now going to school at Hurtwood House, which i love!
Other subjects i am studying are: Theatre Studies
                                                  History
                                                  English Literature

I have a strong passion for all performing arts and hope to carry on with drama in futher education.I love having a laugh with friends and being constantly busy. im loud, happy, laugh a lot at nothing, confident, laidback, easy going but freakishly competitive.
I couldn't name just one film i love because i love to many, and all types.
but thats me and this is my media blog.