In our last media lesson, before we broke up for the Christmas holidays we watched four clips taken from four different films; Collateral, 28 Days Later, What Lies Beneath and The Shining. But before we started to watch these clips, as a class we made a brainstorm about what a thriller is, how they’re identified and also learnt that there are varieties of different thriller e.g. sci fi, supernatural and political thrillers. We were also given a table which we had to fill in while we were watching the clips from each film, there were many sections which we had to fill out which included; lighting, distance, use of camera movement, angle, soundtrack, sound effects, editing, setting, and location of each thriller.
After watching The Shining we categorised it as a supernatural thriller and Collateral as a political thriller.
Thursday, 5 February 2009
The Shining
In today’s lesson (Monday 15th December 2008), to give us an idea of what a successful and suspenseful thriller consists of and how suspense is created, we watched an ‘edge of your seat’ thriller called ‘The Shining’. After watching ‘The Shining’, the answer was clear. The key element to create a successful thriller was; many suspenseful moments.
‘The Shining’ was a great thriller to watch to help us understand how suspense is conveyed, as it was very suspenseful all throughout the film. During the lesson, we had to make notes on the thriller while watching it, but I must say that there were many moments where it was so suspenseful I was so drawn in that I had forgotten to jot down notes.
A way which suspense was created was by keep on showing the ‘haunted’ hotel room number, 217. This was very suspenseful because the audience wanted to know what was behind the door. The main element which adds more tension to the situation is through music/ soundtrack and background noise.
Right from the beginning of the thriller suspense and tension was created by using a birds eye view shot to show the car travelling through the dark hills further in the distance, this was perfect to convey suspense and tension because it connotated isolation and loneliness. Also, to credit this, the use of droning music was a perfect choice of background music to add to the tension and suspense in the opening credit.
‘The Shining’ was a great thriller to watch to help us understand how suspense is conveyed, as it was very suspenseful all throughout the film. During the lesson, we had to make notes on the thriller while watching it, but I must say that there were many moments where it was so suspenseful I was so drawn in that I had forgotten to jot down notes.
A way which suspense was created was by keep on showing the ‘haunted’ hotel room number, 217. This was very suspenseful because the audience wanted to know what was behind the door. The main element which adds more tension to the situation is through music/ soundtrack and background noise.
Right from the beginning of the thriller suspense and tension was created by using a birds eye view shot to show the car travelling through the dark hills further in the distance, this was perfect to convey suspense and tension because it connotated isolation and loneliness. Also, to credit this, the use of droning music was a perfect choice of background music to add to the tension and suspense in the opening credit.
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Thriller Name: Dis-Connected
This title refers to what our thriller is about. It relates to the plot as we are going to film the alien and this device in two different locations. The audience will identify that this sort of device is connected to the alien by, hopefully, the device being the same colour as the alien’s eyes. We are going to do this be trying to get contact red lenses and a red flashlight so that the audience will recognise the connection between the two. However this maybe a problem if we are not able to get a hold of red contact lenses because they are very hard to find and may not be good quality ones as it may not show properly because everyone’s eye’s in my group are dark and we are filming in a dark location. But we will try our best to get the red eyes as we can easily get a red flashlight, like a bike flashlight.
Dis-Connected seemed as the perfect title as we hope show the audience that the alien figure is connected to this light and needs to be reunited. This will make the audience try to figure out why the two need to be connected. may lead them to confusion which is good because we don’t want to give too much away because it will not be thrilling otherwise as this piece of work is only an opening sequence of a thriller. I also believe that the less the audience know, the more thrilling it is as it will keep them on their toes and this is why we decided to do this and use this name.
I insisted in using the hyphen instead on it being all together as it gets across the message of separation. It could also give the sense of loneliness as if the two needed to be connected in order to survive. This title could illustrate many things which I believe is good because, again, the less the audience know, the more thrilling it is.
This image below is off the internet and is an example of how our group is going to display it in our film after all the production is finished. This is not the exact font or image we are going to use, one reason for this is because it doesn’t have the hyphen and that it is from the internet and not our own creation.
Dis-Connected seemed as the perfect title as we hope show the audience that the alien figure is connected to this light and needs to be reunited. This will make the audience try to figure out why the two need to be connected. may lead them to confusion which is good because we don’t want to give too much away because it will not be thrilling otherwise as this piece of work is only an opening sequence of a thriller. I also believe that the less the audience know, the more thrilling it is as it will keep them on their toes and this is why we decided to do this and use this name.
I insisted in using the hyphen instead on it being all together as it gets across the message of separation. It could also give the sense of loneliness as if the two needed to be connected in order to survive. This title could illustrate many things which I believe is good because, again, the less the audience know, the more thrilling it is.
This image below is off the internet and is an example of how our group is going to display it in our film after all the production is finished. This is not the exact font or image we are going to use, one reason for this is because it doesn’t have the hyphen and that it is from the internet and not our own creation.
Choice Of Location : King's Cross
The filming location of kings cross was ideal for our group, as we wanted to a sort of rural weird kind of background. Behind the King’s Cross station is a huge gas-o-meter which we thought was the perfect place to film as it looks very mysterious and many people would not know what this tall looking monument is, including myself and other members in my group when we first saw it. Therefore, this would be a good location as our thriller is supernatural and the sense of loneliness in the area could illustrate the alien figure as alone. We also chose this location because we have easy access to the location as it is about 15 minutes away from our college and also meaning that if we needed to film there again for any reason, it will not be a problem.
We believe no other group will be filming in this location so that we are the only group filming. This would avoid any distraction from other groups and other groups using or copying the same camera shots as us at this location. This will show a different background compared to everyone else as many groups are filming at London Bridge, our turned down choice of location, which would become boring on film because the majority of the year are probably using this location.
We plan to visit and film this location outside of class time so that we can finish our filming as soon as possible as we are a little behind schedule. We decided as a group that on one day that we all have a free period, we will use this time to film in this location instead of using class time where we could just film our indoor filming during class time. We are yet to know where are limits are in the location like how close to the gas-o-meter we are allowed to film because it is believe to be doing some constructional work during this time. Hopefully, the constructional work will not be a problem and that we can use all of the area we need for our filming in this location.
Sunday, 1 February 2009
Thriller title name (DIS-CONNECTED)
During Mondays lesson with Mary and Rushav after we got our main plot together I came up with the title... DIS-CONNECTED as the story is about an abnormal person who need to get back to its alien technology mechanism. So i thought to myself as the two things are no longer together they have been disconnected thus leading to the title DIS-CONNECTED. I also used the hyphen to help convey a sense of seperation.
Using King's Cross as a Location
We decided to use King’s Cross as our second filming location as there is still an industrial site behind the station in which we can utilize. This location can easily convey a sense of isolation and this is why this location was perfect. Also to identify this area we are going to use one of the gasometers in the area. Creating a sense of isolation is typical of supernatural thrillers; which is the thriller genre that we are making.
First Filming Session of Thriller (DIS-CONNECTED)
During the lesson on Thursday with Laura our group finally managed to start filming and I am personally pleased with the amount of work, effort and enthusiasm that was going on during Thursdays lesson. In order to start filming we had to wait for everybody in the class to leave the room and do their own filming; as the class was in the Media studies room that we were to use for filming. We decided to start filming the beginning of our thriller as the person that was to be on the table was not yet decided. The first shot is an extreme close up of a door handle with my hand slowly reaching the handle and opening it, the slowness of my movement was done to create extra tension within the audience. We used this as an opportunity to add in a match cut, showing my character entering from the inside. In the room we switched off the main lights and got a single spotlight from the media departments resources. The use of lighting also helps heighten the sense of unease and fear within the audience as they cannot really see the rest of the room. This first scene took us about 30-45minutes to film as we had loads of retakes due to people walking past etc…
The second scene was another match cut showing me still walking in the room towards a brief case. After this there is a close up on the brief case and an over the shoulder shot so my character is obscuring or impeding the audiences vision of what is in the brief case. After this we finally relieve the audience and show them my character slowly putting on rubber gloves, this was also done very slowly to create tension and an extreme close up was used.
Due to us having to move tables and chairs to get the room fit for filming and waiting for the class to leave the room; precious time was lost. Next lesson we are hoping to get past all of these obstacles swiftly and get straight down to filming.
After this filming session I was thinking about different ways to incorporate different camera angles and shots into our thriller and came to a conclusion that we need to use more different shots such as point of view shots, over the shoulder shots, high and low angle shots to convey status between the characters within the scene. Also when we go to do our filming at King’s Cross I think we need to have a pan across the area to establish where we are and a close up or zoom in of a significant area.
Also in order for our thriller to be the best it can possibly be and reach its full potential we have decided to take the filming equipment out during the week when we don’t have a lesson and we are all free, we will use this filming session to tidy up previous shots we have taken and add new shots where possible.
The second scene was another match cut showing me still walking in the room towards a brief case. After this there is a close up on the brief case and an over the shoulder shot so my character is obscuring or impeding the audiences vision of what is in the brief case. After this we finally relieve the audience and show them my character slowly putting on rubber gloves, this was also done very slowly to create tension and an extreme close up was used.
Due to us having to move tables and chairs to get the room fit for filming and waiting for the class to leave the room; precious time was lost. Next lesson we are hoping to get past all of these obstacles swiftly and get straight down to filming.
After this filming session I was thinking about different ways to incorporate different camera angles and shots into our thriller and came to a conclusion that we need to use more different shots such as point of view shots, over the shoulder shots, high and low angle shots to convey status between the characters within the scene. Also when we go to do our filming at King’s Cross I think we need to have a pan across the area to establish where we are and a close up or zoom in of a significant area.
Also in order for our thriller to be the best it can possibly be and reach its full potential we have decided to take the filming equipment out during the week when we don’t have a lesson and we are all free, we will use this filming session to tidy up previous shots we have taken and add new shots where possible.
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