Filming

Yesterday, myself, Samantha and Shelley started the filming for our thriller. Firstly we found the location for our film. We had decided before that we would film in the park but we did not decide where in the park we should film. We the decided to film at the back of the park in which had a big enough tree for the toys and for the dead body to be placed.

We then set up all the objects in place for the filming. Shelley then started to put the make up on Samantha. She had to look like she did the make up her self as, clumpsy. Shelley did a fantastic job at this. We then started filming. I had done the cinmetography at first. We took lots of different camera shots in which would give us a range of shots to choose from. Shelley and Samantha also gave there opinions in what angles we should use.

Half way through the filming, we had forgotten to bring the Knife. As Samantha and Shelley kept filming, i went back to get a knife from my house. When i came back Shelley and Samantha had filmed the middle bit of the sequence for the film. Shelley was then filmed walking pass Samantha and she looks confused because, Samantha's character is playing with her hands without her doll.

I carried on the job of cinematography at this stage. We then needed a shot of me looking all dead by the tree. At this point Samantha and Shelley took over in filming as i was being filmed. Shelley put the fake blood on my neck and i put blood on the tree in which my hand was supposible at when i was dying.

The one problem we had was that we forgot the knife and there were too many bees. Overall, our filming went very smoothly and we had no problems with the camera or anything else. We all took part on what we should do and how we should do it and we all came up with ideas to gain more shots and to also gain a better idea of how to make an opening sequence for a thriller film.

Props

For our Thriller we needed a number of things to create the storyline of the opening sequence. on Friday i got the fake blood from 6th form. I also brought a blanket for Samantha to sit on and the weapon (knife). I also brought some toys in which was used to sit by a tree, to create the feeling that Samantha's character used the toys as her friends for her little tea party.

Samantha brought some more toys, plastic plates, biscuits, a bottle of water, and make up. Shelley brought some make up and she was the make up artist for the filming. She did the make up for Samantha and put fake blood on me.

Things to Consider

For the Preliminary Exercise and for our Thriller opening, we needed to consider four things. These are: Continuity, Match on Action, Shot/reverse shot and The 180 Degree rule.

Continuity:- is consistency of the characteristics of persons, plot, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer.

Match on Action :- unites two different views of the same action together at the same
moment in the movement.

Shot/reverse shot:- editing technique used for dialogue scenes. First both of the actors engaged in a conversation are shown in a two-shot then the camera cuts in to mid shots and close-ups of one actor and then the other.

The 180 degree rule:- is a basic guideline in film making that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.

Before we start to film

On Friday 20th March 2009, myself, Samantha and Shelley signed out a camera in which we could use to start filming our opening sequence. I took the camera home with the tripod. Also, we needed some fake blood to use for our film. I got the blood from 6th form. We had decided to start film on Saturday and spend the whole day trying to finish the filming.

Animatic

This is an animatic in which shows what our film will look like. Firstly, we drew the shots onto a storyboard. This will be a guide for us in which will help us with the sequencing of the shots and the camera angles we will use. The animatic allows us to see in an animation version of how the film will look in the end.

In our animatic we have a side of Samantha's face in which shows the happy and cheerful side of her. We then have a close up shot of a doll. We then see a wide shot of Samantha playing with her dolls by a tree. A close up Samantha's whole face is then shown. We see half of her face all cheerful and half of her face as if she had been abused. Next we see a a shot of make up, a tea set and a knife. Then we see an extreme close up of Samantha putting the knife up onto her lips, as if she is about to put make up on. A wide shot is used next to show a dea person lyying by the tree looking like a doll. A close up is then used to show the dead person's face. This film is to show Samantha's psychological behaviour. It will show what she does and how she does it. She does things in a certain way to show that she is psychologically unstable.

Our official Thriller film idea

Myself, Samantha and Shelley have decided to do idea 2 which is, the idea in which Samantha plays a 17 year old young adult who has a mind of a child and is psychologically unstable. We have decided to start filming our opening sequence on Saturday 21st March 2009. We will have the whole day to film the shots needed.

Idea 2

We came up with another idea in which we could create as our thriller opening sequence. Our second idea is that Samantha would play a lonely character. She is a 17 year old young adult who has a mind of a child. She is sitting down on the grass in the park. She has makeup on but one side of her face looks all cheerful with colour on her face, although she had been crying. The other side of her face has masscara running down her face, and we see four scratch line with stitches on her face. She likes to play with her dolls with a tea cup set and makeup.

However, as she is psychologically unstable, Samantha's character thinks that one of her dolls that she is playing with, is talking to her. She would show this by putting the doll up to her ear and nodding her head, as if she is understanding what the doll is saying to her.

Next, someone will walk past Samantha and will look at her as if she or he is confused. She sees Samantha putting make up on, however, she does not put it on properly but clumsily. However, it really is not make up. The make up she puts on is lipstick but the lipstick is actually blood. This shows that she has killed someone with that knife. She will then hold the knife towards the tree. The woman who walks past does not notice that there is a dead person by the tree who Samantha is holding the knife up to. The dead person will have blood where the stab wound will be and will also be positioned like a doll by the tree.

This idea shows the psychological effects from abuse, and Samantha's character would find comfort from her dolls. We have chosen a varity of different camera shots such as extreme close ups, close ups, wide shots, long shots, and high and low angled shots. These shots would establish the location, the characters personality and the storyline of film.

Idea 1

Before half term we had come up with an idea of our official thriller film. One idea we came up with was to base our opening sequence on the Se7en and also an animation of Salad Fingers. We came up of the idea that we would a character who is psychologically unstable and kills people. The people would be involved with drugs, alcohol and the urge for money.

To show this we would have a body lying on the floor however, we do not see the whole body but just the feet of the victim. Next to the victim we would see blood on the floor and surrounding the body.

We would then establish the killer. To do this we would not show the whole of the killers face, but we would use extreme close ups of the eyes and lips. We would also use extreme close ups and close ups of the weapon that kills the victim.

For this idea, we thought that we would add drugs to the killers life. This is because, the killer could be mentally unstable because of the use of drugs. The alcohol would be another factor we would use to show that, the character is also physically unstable.

In Se7en we see that the character has blood on his fingers. We would put blood on the killers fingers for our opening sequence. But to show that the killer is psychologically unstable, we would use certain camera angles such as a tilt in order to show that something about the character is not right.

In Salad Fingers we see how the character act towards certain things. We thought that we would gain an idea from this to show the character for our film's thinking. This would allow us to gain ideas of how to make our character look and behave in a certain way, for the audience to see the psychological effects of drugs and alcohol.

Below is one part of the animation Salad Fingers.

Final Destination

Final Destination is another thriller movie in which has many conventions of a thriller. It starts of with a deep low pitched sound. The pace of the sound is slow and represents an entity that may be in a room. The credits then begin to appear. They have a ghostly effect in which is shown over the shots. This shows that there is something ghostly in the movie.

Once the first credit shows, we then see a shot of lighting and the sound of thunder. This was on screen sound as we can see the source of the sound. Also, a shot from the window of rain is seen. This suggests that something bad will happen, as rain represents a gloomy bad day in films.

There are many transitions used in the opening sequence of Final Destination. The first transition we see is a dissolve, to a long shot of the shadow of the object in which is hanging next to the window. Before we see this, we see a close up of the object as the same time as we see the lighting and hear the thunder. This suggests that the object may well be watching the main character. This is one convention of a thriller.

The credits carry on showing in a ghostly effect. The same music is being repeated in the same pace. However, the longer we listen to the sound the creepier it gets. This can also be a sign of paranoia.

We then see another transition of a fade in to a panning shot. As the camera pans, a shot of a toy monkey is displayed. The camera then pans to a fan. By this time the same tune is being played however, we also hear a growling noise from the fan. This could be a representation of a demon of some sort, in which is lurking around in the room. This is diegetic sound. At this point the music becomes louder and stronger. This may suggest that the entity may be getting stronger and closer to its target.

In addition, we see a transition of fade out in which shows a black background with some ghostly credits shown. We then see a fade in to an extreme close up of a section of the fan. Here the music becomes more dramatic but stays in the same pace. Up to this point the lighting of the shots were very dark, with only the source of light coming in from the window. However, it was still dark because it was in the evening.

We then see another fade in which shows a shot of the bed and a passport being thrown onto the bed. This shot has more light in it, as it may show the excitement of the character's feelings, as the passport shows he is going on a trip abroad.

Furthermore, we see an extreme close up of the plane ticket thrown over the passport on the bed. This tells us the destination, the airline and the flight number. This is significant because it tells us that the first action will take place in an airport.

The violins become more high pitched and more dramatic. This tells us that the time of death is getting closer. A quick extreme close up shot of the edges of the fan is shown with the ticket behind the fan showing the destination and the flight number. This suggests that the fan is like a barrier in which will prevent the main character from reaching his destination. At this point, a sound of wood falling onto the floor, creates a psychological effect. This may suggest that the characters in the film will be psychologically affected.

We then see a close up of a book in which is picked up and then thrown onto the bed. The book is up side down. This may suggest that the characters life will turn onto a different path dramatically, and will not be able to go on his trip.

A quick panning shot of the fan is used to show the source of the growling sound.

The camera then goes back to the book and we see a zooming in shot, whilst the pages of teh book are turning on its own. This shows that something is in the room. The pages then stop turning and stays on a page which has a picture of people in the medieval times about to get executed. This suggests that people will die in this movie in a strange way, and the thing in which is turning the pages is the thing that will kill these people. Here the same sound is used but it is much deeper than before.

Quick close ups of pictures from the book is shown and the music becomes more high pitched.

The camera then goes back to the fan. The fan is shown in an extreme close up in which the fan is going from left to right. When turning we can still hear the growling noise. This still suggests a demon is lurking by.

The camera then turns its attention back to the book, in which is flipping the pages. One page is shown longer then the rest and we see the word "EVIL". This suggests a demon. We also see different representation of evil through the pictures in the book. The music is still high pitched, and can now hear snarling in the background.

An extreme close up shot is used on the fan. Here we see a white light and the word "EAT" in between the fan. When this is shown the music becomes deeper. This suggests even more danger, and we also hear a crow.

This then dissolves into a clsoe up of a picture in which has these words written on it at the bottom of the picture in red. "THIS IS THE END". This implies that danger is lurking by but also, that this will never be the end, as it is shown indirectly. It also suggests that blood will be spilt. These words are then transmitted onto a black background, and after a few seconds it starts to disappear , with a non diegetic sound of wind. This also implies that it will never be the end as death will lurk about.

In the black background, we hear the name Alex in which comes from a woman. A fade in is used to show who said Alex. A long shot is used to show the woman with clothes in her hand in which is walking towards a man packing his bags. This is Alex.

In the shot we see a cheerful lit middle class home. The wall are brightly painted, the parents look happy and so does Alex. This implies that Alex's childhood was a very good one and has never seen bad things.

We then see a low angled shot of the mother about to rip off a tag from the suitcase, with Alex shown in between his mother's arms. This shows that Alex has high power and knows his responsibilities. We then go to a slight low angled shot of Alex when he is explaining to his mother not to rip off the tag, as he says the tag is for luck, in case he gets into a plane crash.

His mother thinks that is ridiculous and rips of the tag. This is shown in a high angled shot in slow motion. This shows the audience that this is like deja vu to Alex. It also suggests that Alex's luck has vanished and some kind of bad entity has been unleased.

A zoom in shot is used on Alex's father as he says "Live it up Alex. you got your whole life ahead of you". We then see a zoom in on Alex looking up at his father in a worried expression. This shows that Alex has a bad feeling about going on this trip to France. Silence in the background continues, until at the end of the shot when violins start to play slowly.

We then come to a high angled shot of Alex as he is sleeping in his room . The lighting becomes dark and the only source of light is coming from the window. The camera pans down and implies that something is watching him. The music gets slightly deeper. This suggests that something is getting closer to achieving its goal.

A clsoe up of Alex's displays is shown in a siloette. The music is now much deeper and implies that the dispalys are watching him. (voyeurism)

Extreme close up is used on a planes per pella in which is turning on its own and we, the audience can hear the wind. This suggests that somethings else has entered the room and it is now getting even more closer. The camera pans around the room to show the direction of the wind. We then see a part of Alex in the light in which is a sense of security and safety.

As Alex is awaken by the sudden gust of wind, we also hear a slight whisper. He looks at the fan and the music becomes even more deeper. The camera then zooms in onto the clock in which shows firstly the actual time. It then shows the flight number on the clock. This shows the audience that something is going to happen on the plane and it is very significant. In the background we hear a non diegetic sound on an aircraft and this sound continues onto the next shot. This is where a sound bridge is used to show where the scene is now taking place.

The next shot is and extreme close up of the board in which shows the flight details for the public. We hear a woman talking in the background who is giving information to the public.

We see a jump shot to the outside of the building where all the students are waiting and getting their luggage, to go into the airport. Here we get a sense of people's personalities via a tracking shot. This shows what the people are doing to give an impression of what people are like when their parents are not with them. One of the character's father tells Alex to look after two of his friends. This tells the audience that this is exactly what Alex will do, as he will try to save his fellow classmates.

The next shot is a long shot of the students standing around in the building listening to the woman talking and giving instructions. However, none of the students are paying attention. This implies that teenagers do not listen to instructions.

We then see a point of view shot from Alex in which he is approach by a man who says "Death is not the end". This suggests that death will carry on taking people's lives.

A sound of the board changing it's information is significant. Alex looks at the board and we then start to hear echoes. This is like deja vu for Alex as he feels uncomfortable. A long shot is then used with the same sound. The sound is familiar but also mysterious as if Alex has been in this situation before.

The students have been checked in and are now all sitting down at the waiting area waiting to board the plane. A tracking shot is used to show the people who will be more involved later in the film. Throughout the tracking shot we hear high pitched violins starting to play. This suggests that the time for the action to come is getting closer. The sound becomes deeper when Alex looks at the aircraft in which he will be boarding soon. This suggests that the plane is a danger.

Alex and his friend decide to go to the toilet. In the toilet, Alex becomes familiar with a song that is playing. As the music carries on, he says "the time of the plane crash". This is significant as he has more deja vu feelings coming to him. However he does not seem to take any notice as he must now board the plane.

All the students then start to board the plane and as Alex shows his ticket. he becomes still and looks as if he is in a day dream. Again high pitched violins is used. This shows that the bad entity is getting even closer to achieving its goal.

From looking at the opening sequence of Final Destination, this film is targetting a certain audience. In my opinion i think it's targetting people between the ages of 15-30. This is because the film has young people in which go through this mysterious situation, and shows what they would do in this perdicament. In addtion, i think that the effects used are to give a certain creepy feeling to young people, as the film also suggests to trust your instincts.

Overall, i thing that the opening sequence of Final Destination is a great opening, as it does have only certain conventions of a thriller. This is an excellent idea as too many conventions would be too much and will effect the storyline, and will lose the audience throughout the film. Final Destination did not have too many conventions in which helped the storyline to become clear and realistic.

In addtion, the camera shots used were good as they established the story, the character and the emotions of the characters. In Final Destination, the filmakers used a varity of different camera shots and angles. However, they did not use one shot too many times. I think that was brilliant because it established everything more clearly.

Furthermore, the music used was the same. Thiswas god because it showed that it was the same thing in which is following the characters, and it also helped to establish what was following the characters.

In conclusion, Final Destination, is a brilliant film as it establishes the storyline clearly, and nothing is used too much in order for the story to make sense.

Preliminary Exercise - Harrassment

Preliminary Exercise (Part 5)

Today, myself, Samantha and Shelley completed our preliminary exercise. From last lesson all we had left to do was to add the beginning and the end credits stateing our film and who did what in the film. It did take us a while to decide which transtions and titles we would use, but we decided in the end to keep the fonts simple, but also to resemble our short film.

In addtion, we also took out some of the video effects. This is because we thought that it did not go well with the rest of the shots because, each shot looked like it was from a different time in the past.

In the end of the footage, we had taken some photos to experiment with the different styles of shots. Samantha had suggested that we use one of the photos that we took at the end of the film and put an earthquake effect on the photo. This helped us to experiment with the photos and the programme, in order for us to get use to using the programme. Also, the photo resembles Samantha's character.

Preliminary Exercise (Part 4)

Today we continued with editing our films. We had decided to import all the footage again and start again from scratch. We import all the footage again, and to our surprise, the footage was fine and it was the camera we had last lesson that was not working properly.

So we started from scratch. We started cropping the footage that we had imported however, we cropped more than we did on our last film. This is because we thought that it did not run smoothly enough and that it was too choppy. This resulted in our films being a little shorter than the first one. But this was a good thing because the film looked better and ran more smoothly.

We used more transitions and video effects on this one to show less choppiness and to also show one persons point of view of the other person. For example: we used ghost trails for a video effect on the first shot to show Shelley's point of view of that person. Another example is we used a video effect we only shows shelley's and and abit of Samantha's head to show Samantha's point of view of Shelley's reaction.

This showed more realism and emotion of the two characters. We all contributed in the effects, the titles and the sequencing of the shots. We did not encounter any technical problem when editing and are also nearly finished our preliminary exercise.

Preliminary Exercise (Part 3)

On Friday 27th February 2009, myself, Shelley and Samantha started editing the filming we did for the exercise. We were able to import all of the footage onto the computer, by importing the scenes we wanted using the programmes keys. We had to play the footage and press import to transfer the footage we want and leaving the rest behind.

However, we did encounter a problem. When the footage was imported onto the computer, we looked back at each little scene we had imported, and the footage kept jumping. This means that the shots we took was not smooth and was not flowing with the rest of the shots.

We tried to carry on editing with the footage we had. We sequenced each shots into the place we wanted it. But, in order for the scene to have smoothness within the shots, we needed to crop out certain bits of each shot. This was done by selecting the shot and using arrows at the bottom of the small screen to pick out the bits we wanted. We then checked if it was the correct shot we wanted and we then cropped it out but going to the edit file and then pressing crop. This was how the smoothness of the scene was done.

Before time had ran out of the lesson, we looked through a series of tranisitions and video effects, We had decided to use ghost trails as one of the video effects as the beginning og the scene. We also decided what the title of the film was going to be. We names it "Harrassment".

In the end we decided that out footage kept jumping all over the place, and so next lesson we would either import all the video again and start editing from scratch, or we would film everything again with the same storyline, camera shots and continuity.

Preliminary Exercise (Part 2)

After half term on Wednesday 25th February 2009. Myself, Shelley and Samantha had started again for this task. We had all come up with ideas for the storyline, the camera angles and shots, and the dialogue. All three of us decided that the storyline should be that, Samantha would come in from outside and walks upto Shelley who is sitting on the bench. Samantha sits next to her and they both have a conversation. At this point we were all improvising what each person was going to say and the actions that would take place after. I was doing the cinematography for the exercise however, I do appear at the end of the scene.

For the Camera shots, although I was doing the camera work when Samantha and Shelley were acting, they too contibuted to saying what shots we should use for the scene. We took a number of different camera angles for each shot. This was because, we was not sure if one shot would go with the next. This broaden our choices on the shots we could use.

The dialogue used was to show Samantha's character's personality, in which is also shown through the actions and facial expressions she does. We also see a part of Shelley's character's personality through her actions however, only shows one part of her personality.

We finished filming the scene on that day and decided to do the editing next lesson.

Preliminary Exercise (Part 1)

For the preliminary exercise, I have been working with Samantha Waite and Shelley Corney. We had started this task 2 weeks ago however, we did not finish the first part of the exercise and so we decided to start again after half term. This was easier for us as we could all gain ideas for a better story line to use for the exercise.

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock was born on 13th August 1899 in Leytonstone and died 29th April 1980. He was a British filmaker and producerwho pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thrillers. After a successful career in the Untited Kingdom, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1956 becoming an American citizen whilst retaining his British citizenship.

Alfred Hitchcock's life was very disciplined. On numerous occasions, Hitchcock said he was once sent by his father to the local police station with a note asking the officer to lock him away for ten minutes as punishment for behaving badly. Hitchcock's mother would often make him address her while standing at the foot of her bed, especially if he behaved badly, forcing him to stand there for hours. These experiences would later be used for the portrayal of the character of Norman Bates in his movie Psycho.

Hitchcock directed in total 52 amazing films and 2 of the films have been lost. Hitchcock's last collaboration with Graham Cutts led him to Germany in 1924. The film Die Prinzessin und der Geiger (UK title The Blackguard, 1925), directed by Cutts and co-written by Hitchcock, was produced in the Babelsberg Studios in Berlin. Alfred Hitchcock also worked as an art director on the set of F. W. Murnau's film Der letzte Mann (1924).

Hitchcock always liked a challenge in the technical side of film making. For example: in the film Rear Window, all the action takes place in one single apartment. The film Lifeboat, shows all the action from a boat and yet, Hitchcock was still able to keep the cinematography from repeating throughout the movie, like for instance in the more modern movie Phonebooth.

Alfred Hitchcock's last film work was never made. This was due to his health. Instead his last script was published in a book on Hitchcock's life. Hitchcock appeared briefly in many of his own films, for example, seen struggling to get a double bass on to a train.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Hitchcock the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, in 1967. His other Oscar nominations were:

> Best Director in 1960 for Psycho.

> Best Director for Rebecca (1940), Lifeboat (1944), Spellbound (1945), and Rear Window(1954).

> Producer for Best Picture: Suspicion (1941).

Alfre Hitchcock was best recognised by his silloette.