1. The lighting is poor for the duration of our opening, making the majority of the shots grainy. We could of changed this by filming earlier in the day to give us enough time to fit the shots in before dark. We could of also lit the inside of Lidia's house better using more lighting, and doing it at midday to ensure we had the best natural light we could.

2. Some of the shots are unstable, we could get round this problem by using the tripod more often throughout our opening.

3. Another improvement we could of made, was the male actors acting improving significantly, to make the chase scene a lot more authentic, and building up more tension. This could be done by making him run more convincingly when he is going after the female actor.

4. When the sleeping girl wakes up from the dream, instead of her eyes opening and then sitting up, we could of filmed it so that when she opens her eyes, she starts to sit up at the same time. This would make the scene of her waking up more convincing and would flow a lot smoother.

5. When the female is attacked at the end of the dream, we decided that to make the ending more abrupt and authentic, that she should exit the camera shot to the right of the screen, as this would leave the left hand side open for the attacker to tackle her and give the shot a more mysterious feeling.

6. We could change the end of the dream so that when she gets tackled, the camera falls with her so that we can get her facial expressions when she has been taken down. This would be hard to do but if we manged to do it, it would look very convincing

7. When the female wakes up from the dream, she could exaggerate the way she looks round the room so that we can then edit it to make it fit perfectly into the next shot.

8. We use two shots to show her reaching for the clock, but in the first shot the clock is facing the opposite way to in the second shot. It is quite hard to notice, but we feel it would flow better if we fixed this problem.

9. Our thriller opening is only 1 minutes 26, so we would prefer it if we had more film to use to make it nearer to two minutes

Possible final idea

For the beginning of our opening scene, an establishing camera shot will be used to give the audience a brief view of the Mise-en-scene. Within the establishing shot, we will be able to see the house that is the setting for the first scene. The camera then cuts to inside the house, and moves up the stairs to the girl’s room. All this camera work is edited to make it look like it is from a person’s perspective, the person’s identity being concealed. When the camera enters the room, you will notice a person asleep in the bed. As the camera begins to focus on the persons details, you will realize it is a girl. The girl will be moving about, to symbolize a troubled sleep. The shot may then zoom into her face, and fade to white or black. This will show we are entering her dream.
The next scene will be the dream. There will be some sort of effect on the camera, e.g. Sepia or Black & White, to show the dream is in the past, which in our case are the Victorian times. There may be some distortion on the shots, using editing we can create the effect of a nightmare-ish type shot. The actual dream will consist of an attack on the girl in the dream. The girl in the dream is actually herself. A man, whose identity is hidden, will attack her with a sharp object, seriously injuring her. During the attack, the camera will catch a shot of the man slicing her hand, creating a laceration. The camera shots then begin to get very intense as the climax of the attack gets nearer. The camera shot then cuts to the girl’s perspective. At this point she is on the floor struggling, and she looks up towards her attacker. The camera then glances across his face to reveal his identity for a fraction of a second, before he strikes her with an object and the screen goes black. At this point the dream stops abruptly as the girl wakes up panicking. She will be perspiring, and she will have a scared expression on her face. She will then get out of bed as she realizes it was merely a dream.

Final idea

This is another possible final idea, written by a member of my group

The first shot is an establishing shot of the house in another persons perspective of someone who is not revealed, they walk up the stairs and into the girls room and looks over her at the girl asleep in bed but she is fidgeting and having nightmares, the camera zooms closer to the girls face but the picture gets distorted with white and black screens flashing up and clips of a random high pitch noises. The next shot will be in her dream but the setting will be Victorian, it will be from her perspective and she will be getting attacked. The whole dream will be distorted. She looks at her hand where the man has stabbed her but carries on struggling. The next shot it very un-clear but there is a loud deep shriek, the girl runs out of the alley way. Suddenly the girl wakes up and it sweating and panicking, after looking around she calms down and whispers 'just a dream' next shot from the door and we see the girl get out of bed and walk out the door, as she walk by we see a scar on her hand, then the title comes onto the screen.

Story Board

Questionnaire by Tom Spencer

I have produced a questionnaire about the film industry which will aid me in becoming more accustomed with my target audience. I asked people who I am aiming my thriller opening at and got feedback from them to help me establish what needs to be done. I then put some of the results into excel and produced a few graphs to show my results.

This graph shows that the majority of people are not offended by moderate swearing, I feel this will not be an issue in our opening as it will contain hardly/if any speech.

I produced this pie chart to show small example of peoples favourite genres. As you can see from it, the most popular genre amongst the people I asked was comedy, closely followed by horror and action.

I asked the question 'Do you prefer to watch a film at home or in the cinema?' The answer I got clearly showed people would much rather watch a film in the cinema, rather than at home.

Thriller Idea

For my Thriller idea, I came up with the idea of a Schizophrenic person, or a person under the influence of a substance, dreaming about themselves hiding themselves in a victims house, then committing a murder whilst they are vulnerable. The dream would end abruptly on the murderer killing the victim, and they would then wake up in a cold sweat. Upon realising it was a dream, the would be murderer realises they have traces of someone else blood on them and their clothes. The murderer then begins to wonder whether it was just a dream, and goes to the scene where the victim was killed in the dream, and discovers it was indeed real, and that their split personality/ intoxicated system was the reason they couldn’t recall the murder taking place.

shot 1

The camera starts facing a closed, dark door. The camera then begins to move towards the door and as this happens the door begins to open. The camera enters the room to find a person sleeping in a messy bed, with clothes strewn all over the floor. Camera establishes all this via a pan of the room. Towards end of pan camera begins to slowly zoom in towards the person.

shot 2


As the camera focus’ on the persons identity, we begin to realise it is a girl. The scene fades to white and a series of quick flashing shots representing a troubled dream. The flashes then stop and turn into a long dream shot that the audience can actually make sense of.
Camera shot will be a Mid-shot for this scene .

shot 3


The dream consists of varying shots, showing a scene of a murder from the murderers point of view. The shots show the killer accessing the victims property, and hiding themselves within the household. Then camera flashes to the murder but doesn’t actually show the stabbing because the flashing will be intense to represent the adrenalin flowing through the killer. Flashing then stops to show victim has died.
Distortion on the shot to show the warped mind of the killer

shot 4


When the flashing stops from the dream, the camera cuts immediately to the killer waking up in a cold sweat, which will be illuminated by moonlight. Killer looks worried and scared at the dream but seems to be relieved to find it was only a dream.
Camera then slowly zooms out to reveal the killers hands covered with blood, killer looks down and is startled by this.
Camera then pans down to the floor showing her clothes showing traces of blood on as well.

shot 5


Killer rushes to get dressed, Mid-shot.
Killer rushes out of the door

shot 6


Camera is below eye level at an angle, showing hallway.
Killer runs towards the stairs and runs down them

shot 7

long shot, Camera cuts to outside the house, with full house in view of the shot, front door opens and the killer runs out, down the driveway and past the camera.

shot 8


The Killer then runs to the victims house, they find the back door unlocked, and enter the house. All this is done using straight cuts and mid shots to show details of the killers expression and the Mise-en-Scene.

shot 9

entering the victims home, the killer discovers a pool of blood with signs of a struggle showing on the work surfaces/ floor. This is shot from the side to ensure the 180 degree rule isn’t broken.
Killer then slumps on the ground against the wall breaking down with head in hands.

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is a Worldwide American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, California. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is the world's oldest existing American film studio; it is also the last major film studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Paramount is consistently ranked as one of the top grossing movie studios

Paramount Pictures originate from the early 1900's, and by 1920 had over 2000 screens throughout America. On December 11, 2005, Paramount announced that it had purchased DreamWorks SKG (which was co-founded by former Paramount executive Jeffrey Katzenberg) in a deal worth $1.6 billion. The announcement was made by Brad Grey, chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, who noted that enhancing Paramount's pipeline of pictures is a "key strategic objective in restoring Paramount's stature as a leader in filmed entertainment." The agreement doesn't include DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., the most profitable part of the company that went public the previous year.

I chose this company to review because they have produced some of my favourite thrillers such as Halloween, and produced some very successful films such as the Mission Impossible films, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Collateral, Cloverfield, Friday the 13th, G.I Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Paranormal Activity. These films have helped make Paramount Pictures gross revenue which stretches into million of Dollars.

Role of BBFC

The British Board of Film Classification is an independent, non-governmental body, which has classified cinema films since it was set up in 1912 and videos since the passing of the Video Recordings Act in 1984.The Board was set up by the film industry in order to bring a degree of regularity to the classification of films nationally. Statutory powers on film remain with the local councils, which may overrule any of the Board's decisions, passing films we reject, banning films we have passed, and even ignoring cuts, introducing new ones, or altering categories for films exhibited under their own licensing authority. The BBFC currently issues the following certificates. The category logos were introduced in early 2002, replacing the previous ones that had been in place since 1985.

Universal
All ages admitted, there is nothing unsuitable for children.

Parental Guidance
General viewing, but certain scenes may be unsuitable for children under 8.

12A
Suitable for those aged 12 and over. Those aged under 12 are only admitted if accompanied by an adult at all times during the performance. (Replaced the standard 12 certificate for cinema releases in 2002.)

12
Suitable only for those aged 12 and over. Nobody younger than 12 can rent or buy a 12 rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, or game. (Used for cinema as well before getting replaced by 12A in 2002)

15
Suitable only for those aged 15 and over. Nobody younger than 15 can see a 15 film in a cinema. No-one younger than 15 can rent or buy a 15 rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, or game.

18
Suitable only for adults. Nobody younger than 18 may see an 18 film in a cinema. No-one younger than 18 can rent or buy an 18 rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, or game.Restricted 18For adults only.May only be shown at licensed cinemas or sold at sex shops, and only to people aged 18 or over.

Donni Darko analysis (editing)

In the film Donnie Darko, the editing is a significant part of the film. Without it, a lot of the film would not be able to be made.

I think one of the most interesting special effects is when the watery effect seems to lead the characters around. This is very confusing for the audience because they really do not have a clue what is happening, and adds to the mystery of the film. We can see that Donnie is the only person who can see this. We can tell this from the expression upon his face, and the other characters are going on with their every day lives. This may subtly build up tension as we can see from his puzzled face that he has never witnessed this before. Then the camera pans back round and his expression is back to normal.

There are a large variety of camera shots, a lot being over the shoulder camera shots. This gets the audience involved in the conversation, drawing their attention to what is being said. There are also a fair few establishing shots, which is expected as it is the beginning of the film and the audience is new to the characters and mise- en- scene.

The camera cuts throughout the shots are very quick and sharp which the audience may not notice, but are vital to give it a professional finish.

Without the editing, it would be extremely difficult to hazard a guess as to what genre of film it is, as nearly all the special effects show sci-fi/fantasy type goings on.

Momento film analysis

‘Momento’ is a very unique film, in the sense that it is essentially reversed to create an effect that not only makes the viewer think, but also to break the rules of the Thriller genre. Throughout the film we gradually discover that what we saw at the beginning, was not what we thought to be the start, but in fact turns out to be the ending.

The creators have used two narratives in the film, which run throughout and show past and present, except we see them as the other way round in the film. The present is filmed in black and white, even though this would usually represent a flashback. The alternative narrative which is filmed as the present, but in fact is the past, is filmed in colour. This really gets the audience wondering about the film.

I think that the film has been shot in the peculiar way to represent Lennie’s frame of mind, which is distorted somewhat from reality.

The film uses deception throughout, not only in the characters but in the narrative itself, as it’s deceiving the audience from start to finish, ( or end to start ).

There is a lot of Non-diegetic sound in the scenes that I watched in class, but unlike other thrillers which use music that builds up tension, this does not. The music isn’t tense at all and creates no suspense whatsoever, but is still there for effect.

Research of the Genre Thriller

Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, television, and gaming that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres. Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more-powerful and better-equipped villains. Writer Vladimir Nabokov, in his lectures at Cornell University, said that "In an Anglo-Saxon thriller, the villain is generally punished, and the strong silent man generally wins the weak babbling girl, but there is no governmental law in Western countries to ban a story that does not comply with a fond tradition, so that we always hope that the wicked but romantic fellow will escape scot-free and the good but dull chap will be finally snubbed by the moody heroine.

Literary devices such as suspense, red herrings and cliffhangers are used extensively. "Homer's Odyssey is one of the oldest stories in the Western world and is regarded as an early prototype of the thriller." A thriller is villain driven plot, whereby he presents obstacles the hero must overcome. The genre is a fascinatingly flexible form that can undermine audience complacency through a dramatic rendering of psychological, social, familial and political tensions and encourages sheltered but sensation-hungry audiences, in Hitchcock's phrase, "to put their toe in the cold water of fear to see what it's like."

DVD poster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFjaJbihWwc

This is an analysis of the film 'Superbad'. i chose this because i feel there are many different scenes of comedy and camera angles which i could of used, but these were the two i opted for.

This printscreen from the movie 'Superbad' shows McLOVIN's ID card. this is a good example of an extreme close-up as you wouldn't be able to see it from any further out. It shows plenty of detail in the card so you can get a look at it. this shot is also taken from the persons point of view, as if you are the one looking down on it. the angle would be a low angle because you are holding it below eye level. I think this is very effective because it interacts with the audience to make them feel like they are the person holding it. This shot also uses rules of thirds as the card is the focal point, and is central to the shot

This is the second scene i chose to analyse. It is a long shot of the two cops, and McLOVIN. This shot was a good example of it because it is far away so you can see all three characters, but still close enough to notice their emotions and is within earshot. Another thing that makes the audience feel like they are interacting with the characters is the fact it is shot at eye level, which makes them neither intimidating or intimidated. You can tell from this shot that the cops are the more superior beings. For example they are both dressed in their police uniforms, and there is one either side of McLOVIN shich also proves they are superior. Another factor is the police car in the background. You could also maybe guess the genre of the film from this. McLOVIN and a cop are celebrating after hitting a street sign with a bullet. This could be a characteristic of a comedy, but you could also relate it to an action film or maybe a thriller. Their surroundings suggest a backstreet in a city. It is also set at night. Our attention is drawn to the characters immediately when this shot shows, as they are moving and making plenty of sound.

The image on this poster shows the main bad character, which you could assume from the creepy, unnerving black and white photo, which is given the effect that the camera is a CCTV camera. It doesn't give too much away from the photo, as you can't see the girls face. This adds mystery to the poster. It also adds to the scary effect this poster gives you. From first glance you could easily guess it was a horror, due to it's black background and lack of colour and happy images associated with other genres. The mise - en - scene gives people a sense of horror and death, as there seems to be no 'life' in this poster due to the colour lacking. The font gives the effect that it is hand written, or carved into something, and only adds to the scary feel to the poster. The font seems as though it is trying to be insignificant, but that in it's own right makes you more drawn to the large writing. This poster is well laid out due to the fact the image is central and attracts your attention first. the black background seems to give the white text an eerie feel to it, perhaps suggesting there is a twist that differs this from a normal horror, such as paranormality. The tag line is an indication to the film being a horror aswell, due to the mentioning of fear, which people would immediately associate with a horror film. Overall this poster would give someone a sense of fear and mystery as nothing is given away in it, which differs from other posters which may show the characters face or mention characters name. With this you are given nothing except a scary dark figure slumped in the centre of the screen, some eerie font and a mysterious tag line..

vicious vole