production meeting

today we had our first production meeting. We discussed about what we could put in out thriller and came up with a rough idea of our thriller opening. we started to storyboard then went onto discuss things such as locations we could use for our thriller, props and the people we would be using in our thriller

Enigmas

An enigma is a puzzle,mystery or something inexplicable that happens in a thriller. In thriller the protagonist has to figure out the puzzle in order to save someones life. this must be done before the end of the film. films with enigmas in them are.

Rope (1948, Alfred hitchcock)

The film "Rope" is another example of how Alfred Hitchcock builds suspense. In the film two men murder their friend and hide him away in a chest. later that day they invite people to a party being held in the room with the murdered man.Among the guest are the two mens old professor and the murdered mans parents. the film builds suspense as the two men have left the body where it can be easily found to see if they can out wit their old professor and get away with the murder. throughout this scene the location of the body gets closer and closer to being found, building suspense.

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock was known to the world as the master of suspense. with a long career as a director for 51 years and 52 of the greatest known thrillers, with one missing film called the mountain eagle. Alfred Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, England on the 13th of august 1899. when Hitchcock was a boy he was caught for a little crime, for this his farther made him spend a nigh in a jail cell. this is thought to have frightened Hitchcock so much and is believed to be the inspiration for most of his films

"the only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them"-Alfred Hitchcock

Final cut of our shot film

After filming and editing this is out final result.

preliminary task Pt2

we have now finished filming the match on action scene and have now started to upload the scenes to the computer to.  we are using final cut express to edit the scenes and are in the middle of editing the and cutting the scenes together for our final clip. during filming we had to retake the same shot other and other again, this was to make sure that the continuity was kept in the shot. apart form retaking scenes the filming process was very good and the last few scenes were filmed with out encountering any problems to do with continuity. as for the editing so far every thing is going well.

preliminary task

for the preliminary task we have been asked to film a short scene showing match on action and keeping the  180 degree rule. we have chosen how we will show match on action, by using someone going through a door. we have storyboard the scene and have started to film the scene. the basic idea of the short clip is to show someone walking down a corridor and to enter from on side of the door and exit through the other trying not to make a mistake in the continuity of the clip. so for we have filmed the scene of someone walking through the corridor and starting to enter through the door.

Editing in Psycho

when learning about editing we also watched a classic film called "Psycho" directed by Alfred Hitchcock. we looked at how he edited the famous shower scene in the film, when the censors of films would not allow any real gore in the film.

Editing-Source code

in a recent lesson we started to learn about how editing is used in films. We learnt about two types of editing used in film, these were speed editing and style editing. We then saw and example of editing in the film the source code. We watched the trailer for the source and then the first two minutes of the film. We compared the differences in the amount of edits used between the trailer and the film. The trailer for the source code came to have 134 edits and the 2 minutes of the film we watched had 56. We realized that the trailer had so many more edits because it had to get a  feeling of the entire film in a small space of time where as the film had time to slowly unravel the story and could use the editing to help set the mood of the film. For example the first 2 minutes of the film used more edits to build up suspense as jake gyllenhaal becomes anxious and confused about where he is and why, and used longer edits to give a calm mood as jake gyllenhaal wakes up on the train. In conclusion more edits are usually used in action/thriller or horrors to give the feeling or urgency or danger and longer edits can build suspense or be used for emotional scenes. You would not see very shot edits in a comedy or romantic movie.

Try counting the number of edits in this trailer.

Mise en scene- the source code

recently we watched the film "the source code" to examine the use of mise en scene. we examined the frst five minutes of the film to see how suspense is built sing msie en scene and then continued to watch the rest of the film. the opening of "the source code" is slow, the colours are vibrant and you see jake gilyanhall waking up on a train. he wakes up confused and anxious about his surroundings, the rest of the train is going on as normal. the mise en scene then changes as attention is brought to the rest of the pasengers on the carrige. the characters body language and facial expressions are shown as beeign adjatated and attention is also brought to little things like a can opening, coffee being spilt on jake gilynhall's shoe. this all keeps building up suspense and shows that something big is going to happen soon to the characters.

Mise en scene -Casino Royale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epxYm3OouQA

Mise en scene is about what can be visually seen in the scene. in casino royale a contrasting image is created of James Bond by by showing us two different scenes. It opens in Prague  on a cold night. bond  is in an office that is not well light and he is hiding in the shadows. bonds facial and body expressions are still and calm, where as in the toilet scene it is the complete opposite and is very well light with almost no shadow. bonds facial expressions in the toilet scene is also the complete opposite from the office scene, he is very tense and is moving around frantically as he throws the man around that he is trying to kill. the two scenes are complete contrast and show two completely different sides of bond.  in the office scene Bond is portrayed and being in complete control of the situation, calm and relaxed. where as in the toilet scene bond  
doesn't seem to know what he is doing and seems to be struggling to keep control of the situation. this shows us how Bond has grown and changed in to the cold blooded killer he is.

jack jamie and parvinders storyboard

use of camera

for the last few lessons we have been talking about how directors use camera in film. we have learnt about techniques used and about different equipment used by directors. some of the techniques and equipment we have learnt about are the standard zoom,dutch zoom which is used to peak around corners, the steadicam which can be used to follow characters around while still keeping the shot steady as the name suggests this can come in good for scenes that require a chase or run, dolly which allows the camera to move around on wheels but does not offer the mobility of the steadicam and more. we have also watched these techniques in effect as we have been watching films such "the shining".

Welcome!

Welcome to my AS Media Studies blog. this blog will chart the progress of my foundation portfolio, on it I will include details of  my progress through out the course and will also be charting the progress of the work on my thriller film project.