After watching a student example I decided to do a textual analysis on it to help me.
Mise en scene- it was set in a bedroom, with only a computer and a house phone. Keeping in the same location kept it simple so the audience wouldn’t get confused. this made it pretty effective.
Sound- the score which was non digetic was of an opera like nature, this is sometimes associated with thrillers and horrors. the audience know what it is about. There was some digetic dialogue used to put across the position and slight identity of that character.
Sfx- blood was probably the only sfx used, it splattered over the camera lense, but this was probably computer generated. editing-the cuts and merging of two clips, i.e. newspaper article and titles, was also to highlight and put emphasis on what the director wants you to see and believe. This gave the audience a sense of unease and suspense. Cinematography-many different shots were used, some of which are, high angle, mid shots, close ups, zooms, and panning. These were used but had no purpose, they were not used effectively.
my brief has been completed, storyboard as well. my blog is up to date. I've finished everything. for the rest of this week i will concentrate on organising my planning folder and then on the production itself. we also watched an opening sequence done by a fellow student, and it was very creative in aspects like editing, sound and cinematography.
went over final ideas, everyone agreed with it. finished brief tonight. going out tomorrow to buy the props needed, and to film a preliminary opening in order for us to unearth the pros and cons of it, and to amend them for the original sequence.
our group got together and finalised our ideas, and as leader assigned each member their roles for the next two weeks. today i also watched Sweeney Todd, which i found to be a excellent movie. it also gave me a idea of how cinematography is used to make the opening effective.
started to draw up storyboard, but not very good at drawing. once completed they will be scanned and uploaded on to my blog.
Today sam handed out some storyboard templates for us to fill in. it will describe the camera movements, actions and dialogue. later on today i will post on my calender which will be my guide for the next few weeks.
Definition: Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the wide-ranging thriller genre. However, this genre often incorporates elements from the mystery genre in addition to the typical traits of the thriller genre.
Generally, thrillers focus on plot over fictional characters, and thus emphasize intense, physical action over the character's psyche. Psychological thrillers tend to reverse this formula to a certain degree, emphasizing the characters just as much, if not more so, than the plot.
The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.
Sometimes the suspense comes from within one solitary character where characters must resolve conflicts with their own minds. Usually, this conflict is an effort to understand something that has happened to them.
Example of director: Alfred Hitchcock – The master of suspense, Hitchcock often applied Freudian concepts to his thrillers, as in Rebecca, Spellbound, Vertigo, Psycho, and Marnie.
Example of a writer: A excellent example of a psychological thriller is the writings of Robert Banfelder who has written a series of ten novels on serial killings.
Our opening in going to be a psychological thriller, the above examples have lots of similar techniques we will be using. Alfred Hitchcock has probably had the most influence over my ideas.
Me and my group have decided to do a combined credit and video opening. we have chosen to do this because it is the best way to show off our knowledge on both types of openings, and also to broaden our knowledge on what we possibly could learn on this exciting journey.
Went out today in the local area and took some pictures of some locations and random ideas for the sequence .
http://imdb.com/Sections/Genres/Thriller/average-vote
Today we also started drafting our story board, which will be scanned and posted in due course. i have began to right up my brief, and hope to finish it by the end of the week.
Today i created a calender in class, which will remind me and my group of the things that need doing. this is to ensure that we meet deadlines.
we also watched some sequences in class which showed us the different types of openings.
e.g. 12 monkeys
thought this clip was amazing.i also learnt that opening sequences show us what happens in the film, but in a 'undercover' way.
we came up with some locations, some of which are the college, the college car park, and police station. this is based on our first ideas, but not our final. we need to choose between the the ideas we have. one is just a title sequence with little video involved and the other is both video and titles.
we got into our groups today a came up with our roles. i am working with kasim and shoaib. I'm responsible for the camera work, director and co-editor roles. kasim is responsible for sound and shoaib is responsible for editing.
looking at Saul's work on http://www.saulbass.tv/ gave me a better understanding of the kind of things needed for my production to be a good one. the opening of 'casino' really helped me give my draft the buzz it was missing.
In class, me and my group sat down to brainstorm some of our ideas for our opening sequence. We come up with some good ideas. films were mentioned like 'catch me if you can', 'sexy beast', 'jaws' and 'rendition' as inspiration.
i watched some trailers today and came up with a rough over view of what our production will be about. below are the trailers i watched.
Memento: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/trailers-screenplay-E15133-310
Jaws: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/trailers-screenplay-E10947-310
Rendition: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804522/trailers-me60030462
i also used the internet movie database to look up other thrillers. http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Genres/Thriller/