Thriller Idea 1

Media Thrillers

Tube station

This film is based on a traditional English family that are travelling up to Scotland to their holiday home for a weekend. They travel up to Scotland by tube station and then by taxi. They are running really late for the train and their youngest little boy is crying and screaming because he is tired. They run for the train and finally make it, and there seems to be a lot of technical difficulties on the train and in their house in Scotland. A main part to this film is this scary looking man, who is always smirking; he is the ticket man, he is on the same train; he is the taxi driver. Many mysterious things go on during their weekend in Scotland.

     The opening sequence starts off at the London tube station. We are introduced to an English family of four; a mum, a dad and two young boys. The youngest of the two boys is crying and screaming, and the family are running late for their train. The dad buys their train ticket and we get a shot of the ticket man’s face smiling at them.  They are now sprinting and running down the stairs for this train, tension rises, we can hear the panting of the dad, the voice at the station calls “platform 11A calling at Larbert Station”, the public are getting louder and louder. They finally get on the train, as the doors in slow motion start closing, the lights flicker and we get a shot of this familiar creepy man looking out of the train, sitting down, looking at the camera smirking and then everything goes pitch black. And the title appears with a sound effect.

 

Kill Bill- Buried Alive Scene

Beatrix's Buried Alive Scene

 

 



 

 

1
The scene starts with hammering with nails on the coffin. The hammering of the nails is much louder than it would be in real life; this is so that as an audience member it effects us too . The long notes create a sense of calmness which juxtaposes with the hammering and the heavy breathing going on in this scene. It creates a slight discomfort for the audience with the contrasting sounds.

2
At this moment in the scene, the hammering slows down which suggests that they are nearly finished. There is one final hammer , which is extra loud and has a certain edge to it which suggests that the man using the hammer puts a lot of effort into the final hit. Then the screen goes black, this tells us that the coffin has been properly sealed and her life is going to end soon.

At this point as the screen is pitch black we can hear a few things. Beatrix is breathing hysterically and whimpering heavily and deeply. There is music that plays throughout the whole thing. Having a plain black screen makes the audience focus on the sounds, and at this moment I felt almost as if I were in the coffin and it effected me as I thought, imagine if I were her in that coffin, what an earth would I do? The heaviness of Beatrix's breaths suggest that she is having a hard time getting oxygen in the small coffin.
As well as Beatrix breathing quickly you can hear shovelling of the soil being chucked on top of the coffin.

3

The sound and effects of the soil then being dropped on top of the coffin is strong and identifiable. The idea of the sound being strong is so that it implies that there is a lot of it being shovelled on and that it’s quite thick and dense. Also, it is what Beatrix would here, this makes the audience feel that they are in the coffin with her.

 

At this point, the shovelling is still going on; the noise of the soil plying on top is getting quieter and quieter but she tries to scream. Her screams are so quiet in comparison to the shovelling sounds, this shows that no one can hear her. Beatrix's screams are distressed and full frustration; not sadness in the slightest. This seems to suggest that she is more agitated about the situation than she is sad.

The Shining: Opening sequence Analysis

The Shining
 

 

I studied the film 'The Shining' and from a first preview of the credits, you do not see any characters, just a car with a person driving it. The camera shooting this is high up in a helicopter; this gave the feeling that someone/something was following this cars movement, a sense of foreboding. There is also the fantastic eerie, horror background music which automatically tells the audience it is a horror and  that something terribly bad was going to take place. The start of the film is on a mountain side, that looks desolate and no other people are around. The car looks like its heading to somewhere where the film is set and at the end of the credits the camera gets to a sort of resort.

Sexy Beast: Opening title sequence

Sexy Beast
 

 

 

 I also studied 'Sexy Beast', which was in contrast to the shining, as it is obviously a comedy. The main character is introduced, and he comes off as a rough, retired, wealthy Gangster "Bladdy 'ell"- his first line. His appearance is ironic to the name of the film 'sexy beast' which he does not come across as. He is in his own villa, in somewhere hot (like Spain) and deserted, I wonder why? He has a young Spanish boy cleaning for him, which shows his lazy character, as he is just lounging away sunbathing. A massive boulder rolls down the hill? It leaves the audience puzzled to why this happened, who did it and why was their a shot of a women driving her car. Had she pushed the rock to try and kill him? Is he a bad character? It raises many questions which draws the audience in to want to know more. 

Account of prelim post production

FIRST PRELIM EDITING SESSION

 

In today's Lesson, it was my first experience using the software 'Final cut pro'. We were first shown how to get onto the software and to find our work. We then as a group viewed all of the video footage we filmed together and we would choose the best quality sequences; by dragging the actual image of the video itself to be placed into the rush bin.
  Out of all of the sequences we had chosen, we then had to combine them as one whole footage. To do so, we had to go into the rush bin and we had to decide whether which video would go first etc.

 

 As a group we wanted the video where there was a mysterious, spooky, horror sound effect that Lulu and Luke made with their voices; with a close-up of my face looking down and distressed to introduce our short film. It automatically showed the audience what genre the film was going to be. Once we had selected one sequence, we could cut out the part we wanted to use by pressing on the keyboard 'I' which stands for In; 'O' which stands for Out - this would enable us to cut it and then we dragged the video down to the timeline; we'd continue this process with the rest of the small clips to create a short film.
  Overall this exercise with Matt taught me the overall basic instructions on how to use Final Cut Pro, how to cut sequences by using 'in' and 'out', that a shortcut to play a sequence you can press the spacebar and lastly how to combine the sequences into one.

Account of prelim shoot

 

 In our first Preliminary Task, we were used the Sony NX5 Camera. We had to set up the camera in the classroom, as this is where we were filming. We were told to set up the classroom however we wanted to for a short film, we could also choose our own storyline and two of us had to act, what is shown in the two images to the right.
 
  I went in a group of four, of which Luke and Lulu were filming and Sarah and I were acting, I was the RED person and Sarah was the BLACK. We decided to use the idea that I was sitting down on a desk with a ring on my finger and Sarah was shouting at me to take it off but I just couldn't resist, it was too beautiful.

 Overall, I think it went really well, it took quite a long time to get started; then we progressed on well. I think as a team we worked really well and effective together as we would all have different ideas to contribute. This activity gave us a feel of how to start to make a movie, it also showed me how long it must take to create one movie by all the different shots that were taken.

Talking about different shot sizes with Adam

Today I had Media Studies and in my lesson we discussed everything about basic Shot Sizes and how to identify a shot. There are several different shots I learnt including...

• Big close-up (BCU)
• Mid shot (MS)
• Wide shot (WS)
• Point Of View (POV)
• Close-up or close-shot (CU)
• Medium close-up (MCU)
• Long shot (LS)
• Over the shoulder (O/S)
• Two shot, three shot (2/5, 3/5) etc.
• High angle
• Low angle

We studied a film called Pleasantville, and every different shot, Adam would pause it and we had to analyse the shot and write down what we thought it was; this would help us to become more familiar with each shot; so that we can use them in our own work for future reference.