textual analysis

With this format we decided that it didnt suit what we were looking for that we wanted it more childlike as the theme is immauture love and promises. We thought the scary appeal to the text  looked good but didnt look very childlike.

This format was good because we liked the scartching in the backgorund this tyed in well with the storyline to do with the locket however the format only came in caps so we thought it would be a bit out of place.

This format was perfect it had just the right amount of a childs hand writing and also could be portrayed to be very sadistic given the music and how the music portarayed a feeling of hate and revenge.

This format we felt looked just like pastel crayon however it was neater it looked far too innocent and we didnt feel even with the climax of the music that the text would suit the opening of our movie.

This helped my research because it gave me an idea of what the format would look like and decide what we wanted to use and what looked best on the when it came to editing it into the title sequence. From these examples we decided to go with a differnt after experimented with music and the image we all had in our head none of the formats really matched what we wanted.

Planning for continuity task

This is our storyboard for what we would be filming for the continuity task. Before we mapped it out we went to look at our setting to make sure we could film there, that it wasnt too busy and finally that there were classrooms free so that we could film inside them for a number of our shots.
In our continuity task we had to use he following checklist:
-Shot reverse shot
-Two shot
-DON'T BREAK THE 180' ANGLE !
-Walking through a door
-Sitting down
-Walkning out the door

Our first lot of filming we did was good and we acted well and the camera was steady and smooth as we tracked and panned, however we had a squeaky tripod which thorugh the sound off a bit, then when we came to edit our work we found out we had broken the 180' rule , so we had to start again and start from scratch since when we went back to filming the rooms we initially thought of using were being used and had classes taking place. We then kept to the same storyboard but worked around the mishap. We managed to get all the shots perfectly with a few dodgy camera work with a slight bump here and there, however we didnt have enough time to perfect the shots and edit them accuratley.

As this was just a task to get us into the real thing with less mistakes i think we did okay, we now know what to do and what not to do and leave us with plenty of time to correct mistakes if neccasry and to put in our soundtrack and edit more smoothly.

Planning our final idea

Schedule for filming-
November
24th-Individual planning
25th-Show initial ideas
26th-Blog ideas
27th-Blog ideas
28th-Day off
29th-Lesson
30th-Lesson
December
1st-Put pictures of props on blog
2nd -Day off
3rd-Lesson-Talk about filming etc
4th-Day off
5th-Blog
6th-Lesson
7th-Lesson- look at storyboard make final adjustmnets , scan it to computer
8th-Set up filming
9th-Day off
10th-Get camera and start setting up
11th-Film at 8-9am at black park
12th-Day off
13th-Lesson
14th-Lesson- look @ footage
15th-Blog wat we did
16th-Day off
17th- Make sure blogging is complete
18th and onwards - Christmas Holidays after we return we will edit and put in the soundtrack to the footagge and make sure it is good enough to be presented to examiners and the class.

Questionaire analysis

I gave out 20 questionaires to my piers and people at my drama club. Every single one of my questionaires that were given out came back with the same age range which was 15-17. However the data I collected was sufficent to finalise this piece of coursework. Amazingly enough when the questionaires came back it was split half between females and males. The questionaire asked wether they prefered 15 or 18 rated movies the evidence shows that for the age group of 15-17 they prefered 15 rated movies this may be due to two contributing factors. Either they have not watched many 18 rated movies due to thier age, or due to thier age their brains are less developed so may find 18 movies, too scary or too physcological for them to understand the full codes and convetions of what the movie is about or what it consists of.

Next the audience was asked what sub-genres they like to see on the big screen.
Action- 14
Western-0
Crime-9
Film noir-0
Religous-1
Gangsta-4
Physcological-12

From this we can see that action and physcological thrillers were the favorited so from this we can make our
opening of a film shaped to fit the criteria the audience like, however we can put our own mark on it and make it unique.

Next the audience were asked what films they most enjoyed, the choices were:
Jaws-8
Paranormal activity-14
Godfather-4
Inception-10
Pulp Fiction-1
Dark knight-14
Physco-2
Se7en-2
Memento-0
Silence of the lambs-4

From this we can see that mostof our target audience liked Paranormal activity and Dark Knight. These movies are extremly different since one focuses on good triumphing evil and bringing hope and peace to Gotham city, however Paranormal activity is showing a possesion of a human and them killing their loved one. Paranormal activity is not gory however it gives u the chills and definatley makes u check your room before you go to sleep. Whereas Dark Knight focuses on a genric goody and baddie. This reinforces that our audience want to be scared and have that thrill but they also want a generic goody and baddie instead of a force that cant be explained.

Next we asked our audience to rate 8 fields that a thriller genre could cover:
Suspense-80/160
Fast paced music-79/160
Plot twists-87/160
Action-90/160
Gore-98/160
Science-62/160
A sense of reality (Not too farfetched)-82/160
Clever Storyline-120/160

This data shows me that this age group doesn't want any sort of science related in the movie, wether this is becasue of the age or the group that filled in the questionaires just don't like science movies so dont want directors to incorporate science into thriller movies.
A clever storyline, gore,plot twists,reality and action all ranked higher than half in the questionaire so this to me looks like a genreic thriller movie which is fine however we need to make sure we surprise our audinece and surprise and give them a shock when they see our opening of a movie.

 Lastly we asked our audience wether they liked seeing the actors, producers and directors in the first two minutes of a movie:
Yes: 3
No:5
Don't mind:11

As a group we are going to decide to keep the cast and crew names in our opening because we feel this is what an opening is for to introduce the movie and the people in the movie and helping out in the movie.

Questionaires

This part of our research was finding out more about our audience and their likes and dislikes so we can focus on what film's do wrong and what films do right so we can make our opening perfect for our target audience. We have decided we are going to to aim our film at 15+. This is because it gives us a bit more lee-way as too what we can put in our film and make it suitable. The reason why we did not choose 18+ was becasue we wanted to sample our opening to years 10 and 11 to see what they made of the sequence and give us some appropriate feedbackfor us too work on and perfect so that it was ready for the moderation stage.

This is our questionaire:

Are you male or female?

Tick the age category that you fit in to –

15 – 17 □     18 – 25   □   26 – 35 □     36 - 45 □     46 – 55  □   55+ □

do you prefer 15+ or 18+ thriller films usually, if you are under 18 you may still vote for 18+

15+  □

18+  □

What type of sub genre within thrillers do you enjoy? Tick as many as apply

Action- thriller □

Western-thriller □

Crime-thriller □

Film noir – thriller □

Religious thriller – such as Da Vinci code □

Gangster thriller □

Psychological thriller   □

Please tick the thriller films that you have really enjoyed from the list below – as many as apply

Jaws □

Paranormal activity □

The godfather □

Inception □

Pulp fiction □

The Dark Knight □

Psycho □

Se7en □

Die hard □

Memento □

Silence of the lambs □

What do you feel is very important in a thriller film? Rank from one to eight with one being least important and eight being most

A feeling of suspense □

Fast paced music □

A plot twist □

Action □

Gore □

Science  □

A sense of reality – not too farfetched □

A clever storyline  □

Do you like to see credits in the opening of the film?

Yes □

No □

Don’t mind □

We printed this 20 times and handed it out to our target audience. Once we have our questionaires back we will being analysing them and fitting our film's codes and conventions, however we shall not fall into the trap of making our film clique. We aim to make our film unique and that no one has seen before.

Planning #1

This is the first picece of my groups planning process. We sat in a group and discussed what we should focus on and what we should avoid we brainstormed our ideas.


THRILLERS ----> Stay away from physcological thrillers
                 ---------->Stay away from a woods setting
We decided on this because it is too clique and too predictable. Also it wouldnt be individual and we would get less marks for creativity while planniung.
Next we brainstormed what hybrids there could be for thriller genres we noted these hybrids then we are going to shorten our list down to three where we will decide how we can incorporate and focus on different ways we can make it unique to the rest of the class.
-action   -phycological    -crime   -Spy   -Techno   -Eroctic   -suspense   -legal   -political  -supernatural
-Disater  -comedy    -medical   - Conspiracy.

Lastly in this session we looked at trailers and the openings of different sub-genres so we could get a good sense of how to layout and structure out opening. We watched 'Number 23'-mystery, 'Silence of the lambs'-Crime and 'The thirteenth floor'-Techno.

What we found out about all three was that

Research of past coursework

We watched and reviewed past coursework to develop on what they had done wrong and how they could of imporved so that we knew how to do it when we came to post production. This way we can see the faults in past work and work on ways to make sure we dont fall in the same trap, also we can get ideas of how they shot their work and what effects they used and how they used soundtrack and mise-en-scene to make their openings good.

The first piece of coursework we watched was Room to Breath. This was a suspense thriller so kept the audience on the edge of their seat.
Sound- Romantic music at the begining was parellel to what was going on in the scene, the boy getting ready to go on a date. They had diegetic sound of the boy turning the tap running and him walking down the stairs. Diegetic sound can also be heard when the girl in is the metal cupboard we can hear her moving around and heavyily breathing.

Camera- Good use of close-ups on the girls face in the cupboard, showing her emotion and how scared she is being alone , trapped in the dark. There was also a good variety of long shots to see the boy getting ready for his date and walking down the strairs and him holding flowers for his loved one.

However to get a better mark the typhography was too fast , we couldnt quite see what the text said. Also to of given the piece more variety i feel the shot sequence should of gone:
BOY ----> GIRL------>BOY----->GIRL
I felt with the constant shot of her in the cupboard got tedious and boring which i doubt would of been good for a films review. Lastly i feel they should of had more tense music to accompany the cupboard shots. The only tense music was when someone walked through the door then opened the cupboard but the audience was bored by that point.

Unrequinted Love
Sound- Good soundtrack it engadged the audience, tense music that went with the vicous shots of scissors and red colors.

Mise-en-scene
Red nail varnish and a red table cloth dennoting danger, death or blood. This also dennotes its a thriller through the use of its codes and conventions.
Red text on a black backgorund made the typhography stand out it was also slow so it gave the audience time to read the text.
The scissors used in this piece was being used very vicously cutting up paper this also dennotes a thriler- the use of a weapon.

Editing
The fast paced editing kept the audinece drawn to the screen. She cut up paper then a extreme close-up of her lips showing heavy breathing/ panting showing her annoyance or anger with another character, which then reinforces the use of a weapon.

Root cause- Action thriller
This was a different sort of thriller it was a film noir. Which meant it was black and white and there was no talking.

Conventions of a thriller genre

Thriller is a genre of litrature, film and television that uses suspense, tension and excitment as the main elements. Thrillers are mostly created with an atmospthere of menace, violence, crime and murder. Thrillers show society to be dark, corrupt and dangerous, though often present a happy ending in which villians are killed or arrested. Thrillers promote moods such as anticipation, adrenaline rushes, expectation, uncertanty and anxiety and sometimes even terror.

Characters
Commonly the characters in thriller movies appear in smartly and well dressed with dark colours in spy based thrillers e.g. James Bond. However dress codes differ depending on the context of the plot. As there are many different types of thriller the dress codes are familiar to the type of sub genre within the thriller e.g. Die hard, Bruce Willis wears casual/mascuine clothing which helps empower his characters appearence.
 Often in thriller films, there is one character who plays a defencless female in need of a rescue. This then changes by the end of the movie when she becomes brave enough to aid/save the male protagonist. Therefore there is normally a male protagonist who defeats the residing evil of the situation to allow good to prosper. The antagonist of the film can range from a scary monster to a twisted neighbour. However there are some common characteristics in thriller films such as
-Revenge
-Anger
-Or a skewed view on events as well as bad social skills and understanding

Themes
Themes are commonly based fears and worries. They can be isolation, murder, pain, terrorism or entrapment.

Narrative
Thrillers are normally only shown from two characters point of view. The first character who is first observed is the protagonist which involves the audience in more events and creates empathy for the character.However occasionally the story is told from the villians point of viewwhich can lead to empathy for the villian also to thier twisted ways and perhaps their demented past that has led to the future. Lastly the story can also be told from the point of view from an onlooker, detaching the audience from the events s they can be more obsevervant.
The storyline has a series of events to enable the film to progress, and enable the audience to make predictions as to what might happen next. In many films this adds to the suspense and more on the edge. In thrillers the dialogue never contains a complete explanation of events or plot, to give it place, and maintain the mystery, which is essential in building up suspense.

Iconography
Setting: Can be urban, cities or quiet country villages.
Mise-en-scene:Normally dim lighting hiding parts of a character, large threatening weapons for props e.g. guns, knives etc. Colors are used to signify differenct emotions e.g. red-anger, green-jelously, blue-cold,mystery or death. Camera shots are normally P.O.V shots, frames within frames, or close-ups.

'15' movies and criteria

For our Thriller we will be targeting 15 year olds and above. The criteria for a 15 movie is slpit into 9 sections:
-Themes
No theme is prohibited for a '15' rated movie
-Sex
Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail, there may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour. However strong references are unlikley to be acceptable unless justifyed within context.
-Violence
Violence is acceptable however strong reference to sexual violence is unacceptable without contextual justification.
-Drugs
Drug use may be used in films however must not promote or encourage the use of drug misuse.
-Nuditity
Nudity may be used without strong reference.
-Language
The strong terms of swearing e.g.' fuck' may be used and repeated with justifcation however the strongest terms may be used if justififyed by context.
-Horror
Strong threat or menace are permitted however not if sadistic or sexualised.
-Imitable behaviour
Dangerous behaviour such a slef harming, sucide or hanging may be used however not to be dwell on detail which may be copied.
-Discrimination
The film as a whole must not endorse discrimination.

No one younger than '15' may see a '15' rated movie, nor buy or rent films rated '15' or above.

This research helped with my coursework because as we are rating our thriller '15' it is useful to know the criteria so we can work around the areas we can include and broadens or brainsorm of ideas for when we start planning our opening scene and work with the criteria so we know exactly what we can use and how we can use it.

I got this research from the BBFC offical website on film criteria. http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/15-2

Altman and traditional theorists

Genre according to altman is usually defined in terms of certain signs. This is called semantics, the study of signs and symbols and thier realtionship with eachother. Altman argues that the realtionship between the two links to how we can understand genre evolution and hybridisaton.
Hybridisation is the cross of genres in one film e.g. Guys and dolls a traditional gangsta movie is a cross between gnagsta and a musical. For science fiction and other genres maybe, it can be argued there is only a set of semantics and no syntactival framework due to so many sub genres and the dhift in ideology and technical advances.
Genres begin with the semantic and over a period of time, evolve into 'genre' after a variety of themes, issues and plots have been explored. This can take a while. What limits this is the shifting social ideologies that can affect themes, issues and ideas.
Altman is highly critical of the fact that genre theorists have tended to talk about the history of genre in a specific way. Catergorsing genres e.g. Horror, comedy, romance
When outlining the history of genreand looking at the way it evolves, traditional theorists such as Thomaus Schatz and William Wright have tended to look at genres as being entirley seperate from eachother. Hence when ooking at genreic evolution, later genre films are assumed to build on earlier films of the same genre and no others.
Syntax- This involves the plot and theme. These two areas form the grammer of the text.

Genre

Genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art.
Genre is a critical tool used in films as to how they establish conventions within the film and its genral stroryline. For a genre to become established, certain conventions need to become identifiable in the genral consiousness of the audience. It is neccesary to catergorise films, tv programmes etc.
 The following factors should be analysed to identify familar conventions:
- narrative structure
-Use of specific actors/directors
-Locations
-Iconography
-Characters
-Themes
Use of lighting and stylistic elements

Genres function according to sets of rules and conventions they respond to rules and conventions by developing formulas and patterns.