Planning character representation - Miss Georgiou

 

In this post I will be discussing what my group and I are going to be using within our own thriller clip with the characters of which we will be using and why we are using them.

My group and I decided amongst ourselves that using three characters for our thriller film would be best suited because it would allow us to display a variety of things within our thriller, setting the mood and allowing the audience to concentrate on them one at a time.

Victim One
    Name: Stacey
    Gender: Female
    Age: 35
    Race: Eastern European
    Background: Stacey is an everyday home maker. She spends everyday looking after all responsibilities within the home. Tasks involving cleaning the house, doing the washing, cooking nice home made meals -which we discover in the opening scene to allow the audience to relate to the character and develop some sort of relationship with the character. Stacey doesn't have any friends and her family consists of just her, Dave and their two sons. The reason for this is because both her parents were murdered when she had just married Dave. Stacey was a hard working young lady as a school girl, but bad influences made her drop out of school and ever since, she had always kept to cleaning houses as she had no other qualifications.

How character relates:
Stacey's character appeals to the target audience. The reason for this is because at 15-18yrs old (stereotypically) girls are conscience of their appearance, and so to include a female character with very basic make up and her hair tied up shows a sense of vulnerability yet confident, giving a slight moral to the teenage girls that it's okay to look how you do. This makes Stacey approachable to the audience. Also, by her wearing an apron and having no make up on, her hair tied up.. it will make her look weak. By showing this to the audience, it's allowing them to have a prewarning of what could happen and that she is a weak character, and the scene's of which she is in will emphasise how helpless and weak she is. This makes the audience want to reach out and help, therefore allowing her character to appeal to the target audience.



Victim Two
    Name: Dave
    Gender: Male
    Age: 40
    Race: Eastern European
    Background: Dave is a solicitor. He is currently on a case working as a defendant for a victim against a well known criminal who is full of anger and revenge for anyone. Dave is happily married with his wife; Stacey. They have two sons, a nice house. The family are strict Christians and are strong believers in karma, this belief is why Dave has become a solicitor. Dave has grown up with both parents who are still with him to this very day, he has two older brothers who are twins, and one younger sister. Dave is a very family orientated person, and he guards his family with his life. He's had an easy time growing up, and he comes from a wealthy background.

How character relates:
The character of Dave appeals to the audience. This is because he comes across as a good soul who is willing to help. The fact that he is a solicitor and to do with the law, allows the audience to trust him because of his authority and would therefore hold him in high regard. His character also allows the male audience to look up to him as an inspiring figure and influencing a positive look on reality. The use of his outfit where he will be wearing a smart suit, along with a brief case show's that he is a sophisticated, strong character. It is important to convey the idea that this character is strong because it is a sense of security for the audience, therefore allowing him to appeal to the audience. The differene in clothing between him and Stacey shows the comparisons of a strong character and a weak character.


Killer
    Name:
    Gender: Male
    Age:
    Race: British
    Background: This killer is currently facing trial in court for attempt of man slaughter, he has no friends nor family. As a young boy growing up, he was around a lot of nasty areas where he saw crime take place right in front of him - the main crime he saw was knife crime -  and he witnessed his mother getting aggressively stabbed when he was 11. Since then he hadn't been the same, he had studied hard at school until he was 16 and then left to go and get a job. At this job, he was treated with no respect and was bullied by his colleagues both physically and mentally. Seeing his mother getting murdered and witnessing violence through out his life, as well as being bullied, violence has been a big influence in his life and his actions. He has killed 5 civilians so far, but yet is still blood thirsty.

How character relates:
The killer may not appeal to the majority of the audience. This is because this character is seen as violent and morally wrong in his belief. However, taking this attitude on the character works because in order for a successful thriller, we need the enemy to be feared for the audience to not want to relate to the killer. Yet, despite the audience not relating to this character, they still do. By this, I mean that the fact that this character is despised, it makes the audience want to know more and engages their audience with a film so still relates to the audience and appeals to them because it achieves an effective reaction.

Inspirations - Miss Miller

When creating your own opening scene to a thriller it is important to gather some inspirations to include in order for it to be successful. My group and I have got inspirations from different films that we felt were strong and contained successful conventions that if we incorporated in our own opening sequels, would create atmospheres of our choice in order to create shock, surprise and suspense.

The films that my group and I have chosen inspirations from are: Halloween town (1974) where the point of view of the killer when passing through the house cleverly is blacked out apart from two eye slits allowing the audience to only see what the killer see's. My group and I believed this to be a strong idea because it helps create a sense of enigma and allows the audience to feel vulnerable.

*insert picture of Halloween town (1974)*

Another film that we got our inspirations from are sixth sense. This will be evident when victim 2 (the husband) is about to get killed, and as he comes face to face with the killer, his breathe turns hot against the cold air. We thought this would be a good idea as it emphasises how scared the character is feeling which is clear to the audience.

*insert picture of sixth sense*

Scream 2 is another big inspiration to our opening sequence because it's what our thriller is based upon, with the theory of a phone call and the great use of a knife as part of the iconography. We felt this would be a perfect inspiration to make our audience jump and feel tense because by creating a tense atmosphere it would engage the audience more.

*insert picture of scream two*

Lastly, we have used inspirations from shutter island when looking at the music. This is because we felt that in shutter island when a character is scared, there is a non diagetic sound of the characters heart beating fast, we felt that including this in our own opening sequence it would allow us to emphasise on the theme of fear and really convey this idea to the audience that it's something that could happen to any of the audience.

*insert picture of shutter island*

As listed above, we have chosen various inspirations to include in our thriller, we chose these inspirations because we felt that they would work well with our idea in order to achieve the best reaction from the audience in order to make our opening sequence memorable. Though these inspirations are featured in our opening sequence, and may come across as something that is not our idea, we have made sure to make these features our own. We done this by mixing all of these inspirations together to create a new idea to base our opening sequence on. We felt by using these inspirations in different scenes it would show our understanding of how to create a specific atmosphere and our ability to turn these inspirations in to our own ideas, therefore showing how we were able to make these inspirations our own.

We felt that these inspirations were important because they all belong to well known thrillers. This means that these techniques used were successful, and therefore that means if we include them in our opening sequence, it would allow it to be a successful opening sequence also. By making them all our own it makes the effect of the inspirations even greater and more effective.

Our research was useful in the terms of getting ideas for our narratives because we was able to gain knowledge on how to incorporate affective techniques within our own openings sequence. We will take these ideas and develop them within our own opening sequence thrillers by adding a unique twist to them in order to sustain more concentration and feelings with the audience to the characters in the film.

Planning mise-en-scene Miss Georgiou

Mise-en-scene is extremely important within my thriller film because it includes all the features that are required to a film. Mise-en-scene contains Setting and Iconography, Costume, hair & Make up, Facial Expressions/Body Language, Lighting and colour, Positioning of characters and/or objects so therefore I will be discussing these and how my mise-en-scene is conventional to a thriller film and also how the audience will build a relationship with my thriller.

 

Looking at the settings and iconography within my thriller, it includes a house as the setting. The reason for using this setting is because it creates a sense of reality and therefore makes it more believable so it appeals more to the audience because people do see their house's as a place of safety so by showing the status of safety is incorrect because of what is going to happen within the thriller it makes the audience more weary and far more interested as they are aware that it could concern them, not that it would, but it gives the initial idea to the person therefore creating a tense atmosphere amongst the audience. The iconography of my thriller will contain the everyday kitchen use, for example a knife, a timer, an oven, kettle etc.. all of the regularly seen objects within a household which therefore creates a sense of safety but when this is jeopardised it creates a sense of fear. The use of iconography such as a knife shows typical conventions to a thriller film and is prewarning the audience of sharp objects, or objects that are able to harm and subconsciously tells them that something is going to happen in that specific location or scene.

 

Moving onto costume, hair and make-up it resembles a great contribution to mise-en-scene within my thriller. The variety of costume is going to be an everyday, casual wear. This is to show that the victims in this case are equal to the audience. By having the victims wearing casual clothes and allowing them to be equal to the audience it creates a sense of reality and shows that the events could happen to anyone in the following audience. Looking at hair and make up within my thriller, I feel it shows the characteristics of the characters and demonstrates the personality of a character too. By using make up of a natural like way, or no make up it can represent that there is a neutral person who can be calm and relaxing, and there would be maybe wavy hair to support this connotation, therefore I feel by using the victims in the household to have naturally done hair it could make the audience feel the victims are approachable and allow a relationship between the chracters and the audience so that when something bad happens to the victim they develope more emotion towards the film and so by using these features it cleverly gets the audience alongside the film and involved them more.

 

 

Facial expressions and body language is largely important within my thriller film. This is because it gives the audience an insight as to how each character is feeling and the attitude they take on things. It presents a personal view from the character, allowing the audience to understand them. For example, a close up on a characters face shows the particular expression of emotion that the character is feeling which in the case of a thriller and when used in my thriller, conveys the theme of fear and enigma because you won't see what the character is necessarily scared of. In something like a midshot where body language is frequently shown, even if it doesn't show a facial expression within the shot to help give the audience an insight as to what they are feeling, judging body language allows the audience to see if the person is comfortable with the situation, if they're happy or if perhaps they are infact fearful of a situation within a scene.

 

Looking at lighting and colour within my thriller that my group and I are going to create. Low key lighting will be used because through research I discovered that low key lighting is conventional to a thriller film and so my group and I thought it would be wise to use this. Low key lighting allows a dim focus and allows things within a scene to easily be forgotten and hidden, emphasising the sense of enigma and allowing tension to enter the scene. The colours that I would like myself and the other members of my group to use are mostly neutral colours with the acception of a few bright which we hope to use in order to draw the audiences attention too, for example the wife should be wearing a white apron to show innocent and purity, whilst the weapon that she is using in a regular situation that soon seems to be the weapon the kills her, will be on a red chopping board with the knife resting on top of it in order to gain the audiences attention and subconsciencely lay out the crime scene, but yet when the killing happens, it still shocks the audience.

The positioning of the characters and object will be carefully planned out. It is my intention to make the setting of the thriller come across as quiet small and vunerable so by using, as discussed in the earlier part of this post, specific editing and camera angle techniques it will create the scene to join together and make them feel like how perhaps the character may feel. By having the female victim positioned in the kitchen cooking dinner, in a small and insignificant room it can represent how the female is soon going to be feeling. Therefore because of this I felt that it would be wise if this would be included because it prewarns the audience about a specific character and allows the audience to become familiar with the setting of the scene.

My mise-en-scene is going to be conventional to a thriller film because I have spoken to my group and we have discussed eachothers points and discovered it would be wise to use eachothers idea in order to create a strong piece of work, for example, including a female victim in the opening scene and showing vulnerability, it links to relations with a thriller because it is conventional to find a vulnerable female victim on many cases.

My group and I felt that it would be wise to allow a connection between the audience and the characers within the film for example we felt that to show that the wife does have a family, it opens the door to those who have family and therefore makes the audience feel some sort of sympathy if something was to happen because reality appears in the scene. We felt that the audience could build a connection with the characters by using every day characters with normal homes and normal lives so it relates to the audience and gives them some sort of common ground.

Preliminary Task - Miss Georgiou

 [insert preliminary task youtube clip here: m.youtube.com/watch?v=xrdoESQ6ipM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DxrdoESQ6ipM ]

My preliminary task consists of my group members, George Moore, Vasil Nikilov and myself. The purpose of this task was to get an idea as to what camera angles we could incorporate into our own work when it comes to doing the opening clip, and also to become familiar with how camera angles are used.

Our task involved using a shot reverse shot, 180 degrees, high angle and low angle. We had to incorporate these camera shots in a clip that we made ourselves of the time length of 1 minute, 40 seconds. The clip had to include these camera angles and a small amount of dialogue to show our understanding of how to create an effective scene. I learned how to control the camera in order to sustain a strong theme throughout my clip and to create different feelings and emotions amongst the audience that the camera angles can create so I was able to see what sort of camera angles my group and I would incorporate into our own thriller clip. I also learned how to edit our thriller clip which proves to be a big part of making a film in order to allow everything to run smoothly for example the jump between a shot reverse shot, a high angle and a low angle etc. Without editing the clip would be very different and would lack the tidy up that it required in order to make our thriller clip look professional and believable, but also enjoyable to watch because we explored how the camera angles and editing features work together in order to build a good image for the audience.

To begin with we struggled the order of camera angles in order to create a conventional outline to our chosen theme to emphasise what it is and also how to get the best reaction from our audience. However my team and I pulled together in order to chose and put in order how the camera angles should be used, when they should be used and the order of which the camera angles will be used. My team and I worked well in doing so and I feel that we put a good piece of work together in order to portray what we wanted to and using the skills that we have learned to apply to our own piece of work.

The preliminary task helped assist my group and I with planning and creating our own thriller film because it gave us an insight on how to incorporate ideas within our own work. For example in our preliminary task there is the use of a shot reverse shot and my group and I felt that by using that in our own thriller clip it would create tension and suspense amongst the audience which we felt was a strong idea. Also by using a high angle in our own thriller clip it can suggest that what we are showing the audience is very isolated and therefore very vulnerable. The preliminary task has helped my group and I with planning our thriller film because it has come out with clear inspirations on what to use in our own thriller films in order for it to be a very strong piece of work produced by the three of us.

Group Narrative - Miss Georgiou

The purpose of a narrative is to create a sense of knowing with regards to what the film is going to be about and therefore sets the scene and emotions that are required for the audience to feel in order for the plot to be at its' best. In our group narrative, my group and I have conversed and got feed back on the advantages and disadvantages on eachothers narrative ideas and how we can include all of our advantages to create a strong opening clip full of shock, suspense and surprise.

My group and I worked together to discuss our individual ideas by reading through eachothers ideas to begin with, and then annotating all of the positive effects used within eachothers ideas in order to sustain a good outcome with what our opening clip will be about and by using all of eachothers good ideas, we will create a strong piece of work. After we had gone through eachothers work and picked out the advantages and disadvantages, we decided to have a group discussion where each of us took part in contributing in, we put together a brainstorm post with notes to help us produce our ideas with effects that compliment eachother and our idea.

George Moore, a member of my group, hasn't an original plot as such so we was unable to pull the advtanges out of it and try and include in our group narrative, however, he produced a lot of useful conventions that we can use in our work and so therefore it allows us to create a better narrative because we are able to see all of the conventions of a thriller film, and how we can use them. Therefore because there was no ideas with a narrative, my group and I were unable to produce many creative ideas from George, but his knowledge and understanding of each element used within a thriller helped us create a good opening clip for our own narrative which leaves us with quiet an advantage.

My idea contains inspiration from the film 'Nightmare on Elm Street' and 'Paranormal Activity'. My narrative is about a young boy has this nightmares but actually this nightmares are real, yet he isn't aware of this, and he ends up getting abused in a sort of way by this mysterious person in an anoymous mask, that for example, when his breath would be cold against the hot air, something bad would happen, in this occasion this masked character would become present and drag the young boy off his bed whilst he is asleep, but the boy wakes up and finds himself on the floor and very confused so it creates a lot of sense of engima, and would play on the audiences mind. My group were able to pick out the points that would come at an advantage for our group narrative for example in sixth sense when the main character is about to be part of something he didn't want to, he would breathe cold air that would go against the heat and create a puff of condensation appears, and my group would like to use this idea and have put it forward for when we do our opening clip.

Vasil Nikolov is another member of my group and we found his ideas very useful and creative. His idea followed good techniques used within thrillers, for example his narrative consists of a man coming home to an unusually empty house to find his wife has gone missing, a series of events happens over phone call where the husband will find his wife hanging in their room, and it becomes a race against time for the husband to get out of the house but is killed. As a group we particularly liked how he had used inspirations from other films to create this idea of a few combined together to make his idea more edgy and therefore more effective on the audience because there are so many ideas going on at once. Though, there was a small disadvantage with his work, despite the excellent idea there were some pieces that seemed very similar to a lot of films which means it's not unique, however with some tweeking we was able to produce a very different idea for an opening clip.

Therefore because the group and I decided the ideas were very strrong, we have gone with Vasil's idea. We thought it would be a good idea to use Vasil's narrative as a plot for our opening clip because we believe that it contains a lot of flexibility and we will be able include a lot of things with features from our own individual narratives inorder to produce a high standard piece of work.

Research into Sound - Miss Miller

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIMiqE5t1oE

In this post I will be exploring the use of sounds used within a clip of 'The hand that rocks the cradle". Within this clip various sound effects are used to create a sense of unknowing and create the eerie atmophere which is conventional to a thriller film because it can often create a sense of enigma.

In this part of the film, between 0:10 - 0:30 it shows a clear 20 seconds a heroic, non diagetic sound. This non diagetic sound sets up the scene because it allows the audience that something good is to happen rather than bad, which relieves the audience and backs them into a sense of security. The reason why it may seem that there is a positive thing about to happen is because the young child clearly takes a heroic role and trying to save herself and her younger brother. However this can be misinterpretated because of her youth and can be seen as vunerable, so the music is contrapuntal because it misleads the audience to make them think that the child is safe, however this clearly isn't the case and therefore confuses the audience. This is conventional to a thriller film because it creates a sense of relief, however there is still much to worry about.

From 0:32 - 0:37 there is a clear off screen sound of a banging. This gives the audience a sense of urgency and chaos because you can see that the children and finding somewhere to hide, whilst the criminal is banging loudly in aggression against something of which remains unknown and shows a sense of enigma because we don't know what's happening. It makes the audience feel sympathetic towards the children and slightly panicked because it shows that the children vulnerable.This is conventional to a thriller film because it appears to make the character seem  as if they are in danger, the banging continues every few seconds as it picks up pace which we can infer from this means that the scene is closer to its' end and is preparing the audience for the 3 S'... Shock, surprise and suspense.

         From the time 1:18 - 1:31 you can hear the screaming of the new born baby in distress. It creates again the sense of enigma because you think the children's safety is in jeopardy which makes the audience feel up tense and so by using this off-screen sound it is emphasizing that we are not to know what's going on and what's to happen which is a feature that is frequently found within the thriller genre. The effect it has on the audience makes them feel helpless which can be seen to be a metaphor for how the children are feeling so is conventional to a thriller film because it creates a sense of foreboding and uncertainty..

From 4:52 until the end, there is a clear diagetic sound and parallel sound in this part of the film. When the up lifting tempo is playing it lets the audience relax because in this camera shot you can see that the family are reunited and smiling. The sound is very parallel to the scene playing because the characters appear to be in an extremely happy mood, it's the end scene where the problems have been rid off so the audience feels the same as the characters.This can therefore also be open to a wider target audience because there is peace of mind at the end of the film as the criminal's dead which therefore is conventional to a thriller film and helps relax people because they feel more secure.

I have looked at this clip because I believe the idea's used within the sound such as when off screen sound and parallel sounds are used creates a true thriller genre atmosphere and I believe can be seen to be an inspiration to use within my own thriller style clip.

Opening Sequence Analysis - Miss Georgiou

The purpose of an opening sequence is to set the mood of the scene and where it is taking place. It also shows the audience the time frame of which the indicated genre film will take place and in thrillers, an opening sequence will often set a sense of enigma to help engage the audience.

The opening sequence sets the scene by using certain editing styles such as jump cut. This is when the shot will suddenly focus on one thing, this is present when the clown mask is spotted by the killer and he picks it up. The sudden focus on the clown mask creates a sense of enigma because it makes the audience enter a state of unknowing and suspicion and they want to know who the killer is.
Another editing feature used is straight cut. This is when there is a change of view point or location, often to change the scene. The effect of straight cut on the audience makes there a clear setting of what's going on and can hint out what could happen later on within the scene. Straight cut can be seen when the camera is at POV switching scenes from being outside to going inside the house into the kitchen and then lounge.

Moving onto camera angles. They are very important within the opening sequence because it helps set the mood. Through out the whole sequence there is a continuity of POV used. This can be seen to be used to keep the enigma and make the audience want to know who the killer is, but also the killers thought process on what their strategies are and how they do things. This tricks the audience to think that they could have the same capabilities of the killer and the effect that the killing has on the victims, therefore it can confuse the audience.
Also there is handheld used within the camera angles. It is handheld when the killer is going into the house. The reason this camera angle is used, is to create a sense of urgency and chaos because of what is yet to be revealed in the later part of the scene which therefore is the films way of warning the audience of what could happen and what is going to happen because as we later on see, there is chaos and urgency because the killer strikes a murder.
I also noticed that zooming out in a high angle at the end of the opening sequence is used and this could be to represent that the location is extremely vulnerable as it's a separated, suburban house that wouldn't necessary be expected to have a killer inside of it and creates a sense of normality and reality which makes the audience feel vulnerable too as it can relate to them.

Part of the opening sequence involves sound. In this scene it is mostly non diagetic sounds that can be heard throughout the sequence, this is the fast pace music that seems to quicken and heighten in pitch when something involving adrenaline is used. In this case, it is when there is about to be a murder and this makes the audience feel up tense and nervous so therefore the thriller is meeting it's aim to create all shock, suspense and surprise.
Off screen sound is also used at the beginning when there are children's chant to what seems to be a rhyme but can be mistaken for as the same rhythm as a spell. This gives the audience the idea that the film could include characters such as children who could either be a victim or in this case.. the killer. Also because we can't see where the noise is coming from it can make the audience feel vulnerable and nervous.

The representative of characters are introduced within the opening sequence to make the audience aware of who the main characters are and why they're important at that particular moment. In the opening sequence we see a loved up couple who are completely oblivious to the fact that someone is watching them from outside the window and then inside the house. It shows a typical feature of a thriller because ultimately the victim is unaware of what is going to soon happen and therefore represents the characters at this point as vulnerable and unknowing, therefore creating a sense of enigma.
Also at the end of the sequence the masked killer gains an apparent identity. This is evident when the young boy comes out of the house as his parents, in shock, discover their son with a bloody knife in his hand. It makes the audience feel nervous as to what has happened because the representative of the character is that often the innocent aren't and because this is used within the opening sequence it grips the audience and makes them want to know more, which often engages them for the rest of the film because the use of enigma.

The narrative of the opening sequence is something of a frequently seen setting within the thriller genre. For example, in this opening sequence we can see that there is a detached house in a suburban area giving the idea that this is something that could happen to someone in the audience because a lot of us live in suburban audience therefore making us feel more vulnerable to the film and perhaps feel like it's a bit too close to home so the audience are therefore nervous as to what's going to happen. Also the fact that there is a murder within the opening sequence makes the audience more aware as to what the films going to be because there is a strong convention to a thriller film.

Throughout the opening sequence, conventions are used. For example, where the killer is... there is low key lighting through out until we see the murder taking place where it is lifted to high key lighting. The reason it changes between the two is make the audience focus on what's going on because it is clearly an important part for the audience to observe. It sets the scene for the rest of the film too. A lot of camera angles that are conventional to a thriller film are used... looking at the end of the opening sequence when the camera zooms out so you can see the whole surrounding scene of the detached house it makes the audience see the vulnerable victims and this is conventional to a thriller because it makes the audience aware that the victims are actually isolated. Another thing that is conventional to a thriller film is the iconography. The iconography used is a knife as a weapon to murder which is religiously seen in thriller films so it's conventional because when you think about a thriller film, the initial though is very likely to be with knife crime used on the victims in some sort of way.

Ultimately the opening sequence of a thriller sets the scene as to what's going to happen throughout the film and what the theme of the film is. It is a way of warning the audience about what could possibly happen. Analysing this opening sequence will help me plan my own thriller because like the clip I will be creating, it is a short clip to give the audience a rough idea as to what the thriller is about, so I find it quiet inspirational to use features from this and include in my own work. Also, because it carries a sense of enigma it really creates the atmosphere of enigma and unknowing, everything is a mystery and I'd very much like to portray the element of enigma within my own opening clip.