Ideas for our thriller opening

I think for our thriller opening we should do something similar to 'Chucky' which is a killer doll. They've used a normal toddler sized doll, but in our opening we could use a barbie doll instead. 

          

 Blood being spread over the sink to give a gory thriller effect of the main character was involved in killing someone.

Research - Opinions of others on what they would like to see in a THRILLER film

Through Blackberry Messenger Service I've asked a couple of people for their ideas on what they would want to see in a thriller movie, something they havent seen before. I ended up with a few suggestrions from people: 

• Zombies 
• Blood 
• Ghosts 
• Screaming/crying in the background - little kids
• Knives - slitting their arm
• Murder

Research - Different Types of Structure Opening

There are four types of different title opening structures:

Discrete title sequence

 (Arlington Road): 

A Discrete film opening is where there are images shown that might not have anything to do with the film however they're still placed together. Quite a lot of editing is used to create this opening. Therefore this type of sequence is used to make it harder for the audience to understand what the storyline could be. An example is of this would be the title sequence from Arlington Road.

A traditional film opening 

(Panic Room): 

Credits Over A Blank Screen:

Stylised Editing:

Research - Genre & Subgenre

The Genre categorises a type of film into a specific group.
A Subgenre would be categorised into a particular genre.


I enjoy watching both comedy, supernatural, drama, thriller and fantasy films.

I like watching comedy films as they make me laugh, happy and excited as I know there's more to come. The chracters in a comdey film are tend to exaggerate their role in the film which gives an effect to the film, and gives a purpose for the audience to laugh at them.

'Big Momma 2' is an example of a comedy film.

 Supernatural films and Sci Fi films have made up characters and use a variety of different props which makes the film look more effective and appealing for me to watch. For example magic, ghosts and characters with supernatural powers, robots makes me feel excited while watching the film and always makes me want to actually tell the film to 'hurry up' to the next scene.

'Transformers' is an example of a sci-fi and thriller film.

Homework.

What is my Favorite Genre and why:
 The Genres i am most interested in are Comedy and Horror. I like films individually and also when they are combined. I personally enjoy being happy and have a good sense of humor so Comedy affects me when im sad and it restores my happiness. The characters used within comedy are either complicated, clumsy or exaggerated. This gives us the key significations of what genre it is straight away. Another thing i like about comedy is that it could be divided into sub-genres according to the source of humor such as black comedy(horror), character comedy(stereotypes), prop comedy, dead plan comedy, etc. Comedy is an open genre and it targets a large number of people.
Horror targets a smaller number of people(such as me). "Horror films deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden worst fears, revulsion and terror of the unknown." This is all make it exciting because this genre goes beyond the audiences expectation. It involves surprises and a negative vibe for a change which will keep memory in peoples head. Bizarrely i would then want to watch another since i enjoy being shocked and thrilled. I think it is a successful genre because it delivers a lot to its target audience in making them unprepared for what they are about to watch.

Dream house 

The main genre of this film is a thriller/drama and the sub-genre it consists of is psychological. This film is known as a suspense thriller about a family that unknowingly moves into a home where grisly murders were committed...only to find themselves the killer's next target (Haunted By the Past,Mental Breakdown). The conventions used within the theme of this film shows us that the target audience are people who enjoy being mind-twisted or mysterious. 
The key signification that conveys the type of target audience, Genre and Sub-genreBy looking at the poster we are able to identify the film's relationship towards its target audience as we can see dark and damp colors are used for the wood. This creates the sense of the past as the audience acknowledge the fact that the wood is old.Through the door knob we are able to see the three main characters who are in the film. The aim of this door knob could possibly be to target its audiences eyes. Below are two little girls who hold hands, this creates a weird and mind twisting atmosphere but then again relates to the father who imagines then to still be there(mental breakdown/haunted by past).
Since it is a thriller, the target audience are more likely to be 16+. Even though its about a man and his family it wouldn't be suitable for all members of the family to watch. Perhaps people who are mature(16+) and will allow the mind twisting to get over them such as younger views would be more likely to enjoy having a fright and are interesting in extraordinary/mind playing thrillers
 Another key signification of this film is the man in the middle (Daniel Craig) is more recognized as an A-list actor who also stared in the film "James Bond". The purpose of putting him there is to attract more viewers. 

Genre/Sub-Genre 
The film 'In Time' has its unique selling point as it is not just only thriller but it consists of two certain themes which are purposely used to create suspense in the film ( Action, Sci-Fi and thriller). The Known plot of the film is ......"In a future where people stop aging at 25, but are engineered to live only one more year, having the means to buy your way out of the situation is a shot at immortal youth. Here, Will Salas finds himself accused of murder and on the run with a hostage - a connection that becomes an important part of the way against the system."


Target Audience
This movie is approved to be 15+ which is suitable. Males would be more likely to be attracted to this film as there is a lot of action and it may be too much for girls. However seeing as there is a female involved the movie considers females to also be related to the film as there is intimacy shown between the two main characters who work together. This would be something that couples may like to watch in the cinema.


The key Significations

From looking at the poster we are able to notice the city behind them in the background and the props used (girl holding the gun). That is usually where all action happens. Also sci-Fi is expressed in the poster on Justin timberlake's forearm we can see the green, glowing digits (indicates time). The two characters make close contact which shows their soft side and affection even though they appear as strong people.

Intertexuality

What is intertexuality? 

Intertextuality is a term to describe the visual referencing between films. Quite literally, films 'borrow' from each other, and we as the audience may recognise certain camera angles, aspects of mise en scene, snippets of sound or methods of editing in some films that we have seen in others. Indeed, it is argued that our understanding of a film is formed by other films that we have seen. 

Analysis of Psycho (1960)
& Stepfather (2009

I think that Stepfather had mainly used the most similar scenes to Psycho. For example both the scenes consists of the victim being attacked brutally by a stranger with a knife and ending up falling back into the shower taking hold of the shower curtain along with them.

Stepfather                                                                                     Pyscho 

 

In both screenshots the characters have a knife in their hand as they are forcefully wanting to stab someone.

 




In these two pictures we can see shower curtains been pulled down harshly with strength, suggesting the character is in pain.

 




The last two screen shots show both the characters, the man and on the other one a woman, sliding down the shower tiles with facial expressions of pain and relief .

After watching similar 'shower scenes' in several clips from different films, I've realised that after realeasing such a horriffic film, Psycho, many directors have used the similar scene and interpreted it into their films.

Favourite Sub Genre (unfinished)

Intertextuality - Majeda

The structure of thriller openings...

Discrete title sequence: (Arlington Road)

A discrete movie opening is one where there are no clear give aways into what the film might be about, there are just a load of images placed on top of each other, there is also quite a lot of editing in the opening to make it harder for the audience to make out any of the images, so they dont really understand what the film is about.

A traditional film opening: (Panic Room)

A traditional film opening is one where it is kept simple, and you give the audience some sense of the idea of what the film will be about, in the Panic Room it started of by having shots of the city, they made it clear that the film is set in new York, we knew that by looking at the cabs and the buildings, Even the credits were really simple, they were just neatly placed on the screen to fit in with the images behind them, the credits actually looked apart of the building that were on screen.

Credits over a blank screen (Dead Calm)

Credits over a blank screen does pretty much what it says on the tin, it is just the credits appearing on screen in a fancy way, there are no images in this type of opening because the whole idea of having a blank screen is that you don't give any storyline away to the audience, normally there will be a backing track to play alongside the credits to set the tone of the film but that will be it.

Stylised editing (Mezrine)

This type of opening involves hundreds of editing shots that would take a lot of time to put together, this opening was just 2 minutes of edited material, we were looking at the same people on the screen but we could see them from different angles, this is good in some ways because it lets the audience not only have a point of view shot of what the person is looking at, but we can also have a close up of there face so we can look at their emotions.

Intertextuality...

Comparing Scary Movie with The ring


Scary movie is known for taking certain scenes from other movies, and making them funny, so that there film can appeal to there audience, which is young teenagers, who like a good comedy film. Scary movie always makes references to other movie s, mainly ones that are really popular at the time and are getting a lot of attention from the fans.

You can see from these two images that scary movie did copy the ring, by having the ring girl in there movie, that copied everything about her from her hair to her clothing, the only difference is that in scary movie that make it quite funny




You can see that there are many similarities in the two screen shots, the actors who play these characters must have spent hours getting there make up to look that realistic, because they want to make the audience feel that what they are seeing on screen is real. if it was not for all the make up that the actors have on their faces, then this would be a very different film, you can see from the shots above that the girls look pretty much the same because they need the audience to know what movie they are making references to, otherwise it would not make sense

Intertextuality...

What is Intertextuality?


Intertextuality is the term used to describe the visual referencing between films, it quite literally means that films borrow from one another, they do this to make us, the audience to recognise certain camera angles or aspects of Mise En Scene, snippets of sound or methods of editing in some films that you have seen in others.

Comparing Stepfather with Phycho

I think that the film Stepfather is the one that is the most similar to, this is because there are a number of scenes in Stepfather that are used in the film Phycho, for example there is the scene where the women stabs the man and he falls back into the shower taking the shower curtain with him, there is then a close up of the man falling down the shower leaving a trail of blood with him.

Stepfather                                                                                                     Phycho

the two images either side show a man in both movies holding a knife and threatening to kill a women who is lying infront of them in the shower.

The screen shots that yo can see here show a man and a women pulling down the shower curtain, this can be used to show pain.



                                                         The two screen grabs that you can see here show i man and a women clearly in pain sliding down the shower tiles.





I really like the way the Stepfather references psycho, they have done the film justice because Psycho was the first film for a lot of people where they actually saw a women in the shower without her clothes on, if it was not for this film having such a dramatic effect on the films of our generation, then the chances are we would probably be watching more or less the same sort of films today.

Favourite Subgenre

I really like supernatural films, because every time I watch one now is how much time it must take to do the make up on the actors faces, and also there are loads of props that are used in supernatural films, if there were no props in the films then it would be a very different sort of film, I also like the camera angles that are used to make the film seem really faced paced and dramatic.

Film Genre - Dream House (2011)

Dream House (2011) 

is a drama, mystery and thriller. 

The targeted audience for this could also be young adults. The poster itself you can tell that its going to be a thriller through the image of the backs of the two little girls. Also the door, the door handle could mean that theres a mystery that needs solving, only way to solve it is to open the door. The font seems quite creepy, the letter 'R' isn't lined with the other letters properly, so it could mean that theres something not right in the film.

Genre, Sub genre and audience

In Time (2011) is a thriller, sci-fi and action film. The target audience is probably young adults.The poster shows a familiar face of an music artist 'Justin Timberlake', so could mainly appeal to young women but the genre of the film being sci-fi and action means it should be appealing to men too, so both.

By looking at the layout of the poster I can identify that the main character must be immortal because of the image of the male character, his arm has a digital watch tatooed on. Also by looking at the image i can tell that there is romance between the two characters as well as hatred due to the image of the gun.

GENRES AND SUB-GENRES

During today's lesson we focused on the meaning of genres and also sub genres. We found out that a genre is the way to divide different types of media products and to categorise them into their similar 'family' types. For example, Horror, Comedy, Romance, Action, musical, western, etc. We also discovered that each genre has its own audience which it targets. This is mainly the people who have similar taste or interests in the same thing. In Addition, most genres get distributed in a suitable time and season. For example; a film like "Halloween"(horror) would come in the time of halloween or a film like "Elf" would be in cinemas specially for christmas. The result of this is that the producers and film makers will gain more revenue due to the time of season it comes in(people would be on holiday/ more people would purchase them and more likely to watch them in the cinema).

Genre, Sub Genre and Audience - Majeda

Film Genre, Harry Potter

HARRY POTTER,

The genre for all harry potter films are mainly Adventure, Drama, Fantasy this is because there are a lot of scenes in the film that might not be suitable for young children, it is quite a scary film in itself, and it has quite a lot of violant images that might scare the younger viewers.

The target audience for the film is young adults to adults, we know this simply by looking at the front cover of the dvd, the colours on the front page are all quite dark, from this we can tell that the film we genrally be a bit dark, we know straight away by looking at the colours on the page that this film is not suitable for anyone under the age of 16. 

The key signifier is the way that the words are written on the front cover, we know that the film is not a comedy or anything because if it was the title of the film would be written in bright colours to give the audience an idea about what the genre of the film is, instead the title of the film is written in quite a surreal way to give the audience an impression of the film.

Film Genre, Tower Hiest

TOWER HIEST

Genre is comedy, action, we know that it is a comedy just by looking at the actors, Eddie murphy is known for his roles in some of the best comedy movies, the same goes with ben stiller, they are both hollywood actors who have appeared in loads of comedy/action films

The target audience is mainly teenagers and young adults, this is because i cant imagine the elderly watching a film like this, because all the actors in the film mainly appeal to young people, even by looking at the front cover of the film, just by looking at the colours we know that the film is mainly aimed at young people.

The key signifier is the way that all the writing is presented on the title page, you can see that it is not going to be a serious film because if it was then the writing would be dead straight in the middle of the title page, there will also be quite bland colours, from all this we can work out the genre and the title audiance for the film.

Analysis of House Of Wax - Majeda

Analysis of the original and our own remake of Collateral - Majeda

Title Sequence Analysis - Memento

In our group we've analysed the opening sequence of 'Memento'. By watching the clip we have identified the main conventions to an opening title sequence.

 At the start of the film the audience is presented with the production and distribution companies. Memento uses only one type of font which is Times and are all in capital letters.  

Memento is baisically about a man suffering from short-term memory loss, and by using notes and tattoos he uses it to hunt down the man who he thinks killed his wife.


The distribution and the production compaines are presented at the beginning of the film, along with a list of 'a list characters' names after. There placed in the middle of the screen. The font Times New Roman is mainly used in the title sequence. The film title appears after the production details and the cast listings. The letters of Memento appear on the screen with gaps in between, which shows that the main character in the film has gaps in his memory, that could mean why he takes pictures to remember all the things his done during his day.

Timeline of Memento:

0.05 - NEW MARKET 

0.08 - NEW MARKET PRESENTS 

0.12 - IN ASSOCIATION WITH SUMIT ENTERTAINMENT

0.17 - A TEAM TODD PRODUCTION 

0.21 - A FILM BY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN

0.26 - 0.38 (a list cast) 

0.40 - 0.45 - M E M E N T O (film title)

0.46 - 1.00 - (more casts) 

1.01 - CASTING BY 

1.04 - MUSIC BY 

1.08 - COSTUME DESIGNER 

1.13 - EDITOR

1.17 - PRODUCTION DESIGNER 

1.21 - DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY 

1.25 - CO-PRODUCER

1.29 - CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

1.34 - EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

1.37 - PRODUCED BY

1.43 - SCREENPLAY BY

1.48 - DIRECTED BY

In the tittle, there are gaps in between each letter to show that he has amnesia (memory loss). The conveys the way the tittle itself relates to the meaning of the film and its main character. It looks interesting and is in dark blue font to stand out from the pitch black background. Straight away it shows that there is no joy or happiness but creates a thriller and dark atmosphere.

After watching the film opening of a film called Momento we were given an idea of the conventions identified within a typical film opening for a thriller. This film is about a man who suffers from short term memory loss, takes pictures of the people he murders,uses notes and tattoos to hunt for the man he thinks killed his wife.We were able to use it to influence us when making our one. The sequence it uses is structured for purpose of the film. 

Our tittle sequence time table.

0.05 New Market

0.08 New Market Production

1.49 Directed By.

As a group we did our own research and tittle sequence analysis. We discovered that there were two production companies. however the 'New Market' production company appeared first (twice) and the 'A team todd' production appeared last after the distribution. This could possibly be because the 'New Market' is more acknowledged to viewers (famous) than the 'A team todd' production. This has been sorted in positon of importance.

Timeline of Momento

In todays lesson we were analysing the film Momento by producer christopher nolan, the film is basically about a man who has lost his memory, because of this he takes images of everything he does including killing the people in the film.

In a normal conventional film opening the title of the film is nearly always close to the start of the opening, the types of fonts are nearly always plain and bland because it it  not worth spending the money to get a logo to appear in the film if you cant see it, the timeline in our film was a little different of that of the step father, the main differences were that the title of the film appears in the middle of the film opening, another difference was that the cast in the film appear before and after the title, which was different to the convention film opening.

The way in which the film opening appears on screen should always link to the story of the film, for example in the film that my group analysed "Momento" the letter appear on the screen with gaps in between, this is significant because the main person in the film has gaps in his memory, that is why he takes pictures to remember all the things he does in his day.
Another example of this would be in the film "The Taking of Pelham 123" all the titles in the film come on screen like a train going by, the is relevant because the whole film is about the hijacking of a train.

Our timeline of the film Momento:

0.05 New Market

0.08 New Market Productions

0.12 Summit Entertainment

0.17 Team Todd Production

0.21 Christopher Nolan (Producer)

0.26 Cast

0.40 Title

0.45 Cast

1.01 Casting By

1.05 Music By

1.09 Costume Designer

1.12 Editor

1.16 Production Designer

1.20 Director of Photography

1.25 Co - Producer

1.28 Co - Executive Producers

1.33 Executive Producer

1.38 Produced By

1.43 Screenplay By

1.49 Directed By

Holiday Task - Analysing Insidious (2010)

 Insidious is a horror and thriller film. It's about a normal ordinary famliy, until their son, Dalton who mysteriously falls into a coma one morning and does not wake up at all. Parent's of Dalton, Josh Lambert and Renai both have informed the doctors but are not able to diagnose his problem. Three months later, strange things began to happend in the house and the weirdest thing is that Renai, his mother could feel it. She is sure that the house must be haunted, that she immidiately convinces Josh to move houses. But in the thought of nothing happening in the new house, she ends up seeing ghosts and Josh thinks she's imagining things. However, Josh's mother Lorraine tells him that she had a vision of seeing something in Dalton's room. From there on the audience start to get excited as the family invite ghost hunters into the house to investigate the supernatural phenomenon. The ghost hunters explain that Dalton is a traveller with the ability of leaving his physical body and travel in astral projection. Also there is a demon inside Dalton's body which is causing pain to others, therefore Josh seeks out to find Dalton and bring him back.   

Before watching Insidious I had a quichk look at the trailor and already it freaked me out and actually put me off a bit. The film contains a variety of  props, such as the victorian ghosts. Non-diagetic and diagetic sounds are used to  frighten the audience along with the ghosts shown. Dark lighting and shadows are used along with bright spot lights. The red and black demons of the camerawork builds up pace when they get hold of the demon. 

After watching the whole film it wasn't that frightening but seeing the demons was something new compared to other horror/thriller film as i thought i'd only expect to see ghosts which is something i'm familiar with. 

Idea for theme music./opening of thriller

This particular instrumental would be useful in relation to our thriller theme.There are specific elements used within this piece creating a scary and tense vibe. We are able to notice behind the urban beat (percussion) itself that there are brass instruments which accompany, dynamics go from low to high and the repetition is used to maintain pressure and tension. The name itself gives us a good impression (bad meets evil) of how it can relate to our thriller.

Analysing Final Destination 5

Final Destination is now known as one of the biggest franchises in the world, this is because a huge proportion of the audiences out there today like to watch a good horror/thriller film, the reason that worldwide audiences keep coming back for more is because the team behind the film know exactly what they want and they know how to achieve it.

In Final Destination there is a huge amount of money spent on Mise En Scene, this is one of the reasons why the franchise just keeps going, because it wouldn't be a very good horror film if there was no blood or really dramatic costumes, but above all, the main element of this film is by far the props, without the props there will be nothing to keep the audiences gripped with the franchise.

The sound effects in the films also play a major role in the way that the audiences see the film, because there are so many amazing effects in the film that adding a few sound effects will make the film a million times better, it just makes it an all round better film