Analysis of Preliminary Task

Once we had storyboarded our preliminary task, we decided that we would find our actors/actresses and start filming. We filmed and edited our film in one day, this was because our film was only about a minute long.

During the preliminary task we tried out the camera equipment and the Macs. This was handy because we got to understand abit better how the editing software, iMovie, worked.

These are what I used in my preliminary task, to make it look better:

• We used the 180 degree rule well, we stayed on the right-handed side of the actresses. If we changed sides, this would have made the film slightly confusing for the audience to watch. We used this in our thriller task but we did swap sides a couple of times to disorientate the audience.
• We added some non digetic sound effects to our thriller to make it sound a bit scarier. We used looming sounds, this made the film slightly more professional. Once we heard what it sounded like, we decided we would use sound effects in our main thriller film.
• We used transitions and fades to make the film run more smoothly.
• When we were using the camera's I found that the filming was slightly shakey, this could be changed and made steady if I was to have used a tri-pod. We used this idea in our main thriller film, although some of the scenes we used handheld shots to show the characters emotions. It was much easier to pan with a tri-pod and we always got the same height and angle if we had to retake a shot.
• We didn't really think about the mise-en-scene for our preliminary. We just picked any available room, as we had to film it in a school. We didn't think about the lighting for the situation we used. When we filmed our thriller film, we did take all of these issues into consideration, to make it the best it could possibly be.

'Black' Storyboard

We drew a storyboard for our thriller film, 'Black'. We included details on the shot type, timing, what goes on in the frame and transition. Here it is:

Click to enlarge!

Research on Font Styles

We have research fonts on the internet, and decided that we wanted a font which is simple, but effective. Some fonts that we have found are too over the top and do not look right for a thriller film.

We found a font which looks really good and goes with the background colour of black. The colour of the font is white which contrasts the name of the film, which is 'Black'. We found a font that we really like, it was called 'Archive Blackcap'.

It looked like this:

Preliminary Task - Planning and Storyboard

We planned our preliminary task using a storyboard.
We were told that we had to adapt the idea of a character going through a door and walking across a room and then sitting down, before exchanging lines of speech with the second character.

We decided to set our preliminary task in a school, a science classroom. This made it easier to film, because it was easily accessable. We wanted to make it more interesting that a normal conversation so decided to have a victim and a bully. This makes the plot more dramatic.

Our idea was:

1. Fades in from black.
2. A bully enters the room and crosses the room.
3. She pulls down a chair from the desk and sits on it next to the second character (the victim)
4. The bully says "Do you have it?"
5. The victim responds by getting some money out of her bag and then exchanging it with the bully.
6. She takes it, stands up and walks towards the door.
7. Before she leaves, she turnes round and says "I want the rest tomorrow."
8. The film then fades out.

Computer Generated Images (CGI)

I have decided to research the technology which is currently used in the film industry today:

• CGI has come much cheaper, realistic and easier to use. This makes it easier for more special effects to be included in films. The budget for our film is considerably lower than major films so the amount of special effects we can use is quite limited.
• Films that contain large fires or explosions have now got more advanced pyrotechnics, these are a lot safer now. This is far too advanced for our thriller film, and it would not be possible to do anyway.
• The quality of the sound and the cameras have become much higher standards now. We only have access to small handheld cameras with built in sound recorders.
• We are using Apple Mac Movie editting software which is semi-professional software. It is good enough for what we want to achieve in our film. We can now include special effects and music in our film.

Film Institutions That Produce Thrillers

Warner Bros:

• Also known as Warner Bros Pictures.
• American producer of film and television entertainment.
• Warner Bros was founded in 1918 by Jewish immigrants from Poland, which makes it the third oldest American movie studio in continuous operation.
• Warner Bros produce television programmes such as; Friends, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and One Tree Hill.
• Warner Bros produces such major films such as; Harry Potter, Oceans 11, 12 and 13 and Batman films.
• Around 1930, Warner Bros introduced their audience a range of Warner Cartoons, for example, Looney Tunes.
• Warner Bros' revenue is $11.7 billion.
• The operating income is $845 billion.

Lions Gate Entertainment:

• Also known as Lionsgate.
• It is a Canadian entertainment company, which is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, USA.
• It was the most successful film and television distribution company in North America.
• Lions Gate Films were initiated in 1995 by Frank Giustra who was an investment banker.
• In 2005 Lions Gate Entertainment said that they had sold their Canadian distribution rights to Maple Pictures who was founded and co-owned by two former Lions Gate executives. They were Brad Pelman and Laurie May.
• Lions Gate Entertainment have produced many films, here are some of them; American Psycho, Open Water, Godsend, Saw, Hostel and Daybreakers.
• Lions Gate Televisions have also produce TV series', here are some of them; The Dead Zone, Five Days To Midnight, Weeds and Nurse Jackie.
• Lions Gate Entertainment's revenue is $1.466 billion.
  
• The operating income is $141.219 million.

Brainstorm of Thriller Names

These are the names that we came up with for our Thriller film. We sorted them into four categories, which were; Mysterious names, short names, ordinary sounding names and Sci-Fi names.

Click to enlarge!

Once we had finished the brainstorm, we chose the name for our thriller.

The sci-fi names are too futuristic for our film, when ours is only a bit science fiction.

We asked potential viewers of our film, and they said that the mysterious names for our film were too stereotypical, and are usual titles of thrillers. We agreed with them because we want our film to be different to others.
Also when we asked the potential viewers, they said that the ordinary names weren't right for the film, because the names were almost "random" and they weren't following along with the story.Most of the viewers liked the idea of a short names for films because they are memorable and catchy, so we decided to go with one of those.

But we decided that 'Frostbite' didn't seem to have anything to do with film and could mistake the film with something else. 'The End' was a not a favourite with the potential viewers so we decide now to use it. It was out of 'Black' and 'Blood', we decided that 'Black' was a much better film title because it is kind of in context with the film we were going to film.

We narrowed the names down to our favourites from each of the catergories and put them on a tally chart. We asked 18 people to tell us which ones they preferred and here is the tally chart which showed our results:Black was the favourite name from the 18 people that we asked. So we will use that for the name of our thriller film.

Target Audience for 'Black'

'Black' is a mixture of science fiction, psychological, horror in one thriller.
We are targeting an audience of a mature age, teenages upwards. It is ideal for both genders, but it may influence more female viewers because the main character is female.

Our thriller is going to be a certificate of 15 because it could be a bit too complicated story line for an audience of a younger age. It isn't violent and doesn't contain strong language which could have pushed it up to being an 18, but this film is more about the psychological aspect.

We considered our audience for our thriller because we asked them what name they would prefer for the title of the thriller.

Our audience would watch this thriller because it is a slow pace, but builds up and gets quite tense.

Sub-Thrillers

There are many types of sub-thrillers. They are thrillers, but have other genres in as well.

An example of some are:

• Spy - James Bond
• Science fiction - The Fifth Element
• Crime - Layer Cake
• Romantic/Comedy - Mr and Mrs Smith
• Animal/Birds/Fish - Jaws
• Psychological - Psycho
• Horror - Seven
• Supernatural - Sixth Sense
• Action - Snatch
• Comedy - Doghouse

Ideas for opening sequence of 'Black' - Part Two

After re-thinking our idea of our thriller film, 'Black' we decided that it would be more of a horror than a thriller. Also some of the filming may have been quite hard to film and the effects would have been difficult.

Here is the new idea for our thriller film:

• A normal young person (15 - 20, depending on actors available) is cutting vegetables downstairs in their kitchen.
  
• At the same time they are listening to the radio and they look at the radio (which is when the FLASHBACK starts, everything from this point turns to black and white.) The radio starts to turn off and make unusual sounds.
  
• The young person tries to sort it out, but for some reason can't.
• There are lots of unusual noises which they can here and then it suddenly goes silent.
• The decide to call someone, the phone rings, but then goes dead.
• The stop and listen and can hear nothing, nothing apart from a faint buzz (or other sound).
• The camera will spin around them to give a sense of them being un-secure.
• Over the shoulder shot, with the camera facing the door, then the character walks towards the door with the camera staying in the same place, then again the character opens the door with the camera in the same place. Music playing while this is happening.
• Camera comes out of the door and faces towards the character who turns around to look for people/movement/anything. NOTHING!
• House is seen with a door open and they walk over into it and the door creaks. Then SILENCE!
• Loud noise comes from another room, (this could be a loud piano sound maybe, minor?)
• Hand held camera and heavy breathing.
• The lights flicker and turn off, and footsteps are heard hurtling towards the character.
• The character runs with a man chasing him, only the legs and feet can be seen.
• Also hand held camera for this section, and creepy music.
• The character heads for a small room and locks themselves in it. (The music stops and SILENCE starts again.)
• They open the door and see nothing, mainly because there is no light, so they walk out. Name of the 1st character on the door.
  
• Some kind of weapon/object strikes them along with a sudden strike of sound. Name of the 2nd character comes up when the 1st character is hit, maybe in place of the weapon.
• Black screen comes up with 'Black' in black font, so it can't be seen, but then has a white outline around it, which will eventually fade to white. Simple text, quick cut.
  

Research on Directors

David Fincher

• His full name is, David Andrew Leo Fincher.
• He was born on the 28th August 1962.
• He is well known for his dark stylish movies, which include; Alien 3, Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
• He has also music videos and commercials.
• He first started to make movies at the age of 8 years old.
• He went to film school and had jobs such as; loading cameras and doing other hands-on work at Korty Films.
• In 1980 he was hired at Industrial Light & Magic, where he tried to promote; Twice Upon A Time, Return of The Jedi and Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom.
• He was brought to attention by producers om Los Angeles.
• He worked with artists such as; Madonna, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Nine Inch Nails and Michael Jackson to direct their music videos.
• He also helped direct commercials for; Nike, Levi's and Apple.

Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan

• He was born on the 6th August 1970.
• He is known as M. Night Shyamalan.
• He usually creates films that include twists and unexpected turns.
• When he went to New York University, he began work on his first film which was Praying The Anger (1992).
• One of his most well known films is called The Sixth Sense, which was released in 2000.
• His most recent film is The Happening which was released in 2008.
• When he was 17 he had made about 45 home movies and was a big fan of Steven Spielberg.
• Sixth Sense, had a $40million bidget and $600million at the box office worldwide.

Ideas for opening sequence of 'Black' - Part One

• (The first section before the flashback is of them at the end of the film)
  
• Someone with a knife, looks like they are going to kill someone, but they are in fact just cutting vegetables.
  
• The director is on the knife.
• Cuts to their face and then to the radio.
• Fades to a flashback (past time) which is in black and white apart from the blood which is in red.
  
• Person in a pool of blood is being dragged, pan from feet up, but not too his head.
• Whistling sound and echoes, maybe some scratching.
• Trails of blood.
• Dissolves to the next day**
• Possible crime scene, with flashing blue and red light.
• Someone standing in a long coat looking like a detective flicking through photos of dead people.
• He sighs and puts it in his pocket.
• A quick cut back to the persons face, which will be in colour (present time)
• Another flashback (past time), to when the person is getting killed.

** Transitions between the flashbacks and present time. Killer looks at the book of victims, and the camera zooms in to the book and out as the detective looking at the book. OR zoom into a close up of the killers eye and zooms out as the detectives eye.

Conventions of Thrillers

• A thriller lies on a plot to create fear and tension.
• It should involve puzzles to make the audience think.
• The hero/heroine is seen in a situation that means they are in danger.
• Narrative (the plot) builds tension for the audience.
• They must have an ordinary location with extraordinary event and behaviour.
• The killer or villain ensnares hero/heroine through a series of intricate moves.
• Thrillers are usually centered around crime, and often horror.
• The hero/heroine is fallible.
• The audience are put in position of voyeurs.
• There is often a mistake of identity.
• Mirrors may be included to make it suspicious, and give a theme of reflections.
• Mazes and labyrinths are often used (real or psychological)
• Women are seen through a male gaze.
• There must be a build up to the action, which creates fear and a doubt over the characters.
• Dark, dull, shadowy atmospheres are ideal.
• Delay in showing the face of the main characters.
• Suspense using a soundtrack that fits well into the film.
• Flashbacks.
• Twists and unexpected things that might happen to create mystery for the audience.
• Realistic settings.
  
• Other types of thrillers can be; spy, science fiction, crime, action, supernatural, horror, psychological, animal, fish, birds and romantic/comedy.

Analysis of Thriller Films (Open Sequence)

Layer Cake

White on black for the title, simple font.

Silence, just voice over of the main character.

Fade from black and white to colour after the explosion at the start.

Background changes whilst the foreground stays the same for when the main character is in a chemist.

The name of the film is in the form of a number plate.

The title appears on a door and disappears when the door opens.

Names of the actors come up on screen and and the font is small and discreet but also noticable.

Flightplan

Calm orchestral music.

The music is eerie which give the audience a sense of fear for what is going to happen.

Slow at the start of the film.

The film starts off with a quick glimpse of a train going past which cuts to a black screen with white simple font.

There is a camera angle of a train going past and the side of the train is right up against the camera. This brings a sense of fear and also is a loud sound.

Some dark scenes and low light.

The establishing shot is on a plane, but the beginning starts at a train station, these are both places which involve transport.

While the woman is at the station, a train comes and she just sits and waits, meanwhile there is a flashback which is shown, and then it cuts back to her at the train station.


The Constant Gardener
The titles are in simple capital letter fonts.

Black background with white fonts.

Footsteps which are the sound over while the titles are on screen.

Some voice over of a man talking after he has got out of a car.

Fades into a two silhouettes of the people, the husband is saying goodbye to his wife, this gives a sense of fear because the audience wonder why the people can't been seen probably.

Also the surrounding environment is dark/dull.

When the woman is walking off, there is a sound of a plane overhead and she fades into white and goes blurry.

Blurred close up on the tire as a car falls on its side.

Low angle shot of the spinning wheel, then a panning shot of a flock of birds flying across the screen.