Friday the 27th

On Friday the 27th of February we have decided to go to our location and start organising the first location, then filming the second shot.

Backstory which motivates what happens in our film

The main characters mother saw thirteen different psychiatrists with mental health problems, they were all unable to help her because the illness was so severe. This led her to commit suicide, the main character has never got over this and seeks revenge on all thirteen psychiatrists. Prior to the start of the film he has killed off the first twelve psychiatrists and now he is after the thirteenth.  

Feedback 23 February 09

You are getting quite a lot covered but it seems disjointed.  Why bother to post so much analysis of Sin City unless you are going to derive inspiration from it?  How might its concerns and styling be developed in your work?  Remember to use the terminology you learned in Miss Mapp's lessons as you describe your own film-making: angle, shot, movement all have specialist vocabulary.  You also need to consider timing: the storyboard you filmed today really should have been uploaded by the end of the double lesson.

Thriller representations in Usual suspect and Silence of the lambs

In silence of the lambs the representaions are experience and gender. Through the opening scene we can see how women are percieved to be less experience. This is shown as the man she talks to in the woods is giving her orders. Then we she goes into the building she is being told to wait by the men in suits standing by the desk. This is showing the mans domenance over the women. Men are also shown to me more powerful than women. When she gets into the elavator you can see how big the men are compard to the women, she looks small and insegnificant while the men look big and powerful.

In usual suspect the representations are masculinity and power. We first see man sitting in the chair is shaking and in old cloths, then we see the wealthy man who is dressed in smart cloths. We know he is wealthy as we see the rings on his fingers and the watch. These are the clues as we can only see his hands and not his face. This man is calm and sitting up straigh while the other man is shaking in his seat. This shows that this man is scared of the other man and fears him showing the man in the dark jackets power over the other man.

Inside the head of our killer

While working on our thriller we discoverd that we need to find out why this person is killing and if there will be a connection between the people who are being killed. We Have been working on whether this killer is going to have mental disorders like OCD where everything is perfectly straight and the people are all killed in the same way. e.g. All the victims might have their hands tied behind their back.

Then we though that our killer should be a little deeper than that. So we have chosen that the killer is only killing one kind of person. This type of person is a phychiatrist, and the reason this 25 year old man is killing them is because when he was little his mother had a mental disorder and the phychiatrists either did not want to or couldn't help his mother. This lead her to kill herself which the man saw when he was little and this traumatic event has scared the boy and even twisted his mind a little so he know want revenge on these 13 phychiatrists.

Sin City - Mise en scene

In the opening sequence of Sin City, I notice that the movements of the characters is minimal. There is hardly any movement of the face in or the upper body in the conversation between the woman and the man. there is hardly any movement in the eyes of the characters either. This creates a mood that makes the audience feel a little uneasy.

The movement of the camera and camera angles is also limited. There is a push in at the line from the woman, 'What do you see in my eyes?'. This shows, as the camera is moving forward, the expressions on the woman's face as he describes what he sees. It shows the audience that she stars to become twitchy and starts to move more whereas before, she was almost completely static. As the push in turns into a medium two-shot, it shows her breathing beginning to get heavier, Ie; her chest moving noticeably more than before.

As the characters kiss, the camera shot turns into a long shot that is in black and white with the view of the city behind them. This gives off the impression of a cartoon strip. This gives another perspective to the audience will open up their minds a little more. It also give emphasis on that it is now raining. The audience may not have seen this before. It also shows emphasis on the wind. This is shown more clearly now than before. You can now see the wind through the movement of her dress, the movement from the front of his trousers and you can also see the wind through the direction of the rain.

As the commentary is going on, and they are kissing, the things that the commentator is saying, is being acted out in the scene. For example, at the line, 'I tell her, I love her', you can see that actors mouth saying, 'I love you' before the flash of the gun going off. and when the commentator mentions the silencer, the charcter shows the gun with the silencer on it.


NOT QUITE FINISHED

Sin city analysis - Camerawork

At the begining of the film we see a women alone on a balcony while a man is approaching, and narrating as he gets closer. Then we see the characters interacting we know this because we see the 180 degree rule between them. Throught their interaction we see close ups on his lighter and cigarrett, this might be a clue that we should be focusing on his hands e.g what he will do next. This is something for us to look out out for and it builds suspense. We see a close up on them holding each other and then kissing, this shows that they like each other. But as they go to kiss again he shoots her with a pistal while they are holding each other. As the audience we want to know what he is doing and why if he is kissing this lady has he shot her, this is the begining of the mystery.


Next we see the credits and there are images fading in and fading out with close ups. The music is slow as the pictures slowly fade but it gets quicker as the pictures become more promanant. Theres close ups of women, men with long coats and people holding guns to other peoples heads. The pictures gets quicker and the music gets quicker which is building tension. The picture we see suggest violence and evil characters which gives you a little clue of what will happen.

Sin City Analysis- Lighting and Sound

The clip starts with a woman walking out onto a balcony, diagetic sound of cars and sirens can be heard.
A voiceover of a man talking can also be heard a few seconds into the clip, it shows what the man in the clip is thinking. It is so the audience can hear him but the woman in the clip can not. The voiceover also acts as a narrater as is describing what the woman is doing.
As the camera turns so the audience can see the womans face and the man walking towards here, a quiet non diagetic ambient trumpit sound is played, this shows suspence and tension.
When the man reaches the woman the voice changes from non diagetic to the character speaking. Its not very noticable as is in the same tone, but this shows it is the same man speaking.
When the man offers the woman a cigerette the sound of the lighter opening is emphasised and is louder than the other sounds that are happening at that time.
The sound stayes the same while the man and woman talk for about a minute, it then goes back to the man speaking as a voice over, he is again describing what he is thinking aswell as the woman.
The non diagetic sound changes to a piono for a few seconds then stops completly. As the man says 'i tell her i love her' in the voiceover his mouth moves in the clip saying 'i love you'. This shows he is describing something that happened in the past, and could be re-telling a story.
As they start kissing there is a gun shot which is emphasised by being loud and there is a ray of light that shoots across the screan.
As the woman falls to the ground in the mans arms, all that can be heard is the voicover of the man and raindrops. The silence in the background adds tension. As the camera zooms out a louder non diagetci sound is played, it sounds as if it is drawing away.

The lighting is low key as is set at night time. There are bright beams of light coming from building windows. As everything is in black and white apart from the womans dress and lips the lighting effects dont look perticulally realistic. Shadows are over emphasised, it also looks as if they have a bright light above them the whole time.

Sin City Analysis-editing

The first point of editing that I notice in Sin city is the emphasis on the woman.I can see this because the scenery around her is black and white, except for her red lipstick and red dress. The colour red is a representation of confidence and evil, so this could be a possible warning of what is to come.
In the first minute of the film there are 5 cuts,after all 5 cuts the woman is seen. This shows me that she will be a prominant character within the film. just after the first minute we see the woman smoking a cigerrete that was given to her by the man she is talking to. Even though the cigerrete is lit when we see an over the shoulder shot from behind the man of her smoking it it does not glow,this could be so that the audience does not get distracted by anything and are always focusing on her,we can also see that the lighter flame is also in black and white.
As i said before everything we see is black and white except the womans dress and her lips,this is emphasised by the cigerrete and the flame and also by the gun that the man pulls out.
When the titles begin these are also in black and white,the words are coloured red.
When the titles end the film is still in black and white.
to summerise the film is a black and white film but the colour red is the only colour that we see. This colour is only seen with the woman. This is to possibly emphasise a later role she may play that will envolve evil and death.

Today we have decided that we are going to watch the beginning of the film Sin City.

 We are going to break it up into section for analysis:

• camerawork-Colin
• Lighting and sound-Jasmine
• Mise en Scene-Charlie
• Editing- Adam

Each person will analyse the beginning and then we will put our notes together and update the blog.  

Questonaire results

we have put all of our results together and this is what we have found:

Only 2 out of 20 people we asked don't like thrillers.

We asked people what their favourite thriller film was, these are the one that are most common:

• Da vinci Code 
  
• Sin city
  
• sixth sense
  
• The mummy
  

We then asked, what makes you want to see a thriller?

• Excitment
• suspense
• The thrill
• The plot
• Action
• Death
• Mystery

We then asked what you expect to see in the film?

• Blood
• Death
• Car chases
• Gun fights
• Storylines-suspence
• Explosions

Wed 4 Feb: Mz interviewing so unsupervised lesson

ie not a cancelled lesson!

You need to start storyboarding your ideas.  The blank proformas are in the cupboard in E3; ask Ms Mapp to unlock it for you AND THEN RE-LOCK AT THE END in order to safeguard the kit.

Consider how you are going to include detail and variety in your shots so that the audience stays interested even in very simple scenes.  How are you going to establish location or context at the start?  What about a title?  How are you going to integrate the credits?

You have plenty to do so make good use of the time.

Feedback 3 Feb

Good to see some individual uploads here - a definite improvement.

As a whole, you need to be aware that some other groups have posted 39 times, rather than 9 times, however!

When you post some research or analysis, include in the title the specific area you were asked to focus on.  

Silence of the Lambs Analysis:2/2/2009

The opening shot of Silence of the lambs is a shot of a lake through bare tree's. This suggests that the film is set in late autumn/winter. This shot lasts for 10 seconds, during this time we see the names of two cast members in military style font. At the end of the 10 seconds the camera starts to pan to the left and tilt down,as this happens we are shown more credits,still in the military style font.
As the camera stops moving we see a woman running towards the camera from a distance,the camera is watching at what looks like the top of a hill. As she climbs up the hill towards the camera we see that she is not running from someone but infact doing a training exercise, as she is climbing the hill we can hear her breathing. When she reaches the camera at the top of the hill we can see writing on the left hand side of her jumper, it turns out that it says "FBI Academy",we cant see this at first. After about 3 seconds she starts to run again and the camera starts to follow her. As this happens we continue to see credits appear in the military style font. The camera changes speed,going from fast to slow,this means that sometimes the women appears further away from the camera and at times close up to it. If you didnt see the writing on her jumper you still suspect that she is running away from something due to all the different camera angles, from the side,back and front. Throughout the sequence you can faintly hear the womans breething but,more prominatly eary music that helps to lead the audience into thinking thats she is running away from something. At about 2 minutes and 15 seconds into the sequence do we finally have solid belief that she is on a training exercise. This is because we see a cargo net and see her climb over it, after this we the camera stays still and she runs past it and starts to go away from it. At this point we hear someone shouting what sounds like " darling", a few seconds after we hear this a man wearing a bright yellow tabard and a baseball cap appears in the shot and calls the woman by her second name,tells her a message and she thanks him,as she jogs towards the camera he turns in a manner of following her. She then runs past the camera and we see a medium shot of the man,on the front of his baseball cap it says FBI.
During this sequence there are lots of quick cuts. This is popular in thriller films because it creates tension.From the point of view of the audience the short cuts,tied in with the showing of credits, helps to break up the film slightly and to also create a very feeling of tension.
When we believe that the woman is running from something we think that she is weak and vunerable,but once we realise that she is part of the FBI and on a training exercise we see her as strong and independent.
From the woman being given her message we see her running back through the words and exiting onto short grass. As she leaves the trees we can hear gunshots and she is passed by a group of men in black jump suits jogging into the woods. From here the scene changes from a country setting into a modern office building. The credits and ery music are still continued here.
In the building everyone is wearing cream coloured trousers and blue t-shirts,or red jump suits,compared to the woman who is wearing a grey jogging suit. This makes her stand out as one of the few woman in the building that we see, this is as an active role, i.e an agent and not a secretary, this emphasis helps to reinforce the feeling that she is strong and independant.