Abbie, Danica & My Se7en Commentary

Mine, Abbie & Danica's Match Cut example

Mine & Dann's Thriller Opening Sequence

Catch Me If You Can

From these 9 frames, we can already tell what a basis of this film will be about. An airport. The opening credits are animated, which is strange for a film that is shot in live action. Each frame seems to seep into the next one, using the 'people' or the actors names. The atmosphere expressed throughout these 9 frames are of a type of chase. We can already assume that the main characters will have to chase or find another character using a series of transport. It uses quite bright and bold colours, such as blue and yellow. This could give the audience a feeling of a comedy or a happy film, it doesn't use angry or depressing colours, commonly found in thrillers and horror films, such as red and black.

Se7en Opening Credits Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY
The opening credits of Se7en, an iconic thriller film, begins with a series of clips. We begin to piece together the fact that this is a detective, working. It also uses an eerie background music, fast paced and dramatic. This sets the tense and suspenseful atmosphere as the audience has no clue as to what is going on, or what is going to happen. The font seems to be as chalk on a blackboard, which seem to jitter about, this reinforces the atmosphere as suspenseful. As the opening credits draw to a close, we see a dollar bill, and the word God is cut out. This could mean religious themes are included in the film. The music becomes faster and seemingly louder as the credits finish.

Match On Action

A match on action edit, is the same thing, place, event filmed from different angles. This could be achieved by using different cameras filming it at the same time, or the way we will use it in our film - recreating the scene various times altering the angle and position of the camera. As it is extremely difficult to get the exact same thing twice, we will have to be careful, especially in editing. Examples of match on actions are: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHh12_JHjTg and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laUPi7MPOSQ . We will edit it using Final Cut Pro, something we learned to use today in Media.

Examples of thriller posters.

History Of Thrillers

The earliest thriller, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is thought to be The Lodger (1926), a silent black and white film based upon a Jack the Ripper type character.

However it is also based upon a book written by Marie Belloc Lowndes, the plot line is basically of how a serial killer goes round London killing young, blonde women.

This was followed by Hitchcock’s next thriller, Blackmail (1929), another black and white film. Two versions of this film were released, a silent one, and a non silent one, a “talkie.” It follows the story of Alice, a young woman who kills an artist after he attempts to flirt with her, she has to cover up her murder.

The next notable thriller film M (1931) directed by Fritz Lang, starred Peter Lorre as a child killer. The film's story was based on the life of serial killer Peter Kurten. Already we can see a pattern of most notable thrillers being based or loosely based upon true stories.

Another notable director, George Cukor's psychological thriller Gaslight (1944) featured a scheming husband plotting to make his innocent young wife go insane, in order to acquire her inheritance.

A common theme surrounding Hitchcock’s thrillers, typically involved an innocent victim, thrown into a usually life threatening situation or a wrongful accusation.  Innocent, average people can be seen today in today’s typical thrillers. Such as The Spiral Staircase (1946) directed by Robert Siodmak. A serial murderer terrorizes innocent, disabled women.

Strangers on a Train (1951) marked Hitchcock’s move into Technicolor. Bigger Hollywood stars were cast as well. Two men on a train meet and stage a battle of wits and murders. Other Hitchcock films of the 50’s include: Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief and Vertigo. 1960 saw Alfred Hitchcock’s perhaps most notable thriller film, Psycho. Based on a lone mother, and motel owner who goes insane.

1970’s – 1980’s saw Hitchcock’s first British thriller film Frenzy (1972) given an R rating (18) for it’s vicious and bloody scenes. Like other Hitchcock thrillers, it’s based on a serial killer in London who rapes and kills women. Brian De Palma directed several films, all with common themes of paranoia and guilt. His work includes the 1973 thriller, Sisters which focuses on a pair of murderous Siamese twins, the music for this film was by Hitchcock’s favourite composer and most of Brian’s work is inspired and pays homage to Hitchcock’s work. Another example is Obsession (1976) which was inspired by Vertigo. A man loses his wife and daughter to kidnappers and must save them. The last film from this era of thrillers, stars Nicole Kidman in the 1989 Dead Calm. This thriller introduced the theme of being trapped and must escape from the villain. In this case, Nicole’s character Rae, must escape the villain whilst trapped on a yacht in the ocean. Phillip Noyce’s work would inspire modern day thrillers which introduced this new technique of characters being trapped.

Modern day thrillers seem to have introduced another new common theme, people with mental disorders. A prime example of this is Misery (1990), directed by Rob Reiner, and based on the Stephen King novel, a crazed fan traps an author, not allowing him to leave her house. Preharps the most well known thriller of the 90’s, Silence of the Lambs, directed by Johnathon Demme (1991) it focuses on FBI type detectives hunting down a cannibal killer. Se7en focuses on the hunt for a serial killer who renacts the seven deadly sins. These films have introduced the sub genre Crime Thriller. Directed by David Fincher, it was released in 1995.

Part of my history of thrillers work. This is a timeline taken from http://timerime.com and shows the different thrillers over the past few decades.

Mind Map: Conventions of Thriller

Mood board. A collection of images associated or representing thriller. I used two film posters which are naturally quite dark and mysterious. I also used a knife, which could be considered an icon of the thriller genre. The last image I used, was a yellow eye watching, it could be seen in two ways, in one it could be the victim, scared and in danger, or it could be the threat, waiting to attack.

Monday 19th September

Today we looked more at thriller openings. Danica, Abbie & I looked at "Enemy of the State." It had a pre-credit opening which included ominous music, a tense mood and use of two shot. It created mystery & suspense as nobody was expecting them to kill the man and then drown him. This introduces the film before any establishing shot is made and is to tease the audience as to what the plot line will include and how the characters behave. When it gets to the opening credits, the music becomes dramatic and fast paced. The director used this approach so he could create a lot of suspense and build up. The viewing experience is very tense, nobody really expects a character to be killed off in the first 5 minutes. The plot, like most thrillers, is very dark, with a lot of twists.

Thriller Opening

To get a feel for what makes an opening to a thriller, I watched "Snakes On A Plane." Not the typical thriller. Thrillers usually have classical music and very dark openings, this film was quite the opposite. Set in Hawaii, the titles appear on a clear blue ocean. Island music is playing in the background while holiday goers enjoy the beach. We aren't actually introduced to any of the characters until the first proper scene. The establishing scenes last for a few minutes, exploring the sea and island. The island music is still playing. At the end of the opening, the mood changes as a man rides a motor bike down a long road. At the end of this, the music has stopped and a man is beaten to death. Not the usual thriller opening. I might use this idea for my thriller film.

Evaluation. 15/9/2011

For period 1, we had Mr Barton and we focused solely on the different camera angles and different shots we can get. We learned about Extreme Close Up, Close Up, Mid Shot, Over The Shoulder, Establishing Shot, Two Shot, Full Body Shot. Tracking Shot. We also learned about White Balance, and how to set the focus on cameras. We then split off into groups, in my group was Abbie, Chris & Danica. We had a small scene to shoot, in which Danica & Chris acted, whilst me & Abbie directed/shot. We changed the angles and shots for each little bit. It involved a lot of stopping and starting, which we will edit out next week. For period 2, Mrs Bryant had us create a blog. After a few initial problems involving Google Accounts, we finally made them. For the second part of the lesson, we focused on the opening of thrillers. Our thriller movie, Se7en, had an interesting opening. No dialogue, just with a series of seemingly unconnected scenes. We had to answer questions on voice recordings, something I hate doing, which will be uploaded to this blog later. In my group for this, I was once again with Abbie & Danica but without Chris.