ContextChoosing ThrillerSimilarities- Decades- Inception- Mise-en-sceneMise-en-scene- Location- Time of Era- Costume & Props- ColouringCinematography- ShotsMusic- Soundtrack- Sound Effects

As I decided to produce a film with genre conventions that revolved around thriller and mystery, I looked towards films that had that same sense of feeling.

Avoiding any set-backs, I thought the best idea was to work alone, alongside with colleagues from in the school premises for acting. This would increase the work efficiently because of no need to rely on anyone who may or may not be organised with their set piece of work in the group. On the other hand, I knew this would mean for more effort as I was tasked to be doing the whole set coursework independently, with occasional help with the media teachers.

Choosing these genre categories allowed me to challenge myself as the whole concept of thriller has branches of varies themes that link into others, such as action, film-noir, comedy, crime, horror and so on.

Whilst researching films with aspects of thriller, I chose to look at 3 different types of thriller films, classic, old and contemporary.

These films helped me to introduce similarities cinematographic bonds into my opening sequence.

Each of the films shown below our the films I researched from the millions to look at.These were selected from amongst the others because of they were/ are well known

within the years they were produced. This intrigued me to find out why these films stood out through others of their years

and are still capable to have directors reflect and copy the themes of cinematography. Furthermore, each film holds a decade with constructs that engage the audience of

that time: • Old – known for the questionable disappearances on a small area train• Contemporary – divulging into dreams that are said to be impossible• Classic – Similar to the first one, accept that the setting is on a inhabited island

The theme of dreams is also dealt with at this part of the sequence has a depth of field shot, looking towards the time. By having a age rating of 15 over, teens and adults,

dealing with the everyday life pattern of school or work tend to have a responsibility of organisation.

The clock brings this idea as a symbol, not only as a sense of urgency due to the sigh from Echo but the stress of being lost in a dream.

Looking particularly at the film that stood at for me, Inception, I wanted to look at the contextual factors that were made, based on the thoughts of breaching dreams. This specific feature contributes to my whole opening sequence.

I prepared this idea by having looked at the abnormal opening.

I wanted to develop this same idea in my draft by having establishing shots in the dark to construct a theme of mysterious nightmare. This, however, is subverted when the subject, being Echo (played by Ijah Harrison), wakes up at a sun-lit coloured room, creating juxtaposition between the two events.

This was part of my own idea as to a thought-provoking to the audience because of the whole lighting in the scene, changing dramatically as well as changing theme of importance.

Furthering my chosen arrangement of mise-en-scene, I direct the audience attention to conventions:-

• Location

• Time of Era

• Costume and Props

• Colouring

These represent the key sub-topics inside are what I saw as one of the most important focuses to get my view across.

By handling these 4 themes, I was hoping to portray a landscape of dreams as well as the mind of those who find life difficulty due to the differences in life they face. Rather than simply introducing this plot, I wanted to consider the interests of those of a student setting as the main target.

All this being said, these sub-topics could have improvements that could have been made for the whole process.

Factors of the films setting ranged from establishing shots that concentrated on the dull colours of streetlights, being white or orange as well as having those of being set in a park, with lighting of the streetlights being in the foreground to decrease focus on lighting but increase the foregrounds appeal, being the child's park area on the left and the free roam park on the right, whilst having the path way down the middle.

Connotations of this shot in particular was to create a sense of childhood memories (this being the left side – park) and the independency of life (which is related to the left hand side of the shot).

I felt this shot was appropriate because the symbolism of the two, being interfered with due to the grew pathway that Echo is seen running in-between. This demonstrates the brains lack of real choice between the two sides and this can relate to an audience that are around ages of 15-19, where going from being seen as a child to an adult is apparent.

However, this whole shot isn't done during the day time, which could conform to the positivity that may come with being an adult, such as being

independent, being rid of school and having gained a career job but is instead, shown at the time of darkness. This blackening lighting subverts all

thoughts of the joy of being an adult but also for being a child. Why? By having the two symbolic parts of landscape to the side and the

protagonist, Echo being set in the centre, ideas for pushing away these thoughts are somewhat pushed to the side, just like it is set in the shot.

I chose a the time if which the film is set in to be around the present day. This is because of the theme I was trying to indicate, by having an audience that aren’t too young to not have a full understanding of what the film expresses as well as not too older to have not reason with the film as much. This meant that teens of this time were to be the centre of attention, following the whole outlook of the film would link to location, making it to be structured around urban an set-up.

All of the time if era meant that setting the while era too far back would conclude in forwarding the age group to of that set decade, which could also bring adjustments to the entire plot.

Props were organised similar to the set-up of one of my chosen star model genres I researched, The Adjustment Bureau. The protagonist of the film, David Norris (played by Matt Damon), goes from being dressed in a black suit, to having the jacket suit off, dressed up in smart-casual wear, creating himself to being a normal, everyday person, based on what is seen as average clothing in a urban city environment of Brooklyn.

This type of location is very similar to the regional identity of where I chose to set my film, East London, England. However, a shirt and trousers is looked at as being for the working class, who tend to be adults. I thought to create an appropriate dressing and instead, moved the clothing be casual, jeans, trainers and a jumper. This conforms to the stereotypical opinion of teen, which the audience can connect with as part of a demographic approach, not only in London but in developed countries.

Looking into the cinematic aspects of my film, Echo, I decided to focus on the 4 main technical aspects within cinematography:

Shots

Movement

Positions

Angles

In the next 3 slides, I will be discussing the camera shots how this individual component helped to define the look of film and the effects

The shot below, on the left is an example of an establishing shot I took. I wanted to have this to refer to the setting of the scenery, being a night time scene. Also, due to only having artificial light as the main light source in the shot, the audience already begin to wonder what might be hidden in the shadows and out of perspective. This connotation links with the asynchronous vocals, heard in the previous shot, shown on the right, being a the full-body, handheld tracking shot, behind the protagonist, Echo. This shot was to the focus on the protagonists body movement, which is running and looking back when his name is called out. The chaotic framing of the camera helps to develop the idea of Echo running from someone, without showing who he is running from, causing questions to rise up, such as ‘who is that talking’. Also, the audience are already introduced to the name or the subject, without any dreary introduction from the subject, himself.On the next two slides, shots such as the one on the right side are referred to.

The numbering in this slide refers to the shots that are numbered on the latter slide. (3 slides afterwards)

1 – This shot reveals a simple look towards a brick wall. At first, there is nothing meaningful towards this shot, however, this goes from a common normality in viewing a wall to a up-beat, adrenaline rush as Echo comes into the frame, from the left hand side.

2 – This shot begins to show the camera tracking Echo as he runs. By having this sudden burst in excitement, the audience want to know “what’s going on”. Thus, the viewers become part of the chase.

The numbering in this slide refers to the shots that are numbered on the latter slide. (3 slides afterwards)

3 – This full body shot shows the protagonist, looking

back, whilst still running away. This shows his anxiety as his name is being called out. Furthermore, the audience also see the background, which shows little due to the limited light coming from the lamp posts. This connotes mystery and uncertainty, similar to how Echo feels at this time.

4 – After looking backwards to see who might be calling him

(expressed in part 3), he continues to run, not taking any

chances on whoever might be there. It also shows the background, not having allot of lighting to shed any detail on who or what might be lurking there.

Another feature is the fact that the protagonist is running in a choatic manner, showing that he doesn’t know where he is or where to go to get away from the person who is calling out his name.

The numbering in this slide refers to the shots that are numbered on the latter slide. (next slide)

5 – The camera continues to track Echo, who takes a left turn. This could resemble

allot of thriller characters in chase scenes, showing them constantly moving and changing direction to lose their chaser. The shot also has dark lighting where Echo seems to be going, meaning that where he decided to go may not be the right chose, and the audience may notice it. The background is also more noticeable, being slightly shifted to the top middle of the frame. This part foreshadows the next seen to come up, the mysterious establishing shot.

The next slide displays the shots in its in order of it appearance , going from shot 1 to shot 5.

1

5

43

2

The soundtrack I decided to input into my opening main theme song of Inception, named as ‘Time’ by Hans Zimmer. The film has references to a thriller genre and the theme demonstrates an ambient feeling, due to the first notes heard on the grand piano having space to ‘ring’, in a sense of filling up the atmospheric tension, alongside with the soft legato string orchestra.

I wanted to have the realist sounding orchestra, instead of creating a soundtrack on a DAW (digital audio workstation) such as Logic, Garageband or Pro tools.

Software instruments that has been altered to fit music genres such as pop and hip-hop would have taken away the tone I wanted to invent. Instead of having composed a full orchestral score, I decided to go for a simple, yet effective approach and use Garageband’s simple music software equipment.

I decided to emphasis the piano notes heard in the Inception theme but with a syncopated, dissonant counter-melody, to build an atmosphere that was discomforting.

Sound effects were recorded through Garageband, off of the iPad. This was because of the easy accessibility to a device that would allow for echo and reverberation effects that would be added to the vocals heard, saying ‘Echo’. This would enhance any ideas of being a dreamlike state, without having to say that it and is only apparent towards when the subject wakes.

This use of airy-like vocals are like a whisper, suggesting a purpose of secrets, the mysterious and without having to get the vocalist to so meaning for a natural sounding voice.

Another effected I decided to have was a vocal Foley. This was made to be like a sudden heartbeat; regarding to the feeling of being uneasy and alert of surroundings.

ContextCamera Use- Canon- Handheld- Memory CardEditting - Final Cut Pro- Garage bandResearch Tools - Youtube

Being able to use a canon camera was a advantage for creating a high quality film. Its picture quality and professional attributes, were great as the canon was a convergence piece of equipment, taking photos and recordings, changing its preference due to the lighting (dusk, in the afternoon, evening or at late night) as well as being able to zoom in without pixelating any object or person, allowing for the similar quality to a professional movie and having an altering option in the depth of concentrated of focus from the camera.

Furthermore, audiences arent paying attention to the recording quality but instead, looking at the the cinematography of the filming, which is what directors want.

The establishing shots were very effective for the genre specicfations of my film due to the canon having the blurring ability installed in it. This meant that some of my shots could be distorted for the essense of secrecy and uncertainty. Blurring some shots back into focus helped to engage the audience as they want concentrate and look towards the scenery, trying to look for any clues or/ and landmarks of where the scenery might be.

I was also able to use a handheld camera. This was beneficial as it was used for shots that required

spontaneous movement, which helped to create a chaotic scene.

The picture quality was standard, meaning that any shots taken were viewed to be similar to those that were taken

by the canon camera and not noticeable to lack picture quality. Therefore, the audience are more interested on

what’s going on during the scene rather than why they cant see anything or why the shots out of focus.

Another positive feature noticed was the lightness and simplicity in the settings, which prevented wasting time with adjusting colour or depth of field to fit the wanted

shot.

One aspect was that a problem, however, was the battery power for the camera. Recording a 2-3 hours did drain the

camera significantly and this was only recognized at a later on, due to the camera alerting with minutes to spare

One more noticed fault was the recording of shots actually being saved. The camera would establish that the scene

would be recording with a red flash that blinked until the stopping of the recording. At times, though, the scenes

wouldn’t be found when looking back at the cameras memory, making it very unreliable at times.

When getting to the editing stages of filming, I chose to use final cut pro, amongst others suchas logic and Garageband. This felt like the right choice for me as the software specifically specialised in the editing process of films whereas the other to are DAW’s (digital audio workstations) , which can be used for editing but are prim primarily focused on composing music. Furthermore, to gain the best result possible, in the end, I needed to use tools that weren’t only sufficient in, cutting and splitting, clips but also adjust the lighting to fit the scene, have credits that expressed the font I wanted, add in fading effects and and so on.

This all took longer than presumed, though, as I had to learn how to use them software so that I could achieve the high standard edited film.

When doing the editing, a backing track from Inception was added, with vocal effects being recorded from my iPad. Music is and has always been a speciality of mine so when it came to finding a soundtrack that was suitable, I had already gathered enough knowledge to have one of my star models as the track, Inceptions main theme, produced by Hans Zimmer, an icon in the producing of distinctive film soundtracks. As a producer, I though about creating my own track for the song, however, this would of meant that allot of time that could of being spent on finalising the film would be going towards a sub-project, that would possibly divert me off of any other format for my film.

In this case, I chose to crate a simple, eerie, atmospheric backing track after nearing the ending of my film. By having chose to do this, it emphasised the feeling I wanted to develop towards the audience and the use of reverberation helped to create the airy-like instrumentation, meaning that the main soundtrack wouldn’t be droned out.

One of the main tools to this film project was having a search engine that provided me with films that referred to the thriller theme. This was a key concept as I wanted to demonstrate the theme from the outset as I only have the opening of the film to do this. This meant looking back towards films such as Inception was an ongoing process, only looking at the first 2-4 minutes of the film so that I could have a template of what I could include for the time I have, being around that time as well.

I also needed opinions on each film I just to base my film around, keeping in mind that the feeling has to be appealing to watch from the start by an audience, otherwise, doing the film would be pointless.

Considering all of this led me to use Youtube, an international video-sharing website, with comments from anyone in the world with internet access. This meant that an who I didn't may or may not know would be able to watch my film. This decreased any biased data as not only friends would be able to comment but also other members unknown to me.