GROUP MEETING

 

When we met originally to discuss our Thriller idea's in our group we chose to develop this idea:

• a small girl in a park on a swing
• a woman watching her
• flashback of woman pushing her daughter on the swing
• woman looking at photo of her daughter (we realise daughter has died)
• woman putting 'wanted poster' through the little girl's letter box
• little girl turns up at womans house and we see that woman is going to kidnapp her.

However, we then realised that this may have been a bad idea to develop. First of all, it is very long and would not fit into a 2 minute sequence. It also does would have told most of the story in the opening sequence and would not leave much to be discovered or developed. The final problem was how we were going to get a little girl to be in the sequence.

After thinking a lot, we decided on a completely different idea. This idea was based around the myths that you hear about which explain how people wake up in baths full of ice with organs missing and writing on the wall saying 'Call 999' as people have drugged them, cut out their organs and gone to sell them in another country. This is what we came to:

• There is an extreme close-up of a girls eyes. We see them open as she gasps.
• There is then a reverse zoom so we can see that she is in her underwear in a bath full of ice; she has a shocked/confused expression.
• There is then an eyeline match of her looking in the mirror. We see that there is something written on the mirror. The rest of the mirror goes out of focus and allows us to read what is written in red lipstick: 'call 0800......( a phone number)'
• The girl looks around and sees a phone lying next to her. She slowly types in the number and we see a close-up of the phone with the diegetic noises of her typing in the numbers.
• she puts the phone to her ear, but we don't hear what the person is saying on the other line. She has an extremely shocked expression and slowly lets go of the phone in fear.
• There is then a flashback. We see her dancing in the club holding a drink, she moves over to dance with a guy and when she's not looking there is a close up of him spiking her drink. We then see him dragging her into his car or something similar to this to show that she is the victim and he is the bad guy.
• It then cuts back to reality and she is in the bath. We are looking at her through the mirror. She looks down looks back up at herself in the mirror and screams.
• The screen goes black and the title comes up whilst she is still screaming.

HORROR/THRILLER IDEAS.

1. Guy alone in a room in a mental asylem. Show's his unstableness, and when people come to find him he has dissapeared.

2. Someone with a handheld camera which is set in night vision mode. Shows us the horrible things they see and then camera switches offf.

3. Freaky killer child who has killed all her own family; there would be a process in which we would figure this out.

4. A man who obsesses over young girls and we see him plotting his next attack.

My main chosen idea is idea 4. It would start off with a close-up of a wall in an empty room and on the wall would be pictures of little girls and articles of girls who have gone missing along with pictures of little girl's bedroom's and other items to do with youg girls. There would be a reverse zoom and then diegetic sounds of a door opening and footsteps of a guy walking into the room. You will see his fingers running along the pictures. As he looks at his 'work' of pictures and runs his fingers against them, there will be non-diegetic eerie music that builds tension. However, throughout the whole of the clip you wont see his face This is to create suspense and keep people hanging. There will then be quick cuts of the guy sitting at a desk looking at information about a new little girl and planning his attack. There will be cuts of him packing certain items into a bag and things like that. As he packs his bag there will be diegetic sounds of him singing a nursery rhyme in a scary way. Right before the clip ends there will be a shot of something which gives away what he is doing with these little girls, but i am still undecided on what this will be.

Horror Movie Conventions - SCREAM

themes & mood.

- It is set at night.

- She plays with knives

- She's alone

- There is a swing in the garden

- The popcorn is burning

- She locks the doors to show that danger is impending

- The lights are off

- There is a big empty house which shows there is more places for the killer to hide

- The telephone

- The house is in the middle of nowhere thus making it scarier as help is further away

characters.

- She conforms to the stereotype of stupid blonde bimbo's that always get killed at the beginning of thriller's.

- She is inoccent & stupid.

music & sounds.

(diegetic)

- There are dogs barking

- Popcorn crackling

- Locking of doors

- Ringing of phone

- Creaking swing

- Breeze

 ALL THESE CREATE FEAR & TENSION

(non-diegetic)

- strings

ADDED TO REINFORCE FEAR AND TELL US WHEN TO BE SCARED

shot choices.

- Tracking shots

- Counted shot

- Pan

- Close up zoom in when he says 'let me know who i'm looking at'

Narrative and character in a thriller.

Every thriller film has 5 parts to the narrative that come in an order. These are (in this order):

Equilibrium -> disruption -> complication -> resolution -> new equilibrium

For example, in the movie Jaw's, these would be:

Equilibrium = everyone is happy on a beach, preparing for the 4th of july festival.

Disruption = A dead body is found which has been eaten by a shark.

Complication = do they close the beach? keep it open? is it a shark? are there more deaths to come? Another person dies.

Resolution = They decide to catch and kill the shark - so keep the beach open.

New equilibrium = shark is killed and shark hunter dies - everything goes back to normal, but relationships have changed so it is a NEW equilibrium.

Every film usually has 5 common characters too:

• The hero - the one on the quest and the one who saves the day
• The villain - the evil one who causes the disruption.
• The helper - The person who helps the hero on the quest ( the sidekick)
• The victim - The one at the mercy of the villain.
• The donor - Someone who has something special which will help the hero.  

An example of this is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:

The hero: Harry Potter

The villain: Voldemort

The helper(s): Hermione & Ron

The victim: Serious Black

The donor: Dumbledor

Conventions of horror/thriller's.

Today in lesson we wrote down all the things we expect to see in horror's and thriller's. This is what I came up with:

1. Blood
2. Death
3. Hero
4. Villain
5. Protagonist
6. Screaming
7. Ghosts
8. Poltergeists
9. Knives
10. Weapons
11. Darkness
12. Water
13. Contrapuntal sounds
14. Eerie music
15. Violence
16. Freaky children
17. Animals (spiders, snakes)
18. Echoes
19. Creaking of doors
20. Good-looking person
21. Phones
22. Videos
23. Masks
24. TV's
25. Blinding headlights
26. Radio's
27. Kidnapping
28. Basements
29. Hanging rope
30. Doors
31. Fog
32. Floods
33. Floorboards
34. Attics
35. Mirror's
36. Bathrooms
37. Sinks
38. Flashbacks
39. Shower's
40. Bath's
41. Kitchen's (Knives)
42. Alleys
43. Glass
44. Forests
45. Door locks
46. Trees
47. Hiding
48. Dark box
49. Isolation
50. Dolls
51. Clowns
52. Hooks
53. Demons
54. Zombies
55. Gore
56. Vampires
57. Witches
58. Possession
59. Abandoned house's
60. Murder
61. Dodgy locations
62. Paranoia
63. Owls
64. Sacrifice
65. Chlostrophobia
66. Traps
67. Guns
68. Dogs
69. Graveyards
70. Coffins
71. Churches
72. Flashing lights
73. Lamps/Candles
74. Dark hair
75. Pale skin
76. Numbers
77. Red -> danger/death
78. SILENCE
79. Closets
80. Storms
81. Raining -> bad weather
82. Full moon
83. Car accidents
84. Derelict
85. Power cuts

Denotation & connotation of thriller images.

In todays lesson, we were given some still pictures from different thriller films. We then had to decide what the denotations and connotations of each image were. This is what I decided:

SCREAM

DENOTATION: A person in a scary mask behind a window, dressed in black. A blonde woman looking through the window. Both are on phones and it looks as if one of them is holding a knife.

CONNOTATION: The fact that scream is dressed in black along with the darkness outside shows the fear. The knife symbolises death. The woman is blonde which conforms to the stereotype in thrillers where the typical stupid girl at the beginning of the movie always gets killed.

PSYCHO

DENOTATION: Naked girl in a shower who is soaking wet. She has a shocked facial expression.
CONNOTATION: She has seen something which scares her. Shower's can be dangerous. Her face shows impending danger and her vulnerability.

  GOTHIKA

DENOTATION: Girl staring at blood on wall which reads 'Not One'. She has dark hair. We can't see her face.
CONNOTATION: The writing could say 'Not Alone', showing that someone is there and there is danger. The blood signifies death. Her scared body position shows something is going to happen. It is very mysterious but we know there is an importance in the writing.

FRIDAY 13TH

DENOTATION: blonde woman in black coat looking at another person in black coat across empty carpark. Something red in bottom corner.

CONNOTATION: Red signifies danger, and the black coats suggest something scary. The deserted car park shows noone can help.

THE EXORCIST

DENOTATION: There is a very pale ginger girl. Her eyes look dead and she has cuts all over her face. She is wearing an innoccent looking dress but there is blood all over it. She has horrible teeth. There is a black background.
CONNOTATION: Her face suggests she's dead/ possessed. She is smiling yet she's clearly hurt so this show's she dangerous. Her dress shows she was once an inoccent girl.

THE RING

DENOTATION: A girl sat on a chair in a room with tiles on the wall. Everything is white apart from her long black hair and black shoes. There is some kind of wire/plug at her feet.
CONNOTATION: The white suggests innocence/ purity which juxtaposes against her hair, making her look evil. Her concentrated face suggests she's ill.

OMEN

DENOTATION: there is a small boy in a suit in a graveyard with his hands on his hips. The suit is black and the gravestones are white.
CONNOTATION: His stance gives him confidence and power. The contrast of black and white show's him to be evil which juxtaposes against the white gravestones which signify purity.

IT

DENOTATION: There is a clown with fangs, and its mouth is open with its pointy teeth showing. It has green eyes and red hair. There is a black background.
CONNOTATION: The dominant colours of red and black signify darkness, death and danger. Its mouth is open as if it's ready to bite something.

HALLOWEEN

DENOTATION: There is a low angle shot looking up at a man with a mask who's holding a knife. He is on a staircase/ stair balcony.

CONNOTATION: The low angle shot gives him superiority showing his control and power.The knife show's danger and gives us the idea that he is in somebody elses house. The stair balcony acts as a barrier against him showing he is dangerous.

H20

DENOTATION: There  man with a white face looking through a porthole at a women who is terrified. There is a dark blue background.
CONNOTATION: The blue baground and porthole suggests water and that they are on a boat. His skin compared to hers gives us the idea that he is dead.



Editing of preliminary task.

We had done the filming part of the preliminary task which I talked about in my previous post, so now we started with the editing.

We started off by saving all our files into a 'rush bin' which meant they would still be there incase something went wrong. We decided which shots were no good, and which ones we were going to need. The useful ones were saved in the 'log bin' and from there were dragged into the editing programme.

There were two different screens on the editing programme, one used to watch the original clips and the other to see the result of what had been edited together.

Here is a link on how to use the programme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK8TbsAAtfY

We decided which shots and angles should go where and why and made sure the whole group agreed on it. We also added in a bit at the beginning and the end of our clip which was not originally in the script but followed the story. We were a bit short for time, but when we were asked to show the clip at the end of the lesson I think we were all satisfied with what we had managed to do.