Thrillers we looked at in class

We looked at a few thrillers in class such as Muholland Drive, Panic Room and Bourne Identity, it really helped in seeing what kind of thrillers we might do for our film.

Panic Room Sequence & Dolly shot

Mulholland drive

The Bourne Identity fight scene

BBFC classification The '15' category

The majority of thrillers are have an age rating of '15' which is who are target audience will be. My groups film will appeal to young adults aswell as older adults and below are a few requirements of a 15 rated movie. The following information is taken from the bbfc (British board of film classification).

What does the ‘15’ symbol mean?

 This means no-one under 15 is allowed to see a ‘15’ film at the cinema or buy/rent a ‘15’ rated DVD or video game. Parents are warned that ‘15’ rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age.

Is a ‘15’ certificate on a video game the same as a ‘15’ for a film or DVD?

Yes, if a video game is rated ‘15’ it is not suitable for players who are under 15. Parents should not assume that because something is a game it is unlikely to contain the same sort of material as a ‘15’ rated film or DVD. If the BBFC has rated a game ‘15’ it is because it does contain the same sort of material as a ‘15’ rated film or DVD.
The ‘15’ rating has nothing to do with the difficulty of a game or the amount of skill required to play it.

What sort of issues might I find in a ‘15’ film, DVD or video game?

‘15’ works are stronger than '12' or ‘12A’ rated works and could include any of the following:
• strong violence
• frequent strong language (eg 'f***').
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking

Most of the issues which are presented above will not appear in my groups opening scene.

Preliminary + Evaluation of the process

Heres the final cut of the preliminary task which i edited myself:

From completing the preliminary task, it has given us a insight into what editing our final film will be like, but only harder. I've learnt how to add transitions ect. and when filming it, it taught me how to use match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule to show continutity throughout the film.

Issues
where we was filming was in the corridor of our Sixth form block where it's being frequently used all the time. People kept on walking in and out when we tried to film and i started to get frustrated so we came to a conclusion to have two of the students block both entrance doors while we film. it wasn't going to take long but becasue of the constant disruptions it lingered on.

Equipment

All we needed was a phone camera to shoot this because we neverhad the proper ones for the main task as it wasn't needed. We used Richard's (group member) Blackberry smartphone camera to film. Me and Richard alternated filming because i kept messing up one of the shots which was another reason why the filming took long but we fixed that problem.

Actors

Richard & Deon (group members).

Location

Sixth form block corridor

What went well

The continuity task turned out how we expected it to and all we had to do now was edit it and add transitions where needed. The equipment worked fine, communication was excellent, and we succeded in showing match on action, shot/reverse shot and 180 degree rule.

Would be better if

would have been better if we used an actual room where there were chairs so Deon wouldn't have had to sit on the floor, but all the possible rooms were occuoied and we didn't want and background noise conflicting with the dialogue.

Preliminary task: Storyboard

We actually drew up the storyboard after we shot the task which just shows how unorganised we were but although the task turned out great it dosen't mean we can get away with doing this again because this was a simple task but the main task will need more thought through planning.

Preliminary task part 2 before editing

 This is preliminary task before editing.



Audience Research + Response



When doing our audience research on the type of thrillers people like, we used a questionnaire to obtain our results. We asked questions such as:

Here are the responses collected:
 


 

 
  

  
 
 
 


Action seems to be most popular genre although i'm a little suprised that Psychological thrillers not a favourite. We've taken into account all the responses and narrative theories and hopefully come up with asuccesful thriller opening!

Preliminary Task

All the groups were asked to do a preliminary task which was to film a character opening a door, coming into a room, sitting down opposite another character & exchanging a few lines of dialogue. We produced a stroyboard to go with it aswell.

We had to show Match on action ( filming from different angles but putting them together to show continuity), 180 Degree Rule ( making sure you shoot from the same side, so that 1 person is always on the left and the other is always on the right) and Shot reverse shot ( close up of one person saying a line & then the other persons reaction).

Here is what my group did:

180 degree rule... 

Close up of a shot reverse shot...

...high angle shot of a shot reverse shot part...

...180 degree rule 

As shown above, there is match on action throughout showing continuity of the clips.

Audience theory

Audience Theory

The four ways of categorising audiences to specific films are by 1. income bracket/ status 2. Young & Rubicam 3. Values. Attitudes & Lifestyle (VAL) and 4. Life Matrix. The traditional way of categorising audiences is by class, gender, location and age.

Traditional audience categorising:

• Class: C-E
• Gender: Male or female 
• Location: Global, Europe, London
• Age: Tweens, young adults, older adults, 

Income bracket/ status: one way to classify audiences is by class, which is normally judged on the kind of job the main wage-earner of the householder has.

A Upper middle class: Top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professionals

B Middle class: Middle management, teachers, many 'creatives' e.g. graphic designers etc..

C1 Lower middle class: Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff etc..

C2 Skilled working class: Skilled workers, tradespersons (white collar)

D Working class: Semi- skilled and unskilled manual workers (blue collar)

E People at lowest level of income: Unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers

Young and Rubicam's Four Consumers: as the concept of class became less fashionable, advertisers started thinking about audiences in different ways. one of the best-known was devised by the advertising agency Young & Rubicam:

Mainstreamers: Make up 40% of population. they like security, and belonging to a group

Aspirers: Want status and the esteem of others. Like status symbols, designer labels etc.. Live off credit and cash

Succeeders: People who have already got status and control

Reformers: Define themselves by their self-esteem and self- fulfilment

Values Attitudes and Lifestyles: this approach is similar to Young and Rubicam's but offers a more sophisticated range of descriptors for audiences.

Actualisers: successful, sophisticated, take charge people with high self-esteem

Fulfilleds: Thinkers are motivated by ideals. mature, satisfied, comfortable, and reflective people who value order, knowledge and responsibility

Achievers: Motivated by the desire for achievement. achievers have goal-oriented lifestyles and a deep commitment to career and family.

Experiencers: motivated by self-expression.

Believers: Like thinkers motivated by ideals.

Strivers: trendy and fun loving. motivated by achievement and are concerned about the opinions and approval of others.

Makers: motivated by self-expression. 

Survivors: Live narrowly focused lives.

Life Matrix: one of the latest approaches to audience targeting has grown out of the field market research. Life Matrix tool launched by MRI and RoperASW, defines 10 categories, centred around both Values, attitudes and beliefs and more fundamental demographic audience categories.

1. Tribe wired: Digital, free-spirited, creative young singles
2. Fun/ Atcis: Aspirational, fun seeking, active young people
3. Dynamic Duos: Hard-driving, high-involvement couples
4. Priority Parents: Family values activities, media strongly dominate
5. Home soldiers: Home-centric, family oriented, materially ambitious
6. Renaissance women: Active, caring, affluent, influential mums
7. Rugged Traditionalists: Traditional male values, love of  outdoors
8. Struggling Singles: High aspirations, low economic status
9. Settled elders: Devout, older, sedentary lifestyles
10. Free birds: Vital, active, altruistic seniors

Narrative theory

We looked at a variety of narrative theory's and how we could probably use them in out coursework. here are the four we studied:


Tzvetan Todorov - Bulgarian theorist reduced the concept of narrative to a simple recurring formula

Equilibrium----Disequilibrium----New Equilibrium

A narrative starts with a state of equilibrium or harmony for instance a peaceful community getting on with and enjoying life. A firm sense of social order is established. Into this world of stability comes a force of disequilibrium or disruption, an evil outsider intent on destroying the sense of well being. By so mechanism such as a one gunfighter, the force of evil is overcome and order and harmony in the form of a new equilibrium are restored


Vladmir Propp - Russian structuralist studied fairy tales and established a number of character types and events associated with them


He called these events 'functions' and suggested their number was limited to 31. his work has been related to film and media studies, and it is possible to use his theory to fit the character types in a range of texts, especially feature films.


Typical Functions:

• The Hero
• The villain
• The donor ( offers gift with magical properties)
• The dispatcher (sends hero on mission)
• The helper (aids hero)
• The princess ( hero's reward)

Claude Levi-Strauss- social anthropologist, studied myths of tribal cultures and examined how stories unconsciously reflect the values, beliefs & myths of a culture.


These are usually expressed in the form of binary oppositions ( conflict between two qualities or terms e.g. night/day, good/bad, light/dark)


Roland Barthes- French semiologist. suggested that narrative works with five different codes which activate the reader to make sense of it. also used the terms denotation & connotation to analyse images.


Barthes codes 

• Action- a narrative device 
• Semic- ( denotation) 
• Enigma - teases the audience by presenting a puzzle or riddle 
• Symbolic - ( connotation) 
• Cultural - audience can recognise as being part of the Mafia culture

The codes & conventions of a thriller

Film Genre is defined by its codes and conventions & these must be present to make a film a genre film but should involve some aspect of innovation, subversion &/or inflection ( otherwise it becomes a formula film).  Generic conventions can be to do with sound, editing and mise-en-scene. Particulary in thrillers they will include things such as:

• Eerie/tense music, silence, exaggerated sounds
• fast paced cuts, obtrusive editing, jump cuts
• low key lighting, strong directional lighting or chiaroscuro

to fulfill its main elements (suspense, tension and excitement).

What is a thriller?

A thriller provides a literary feast e.g.  

• legal thriller 
• spy thriller  
• police thriller  
• action-adventure thriller 
• historical thriller 
• medieval thriller 
• political thriller 
• religious thriller 
• high-tech thriller 
• military thriller

MAIN ELEMNTS is to create suspense, tension & excitement.  They also include many Sub genres like mystery, crime, psyhcological, political & paranoid with an atmosphere of menace, violence, crime & murder. All this is to make it seem to the audience that society is dark corrupt and dangerous...



Thriller Characters

•  criminals, stalkers, Assassins, psychotic individuals

Thriller Methods  

• Crime - ransoms, cativities, revenge 
• Mystery - investigations, 'whodunit technique' 
• Psychological- mind games, psychological themes, stalking confinement

Thriller Techniques 

• Use of tracking POV 
• ECUs/CUs Reveals ( track in/zoom in ) 
• Dramatic angles 
• Eerie-tense music 
• Off screen sound 
• Low key lighting 
• Chiaroscuro 
• Strong directional lighting 
• Over exposed or colour manipulation 
• Fast paced editing (especially for chase scenes) 
• Jump cuts 
• Parallel editing 
• Obtrusive editing 
• Silence 
• Exaggerated sound 
• Disorientation of time/space