Thriller movies I have watched

Over the course of the holidays I have watched a great number of thriller films. I have decided to pick 2 out of my list of favourites. I am going to write about Salt and Awake.

Salt

I enjoyed this movie throughout. I sat with my dad and watched this movie. We found ourselves guessing whether or not Angelina Jolies character was going to be the good guy or the bad guy from the start. We also found that are decision kept changing all the time. I found the movie very thrilling and exciting. The film is really good, as I found out being a thriller novice. This was also one of the first thriller films I watched and this encouraged me to go on and watch more. The movie is about a CIA agent who goes on the run after being accused of being a Russian spy.

I have added the trailer of the movie so you can see how good this film is for yourselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ40WlshNwU

Awake

Maisy went on a Hayden Christenson spending spree after falling in love with the actor after watching him in the latest star wars movies. She came across him in this psychological thriller. The film is about a man who suffers ‘anaesthetic   awareness’ and finds himself awake and aware but is paralysed during his heart surgery. He is listening to the surgeons and his new wifes plot for this to be his murder. The film is definitely by favourite of all time so far. The film cuts and is non-linear. The film is very thrilling and you find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat from middle to end. The film is defiantly worth watching.

See the trailer to decide for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABiY1SQGeqQ

BBFC Research

    

BBFC stands for the British Board Of Film Classification.

 Suitable for All

  This symbol shows what would be suitable for a small child to be able to watch. Even though its hard to predict what is suitable for a  small child to watch, but U means a child aged 4 or above. U films should be set with positive morals and if any violence, threat or horror is contained in the movie it should be counterbalanced.

   Parental Guidance

This symbol shows what is advisable for general viewing but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children. Children of any age may watch these films without an adult. Films with this labelling should not upset children aged 8 or above. Parents are advised to consider whether the content may upset younger children.

 Suitable For 12 Years Or Older

Films labelled as 12 and older have been labelled using the same criteria’s as before. They are aged 12 and over for the content shown, children under the age of 12 may be upset by the material. The ‘12A’ category is only used on films in cinemas; no one under the age of 12 would be permitted to preview a 12A film, unless they are with an adult. These films are not recommended for children below the age of 12, an adult may take a younger child if they wish, and the judgement is down to them. No one younger than 12 may rent or buy 12 rated films.

Suitable Only For 15 Years And Over

Nobody under the age of 15 may see a 15 rated film in a cinema, they are also not permitted to rent or purchase a film rated 15.

Suitable For Only Adults

Nobody younger than 18 may see an 18 rated film in a cinema, no one under the age of 18 may purchase or rent a film rated as 18.

To Be Shown Only In Specially Licensed cinemas Or Supplied Only In License Sex Shops, And To Adults Of Not Less Than 18 Years.

This category is a legally restricted classification, only used on explicit works containing sex or fetish material involving adults. These films may be shown in specially licensed cinemas and supplied to adults in licensed sex shops. Films rated R18 may not be supplied by mail order.

Film Company Production Research

An American film company – 20^th Century Fox

They are one of the six major American film studios as on 2011. They are located in the Century City area of Los Angeles. The studio is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s news corporation.  The company was founded on May 31^st 1935. This was due to a merger between Fox Film Corporation and founded in 1915 by William Fox, and Twentieth Century Pictures founded 1933 by Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck, Raymond Griffith and William Goetz. Stephen Blairson is the current CEO of the corporation.

Some of 20^th Century Fox’s biggest films include, Avatar, Star Wars, Ice Age, Die Hard, Planet of the Apes and The Chronicles Of Narnia, plus many more. Many famous TV shows have also been known to come out of these studios such as, The Simpsons, Family Guy and American Dad. The production companies first film star was Shirley Temple. Other major stars to have come from there are Betty Grable, Gene Tierney, Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. They also had the first African-American cinema star Dorothy Dandridge.

20^th Century Fox now are joined to other production companies which include Lightstorm Entertainment, Regency Enterprises, Blue Sky Studios and Spyglass Entertainment as well as many more successful production companies.

British – British Lion films

British Lion films Corporation is a film production and distribution company. They have produced 170 films. Until 1976 they were also film distributers as British Lion Films Ltd. British Lion Incorporated was founded in November 1927 by Sam .W. Smith, he was the brother of Herbert Smith. By the end of WW2 they had released 55 films including, In which We Serve. In 1949 they suffered financial problems and were forced to accept a loan from the National Film Finance Corporation. As they were unable to pay it back they went into receivership in 1955. As a results of this they were formed as a distribution company in January 1955. Until 1976 their distributer filmography included 155 films.

British Lion Corporation were taken over by EMI in 1976. They were sold to Cannon, then to Weintraub Entertainment, Movie Acquisitions Corporation which went on to be renamed as Lumiere Pictures, then UGC (DA) now with Studio Canal.

Low Budget-Coffee Films

Coffee Films came around in 1996. It has grown from the Naked Pony Theatre Company and Mr Spambapstic Films.

Naked Pony was a Fringe Theatre Company based in South East England. As well in 1996 Steve Piper produced the 4 minute short Televisual Man with friend Dave Smith, they worked under the company name of Mr. Spambapstic Films. An Orwellian themed experiment shot on a S-VHS tape, edited on camera and completed the same day. Unfortunately it would be 9 years before anyone in the public would see any of the film. Naked Pony wanted to take the theatre company forward. They asked for a grant from the lottery, which was refused. Instead the company assets  were sold to fund a short film of King Lear, their intention was to use this to move the company into film production. Shortly after completing the film, Piper settled into a marketing day job and started organising his own film production company team, Coffee Films. The team was made from all his friends who had little or no experience in making films. The intention was to prove that anyone could have a go at making films, huge budgets, films schools, special effects and stars was not as important as a tight knit team, determined to prove their point. 1998 produced 10 experimental film shorts, animated sequences and documentaries. In 1999 they became inspired by the achievements of Rodriguez thy started working towards being able to shoot a feature length film with no budget. Three scripts were completed and shooting started, but scheduling around the cast and crews day job was impossible so all 3 projects ended up on the shelf.

In 2002 shooting began on the final no budget short Dealer, due to be released to festivals and internet streaming sites. A few months later the script to ‘How to Disappear Completely’ landed in the mailbox from Canada. Towards the end of the year the first ever board of directors were established. Piper was managing director, television QC Rob Fairlie as technical director, and entertainment lawyer Vanda Rapti as director of legal and business affairs. Contributor Gelli-Graham set up a sister artist management company Coffee Artists, the rest of the original team stayed on the board as shareholders. They were used to fulfil roles from acting to location scouts. The company was incorporated in 2003 as Coffee Arts and Media Ltd.

Self Evaluation

Self Evaluation

I think my overall completion of the work could have been better as I have uploaded work much later than I should have, on as many of the posts I have tried to say who did which task. This is hard especially when you don’t upload their piece of work too alongside your own. For this I think I am about a level 2.

I do try to research we are set in class and sometimes it is not as good as I am capable of doing. I sometimes don’t write in as much detail as I do when taking noted in class. For this reason I think I’m again a level 2.

I don’t think I have been as creative as I can be in my research. I think i have struggled with the transition from doing research and just writing about it to blogging the research in a more creative way. I try to present my work as best as I can. I have been creative in some ways by using comic life and imovie making audios. For this I think I’m between levels 1 and 2.

Sometimes my bog can look bare and empty as I only upload my pieces of work instead of uploading everyone’s work that make a complete task. I upload the piece I have done and then refer to my group member’s blog to view the other pieces. For this I think that I am a level 2.

I think I could have done some tasks in a lot more detail and spend more time writing about movies I have watched outside of class. For this I think I am between levels 1 and 2.

Audience Expectation of a thriller movie

Audience Expectations from a Thriller

As an audience member watching a thriller movie I would expect suspense, dark clothing on villains or red on women portraying a ‘sexy’ character. I would expect violence, death; psychological aspects maybe even a conspiracy plot. I want the tension to be built up until the very last moment. You expect to feel tension and fear from the characters. In any thriller movies you expect to see a murder weapon like a gun or a knife. The setting to be in alleyways, suburban areas or even urban areas, depending on the plot or the storyline. I would also like to see close of shots of the villains and the victims so you can see their facial expressions in dramatic moments.

I’m sure audience expectations would be the same or very similar to my own, but I also think this depends on what type of thriller movie you enjoy. Some movies there is no conspiracy or murder plot. Also some don’t use the effect of music to add suspense to the scene.

Thriller music

Thriller music

Some thriller movies use music to add suspense to certain scenes. Music may be slowed  down or sped up depending on the type of suspense, whether it being leading to a major scene in the movie or being played through this scene to add to the climax. Many thriller movies don’t use music through the film just during the opening sequence and titles at the beginning and at the end credits, but none throughout the actual film.

I think that thrillers that use music in their movies are more, edge-of-seat-viewers so to say, when the music is used to add to the suspense I found the climax much more dramatic and entertaining.

A well known example of a movie containing music to add suspense is Jaws. This movie has a very distinctive piece of music which only plays when the shark is about to attack, this is known as incidental music.   

Independant Film Study

Here I will be researching 3 film companies and their logos and why they are suitable for thrillers.

I shall research 1 British company:
1 American company:
1 Low Budget company:

(information added presently)

Shot Reverse Shot

This is my research on shot rev shot.










Please refer to Joes for match on action and Danicas for 180' degree rule.

Iconic Directors

I decided to write about some Iconic directors known for their thriller movies.
I chose Alfred Hitchcock, David Fincher and Quentin Tarantino.

I have got my information from wikipedia, thriller bloggers.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK  

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13^th August 1899 – 29^th April 1980) was a well known British Film director well known for his iconic movie ideas. He was the person behind many of the thriller techniques widely used in thrillers today. He pioneered many of these techniques in suspense and psychological thriller genres. After he well established his career in silent films and early talkies in the UK, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1956. His career spanned over half a century Hitchcock became fashioned for, for his directorial style. His use of camera made to move in a way to mimic a persons gaze. He also framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, and empathy and used ‘innovative’ film editing. A theme known throughout Hitchcock’s is ‘fugitives on the run from the law alongside icy cold blonde female characters’. They also all have twist endings, violence, murder and crime.   His techniques are so established that no thriller film is complete without using one of his techniques. ‘Hitch’ as he was also known by has influenced many thriller directors such as Stanley Kubrick, Robert Zemeckis and better known Tim Burton. As another name of his, he truly is ‘the master of suspense’.

DAVID FINCHER

David Andrew Leo Fincher born August 28^th 1962. David Fincher is a well known American film and music video director. He is well known for his movies, seven (1995) The game (1997) Fight club (1999) Panic room (2002) and Zodiac (2007).

Fincher has received many awards for his movies. Fincher received academy award nominations foe best director for his movie, The curious case of Benjamin button in 2008. He recently was awarded a BAFTA for best director and a Golden globe for his film the social network. His recent movie was 2011’s The girl with the Dragoon Tattoo.

Fincher was a young aspiring film director, he began to shoot his own movies at the tender age of eight years old using a 8mm camera after being inspired by the movie Butch Cassidy and John the Sundance Kid. His first job was loading cameras and doing other work for John Korty at Korty films. He used this experience to climb the ladder to director instead of going to a film school. After working for John Korty he was hired by Industrial Light and Magic in 1983. Fincher worked on productions like twice upon a star, star wars: episode VI-return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the temple of doom.  In 1984 he left ILM to direct commercials for the American Cancer Society. His most controversial piece was a commercial showing a foetus smoking a cigarette. This lead to Fincher to the opportunity to direct the commentary The Beat of the Live Drum featuring Rick Springfield in 1985. Fincher later joined Propaganda Films to improve his directing skills. He then moved on to feature films.

David Fincher’s first feature movie was Alien 3 in 1992. The film received an Oscar for its visual effects the film was hit hard by critics reviews. Fincher went on to have disputes with 20^th Century Fox over script and budget issues. In the “director’s cut” Fincher went back to directing commercials and music videos, during this time Fincher directed the Grammy Award winning track ‘Love Is Strong’ by The Rolling Stones.

In 1995 Fincher made his debut back into feature films by directing the movie seven. The film starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. The film grossed $11 million domestically and over $300 million internationally. Arnold Kopelson the chairman of new line cinema, refused to allow the filming of the ending climatic scene, with the aid of Brad Pitt, who said he would not be involved with the film if the ending was changed, which allowed Fincher to include the scene in the final Cut.

In 1997 Fincher directed The Game. The film was well received by critics but still got middling results in the box office. T he film starring Michael Douglass grossed $14.3 million on its opening weekend. It made $48.3 million in North America and $6.1 million in the rest of the world. This made a total gross of $109.4 million.

Fincher then went directed Fight Club 1999. The film featuring Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter and Brad Pitt. The film was an early disappointment at the box office and received many mixed reviews, the film went on then ruined by critics and alienated audiences leading to a box office failure in the US.  Later many critics and audiences changed their perspectives of the film and the film went on to appear on ‘best of the year list’.

In 2002 Fincher added to his impressive portfolio with the amazing Thriller movie Panic Room. Starring Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart. The film grossed $92 million in the US box office alone. Fincher himself describes the movie as mainstream thriller. He described the film as a “date movie” and a “really good B movie” about “2 people trapped in a closet”.

Fincher returned with vengeance 5 year later. In 2007 Fincher directed the movie Zodiac. The film starred Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr, Anthony Edwards and Brian Cox.  The film was filmed mainly using a Thompson Viper Film Stream Camera. High speed cameras were used to shoot for the Blue Rock Springs and Presidio Heights murder scenes slow-motion shots. It was meant to be released earlier but had to be set back as Fincher refused to cut 20 minutes off the end of the movie.  Zodiac was one of the best reviewed films of that year, but even so the film struggled in the US box office. The film only grossed $33 million. The film did better overseas grossing $51.7 million. After an aggressive campaign by the studio and expectations of Robert Downey Jr’s supporting performance, Fincher directing and Vanderbilt’s script the film did not earn any Academy Award nominations.

QUENTN TARANTINO

Quentin Jerome Tarantino born March 27^th 1963 is an American film director, screenwriter, produced, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990’s Tarantino began his career as an independent film maker with films employing non linear storylines and the aestheticization of violence. Tarantino is well known for his films, Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill (2003,4), Death Proof (2007), Inglorious Bustards (2009) and upcoming movie (Django Unchained (2012). He has earned Academy Awards, Golden Globes, a BAFTA and the plame d’OR, as well as numerous Emmy and Grammy nominations.  His movies tend to be characterised by his influence from grindhouse, kung fu sand spaghetti western. Tarantino also collaborates frequently with fellow film maker and friend Robert Rodriquez.

Tarantino met Lawrence Bender at a Hollywood party, Bender encouraged Tarantino to write a screenplay. Tarantino directed and co-wrote a movie called my best friend’s birthday, during editing the film was destroyed in a lab fire but its screenplay would form the basis for True Romance. In January 1992 Reservoir Dogs screened and was an immediate h it with audiences and critics. True Romance was released in 1993 and his screenplay Natural born killers was sold. As of the success of reservoir dogs Tarantino was approached by big Hollywood projects such as Speed and Men In Black. He decided to declines these offers and instead go to Amsterdam and finish work on his next screenplay Pulp Fiction. After the screenplay pulp fiction was finished Tarantino directed episode 4 of Four Rooms. ‘The Man From Hollywood’ a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock presents which starred Steve McQueen. Four rooms was a collaborative effort by Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell and Robert Rodriguez. This film was not favoured by critics. Tarantino wrote and starred in Robert Rodriguez film From Dusk Till Dawn.  The film got mixed reviews buy yet had 2 sequels which saw Tarantino and Rodriguez as executive producers.

For history of thriller refer to Joes blog and for the synopsis refer to Danicas.

Composistion

As I was going to be recording are preliminary task I thought it may be an idea to learn about Composition.
I learnt about the rule of 3rds. I learnt that this was the 3x3 grid, where the 3 lines intercept, where the audiences eyes would be drawn too as just placing the subject in the middle of the shot would just be boring.

I also learnt of Lead room. Always leave room where the subject is bringing interest to, otherwise they would look half cut out of the frame.

I learnt to pay close attention to the background and how to frame the shot to make it interesting to the audience.

One thing that I learnt more about was Head room. The ditance between the top of the frame and the top of the sunjects head. This is something that needs to be carefully planned as if you have too little you would cut off part of the subjects head and too  little would throw the frame off balance.

And I lastly learnt of Look/Nose room. This is the distance between the subjects nose and the edge of the frama as again you could end up cutting of part of the subjects face.

As the camera person for the task I thought it would be helpful to learn more on how to get good shots, I think this helped in the preliminary task.

Please look to Joes blog for editing and Danicas for lighting.

Linear, non-linear omniscient and restricted.

Last week we leart about some techniques used to entice audience members.
I learnt that linear is when events happen in chronological order.
Non-linear when films contain flashbacks or jump backwards and forwards through movies, generally used in thriller movies.
Omniscient when we give audience members an idea of whats going to happen next and restricred where the audience have no idea if whats going to happen next.

These techniques I have found are really commonly used in thriller movies and even knowing that one of these techniques would be used you never notice when they happen untill afterwards, they are cleverly placed so you never realise. This is a technique that I hope to futher develop to use in a piece of my groups work.

6 ways to Kill Your Wife.

This is my groups preliminary piece. The actors are Danica Ebers and Joe Fitzpatrick my team members. I recorded the whole piece.

When uploading the video we had a few problems with sound, the audio button had been unclicked. So after we edited the piece with help from fellow media student Sophie Daniels we found the problem of no sound. Mr Barton came over and suggested we tried to rebatch the piece, after the 3rd attempt it became clear that this was not working. By this time Joe had, had to leave for his 4th lesson, so Sophie stayed with me to help, as she realised that I needed some help.

Mr Barton suggested to us that due to time we would have to fix the problem the hard way, so he caught all the sound clip as one and suggested that we 'cut' the speech up and lay it over the video and get it in line as much as possible. We thought that this wouldnt be easy until we started. The majority of the sound clips were longer than their video clips somehow but we managed to get at least half the video in line. We then also realised that  the match on action shot was not as good as it could have been and so we edited it to look as close as possible. Danica arrived to see the editing and she chose the two songs that are placed at the begining and end of the piece. She also watched the final product to check for any mistakes missed or any changes that may have needed to be done.

The things I learnt from this task are the time. When you think that you have lots of time, but it goes quickly, especially when mistakes occur that take up a lot of that time. I also learnt and adapted more of  my editing skills using Final Cut Pro. Im slowly beginning to know how to use the software, although i'm far off of using it to the best of its abilities i'm sure. A good skill I did aquire was the cutting and laaying of the voice clips with the video clips, at least I no know what to do if a problem like that occurs again, which I hope doesn't!

This is the script that our group created. We had input into what was going to be said and when. 

Refer to Joes blog for storyboard and shot list.

9 frame analysis from the movie se7en

Here I am going to Analyse 9 frames that I took from the opening credits of the movie seven.

In frame 1 you can see the pages of a book being flicked through. As an audience member you would become quickly intrigued as to what is in the book as you cant make out any precise pages.
In frame 2 it looks to be that a pair of hands are being scanned. One of the hands looks alive whilst the other looks dead. This makes you wonder what the picture is about or what it means.
In frame 3 it looks as if someone is holding some kind of cutting tool probably used in forensics. This makes you wonder what the person whos hands are in the frame are doing.
In frane 4 you can see the title 'Se7en'. The writing is really blurred and is clear for only a matter of seconds before blurring out again. The font the title is written in is very effective as its clear, white and is sharply edged, the audience can already tell that the movie is a thriller.
In frame 5 you can see someone writing a lot of information onto a page of a book. An audience member would be intrigued to see what is being written and would watch on in hope that they get to see.
In frame 6 you can see another page of a book but this time the page is full. Again you become intrigued into what is written on the page. You cant see what is written on the page as the writing is really small and the font is really swirly and unreadable.
In frame 7 you can see someone blacking out words on an article to do with pregnency. This makes you wonder whether this is something to do with one of the charcters or something else that could come to light further into the movie. Again you would like to find out more.
In frame 8 you can see 2 pages being sewn together. Again as an audience member your again waiting to see the purpose of this.
In frame 9 you can someone cutting out 'GOD' on a american dolar bill. It seems to be done quite precisely and your intrigued to see the meaning of why they are doing this.

Moodboard

This is the moodboard I made to show what I think makes a thriller. I got images of dark lighting as I think this is an effective element to a thriller, without dark lighting I dont think thrillers would be as dramatic. I also got images of weapons that occur the most in thrillers which is guns and knives. There is also some well known thriller titles, which are also some that I have seen and enjoyed immensely.