Tuesday 30 November 2010
Monday 29 November 2010
Tuesday 23 November 2010
My Thriller Idea- "Possession"
For my idea I decided to use the concept of the paranormal. The first shot would be an ariel shot of a girl in her bed at night. She is having a nightmare and you can tell by her twitching and panicked facial expressions. Then we hear a faint sound enter the room that can't be explained or understood. All of a sudden the girl stops fidgeting and she is dead still (This is suppossed to suggest that her body has been possessed).
Her covers are then taken off her onto the floor by an unseen presence. She sits up in her bed and puts her legs over the side in a very slow motion. Her facial expression is a constant dreary gaze as if she is sleep walking. She then walks out of her room, through her house until she reaches outside (a shot of her shadow on the wall as she walks downstairs).
We then cut to a graveyard where she has walked to. It is now early in the morning because it would be easier to film this part during the day, the frosty or misty morning adding to the effect of a thriller (also this suggests that she has been walking for a long time). She is standing in front of an empty grave that has been dug for a funeral. Her gaze is fixed on the grave and then we see her slowly lean into the grave and fall, the screen blacking out just before we see her whole body dissappear into the grave.
During the night time scene at the begginning before the graveyard I would prefer to use a night vision camera because I think it would make the footage scarier.
I also thought about what sound I would use in this thriller. Many of the hurtwood videos I have watched havn't used a song during their opening scene because the other sound effects used create more suspence. However even though it's an early though proccess I though the song 'Sweet Dreams' by Marilyn Manson would be a good song to use in my thriller.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6VojYGrnpg
Try to just listen to the song instead of watch the video because it's pretty weird.
Her covers are then taken off her onto the floor by an unseen presence. She sits up in her bed and puts her legs over the side in a very slow motion. Her facial expression is a constant dreary gaze as if she is sleep walking. She then walks out of her room, through her house until she reaches outside (a shot of her shadow on the wall as she walks downstairs).
We then cut to a graveyard where she has walked to. It is now early in the morning because it would be easier to film this part during the day, the frosty or misty morning adding to the effect of a thriller (also this suggests that she has been walking for a long time). She is standing in front of an empty grave that has been dug for a funeral. Her gaze is fixed on the grave and then we see her slowly lean into the grave and fall, the screen blacking out just before we see her whole body dissappear into the grave.
During the night time scene at the begginning before the graveyard I would prefer to use a night vision camera because I think it would make the footage scarier.
I also thought about what sound I would use in this thriller. Many of the hurtwood videos I have watched havn't used a song during their opening scene because the other sound effects used create more suspence. However even though it's an early though proccess I though the song 'Sweet Dreams' by Marilyn Manson would be a good song to use in my thriller.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6VojYGrnpg
Try to just listen to the song instead of watch the video because it's pretty weird.
Saturday 20 November 2010
Friday 19 November 2010
Denotation and Connotation of Horror movies
Just by looking at a still image within a movie you can tell what genre it belongs to by analysing the denotation and the connotation of the image. As a class we looked through several images from various horror movies such as 'The Ring' and 'Psycho' to pick out the clues that tell us this image belongs to a horror movie.
Still from 'The Ring'
Denotation-a girl with long black hair Connotation-looks mentally ill
-wearing a white dress -perhaps in a mental hospital
-in a white room -disturbed
-microphone by her feet
-she looks empty
Still from 'Gothika'
Still from 'The Ring'
Denotation-a girl with long black hair Connotation-looks mentally ill
-wearing a white dress -perhaps in a mental hospital
-in a white room -disturbed
-microphone by her feet
-she looks emptyStill from 'Gothika'
Denotation-woman looking at blood coated wall
- 'not alone' is written on the wall
Connotation-obviously a victim
-being followed
-blood signifies danger
Codes and Conventions of a Horror/Thriller
All horror/thriller movies tend to use the same codes and conventions to have an effect on their audience. There are many conventions that are used in horror movies which successfully scare or thrill the audience. I think one of the most important conventions to be used in a horror/thriller movie is the music. The music used in any film determines the mood so when scary music is played in a movie you automatically know something bad is about to happen. However the use of no sound can also be just as effective when creating suspence in a horror/thriller e.g silence before the villan jumps out to scare the victim. Amoungst the class we probably came up with over 200 conventions of a horror movie alltogether. However i will just list a few to give an idea of the range of aspects used to scare the viewer.
-paranormal-gore
-death
-darkness
-chasing
-screaming-storms
-weapons
-unrecognisable sounds or contrapuntal sounds-abandoned houses
-haunted places
-cloaked figures
-masks
-insects
-blood
-evil-dolls
-shadows-horses
-monsters-dark woods
-batsAll of these have been effectively used in horror/thriller movies.
Tuesday 9 November 2010
Editing our Preliminary Task
The editing part of our preliminary task turned out to be more challenging seeing as most of us had never done it before so the programme was new to us. However one person in our group was more advanced than us. This worked to our advantage because instead of just one of use doing all the editing on their own the whole group participated in editing and with the slight guidance from our more experienced friend. This way we quickly picked up on how to use the different tools on the programme. We learnt how to drag and drop to place shots on the timeline in the right order, how to condense sound and how to cut the different shots exactly where we wanted so when we cut the shots they matched well.
When it came to cutting the different shots together we all participated in stating our opinion on which shots to use where. At first it was difficult but once we all got used to it it turned out to be getting easier and more enjoyable.
When it came to cutting the different shots together we all participated in stating our opinion on which shots to use where. At first it was difficult but once we all got used to it it turned out to be getting easier and more enjoyable.
Preliminary Task Evaluation
For the preliminary task my group filmed in the media studio whilst others filmed in various classrooms. I think that this location worked to our advantage because an office scene was used as our background,making our short film seem more realistic rather than using a classroom to set the scene for quite a dramatic script.
During filming the four people in my group including me took turns to try out the different roles in filming. Before we started to film we all took part in setting up the scene; arranging the objects and positioning the lights for the best effect in our opinion. The two roles that we alternated between were the director and the camera man. When I was a director I made sure that everything was in the right position before we began to film, then when i was satisfied with the set I would tell the room to 'stand-by', instruct the camera man to 'role camera' then shout 'action' until the scene was finished which is when i would shout 'cut'. We all participated in the camera angles used in the scene and the camera man was in charge of setting the white balance and recording the scene.
Most groups had the oportunity of using stage lights for our preliminary task. Our group used two lights in our task in order to get rid of the shadows on the back wall because we thought the scene would look better filmed that way. At first we only used one light but it was only effective when we used two lights to get rid of the shadows.
We found that setting up the camera now came easily to us since we had been practicing before and luckily we remembered before we started shooting each scene to check the tripod was level by 'bubbling' it so our shots all came out straight. Framing the shots was found to be more of a challenge because at the time we thought a couple of shots were well framed but when it came to editing it turned out we were a bit too close in and subsequently we cut off a bit of our actress' head. The lighting equipment was far back out of the shot so we didn't have that mistake of accidently including the lights in our shot.
We chose appropriate angles for a couple of our shots. We used a high angle shot on our victimin in the scene whilst we used a low angle shot at the other actress. We used these to show the contrast in power between both people, the high angle shot to show the powerless victim whilst the low angle shot showed the powerful villan. We also used quite a few close up shots in order to capture the expression of fear and anger on each charactors face. A few still shots were filmed of the object we used in our scene just incase we wanted to add that in when editing the scene.
When filming the shots we were using a specific script which we did follow to some extent but we just changed a few words in order to fit in with our particular scene. Whenever we used a different angle to film a shot we went through the entire scene in that angle, that way when in came to editing we would be making the job a lot easier for ourselves because we could cut and paste which part of the scene we wanted in that specific angle.
When it came to the 180 degree rule we remembered to shoot on the same side of the line the whole way through so thankfully we didn't break it. At first using the appropriate terminology on set so everyone knew what was happening was a bit strange a took some getting used to but by the end of the task we had all gotten used to using the right terminology.
During filming the four people in my group including me took turns to try out the different roles in filming. Before we started to film we all took part in setting up the scene; arranging the objects and positioning the lights for the best effect in our opinion. The two roles that we alternated between were the director and the camera man. When I was a director I made sure that everything was in the right position before we began to film, then when i was satisfied with the set I would tell the room to 'stand-by', instruct the camera man to 'role camera' then shout 'action' until the scene was finished which is when i would shout 'cut'. We all participated in the camera angles used in the scene and the camera man was in charge of setting the white balance and recording the scene.
Most groups had the oportunity of using stage lights for our preliminary task. Our group used two lights in our task in order to get rid of the shadows on the back wall because we thought the scene would look better filmed that way. At first we only used one light but it was only effective when we used two lights to get rid of the shadows.
We found that setting up the camera now came easily to us since we had been practicing before and luckily we remembered before we started shooting each scene to check the tripod was level by 'bubbling' it so our shots all came out straight. Framing the shots was found to be more of a challenge because at the time we thought a couple of shots were well framed but when it came to editing it turned out we were a bit too close in and subsequently we cut off a bit of our actress' head. The lighting equipment was far back out of the shot so we didn't have that mistake of accidently including the lights in our shot.
We chose appropriate angles for a couple of our shots. We used a high angle shot on our victimin in the scene whilst we used a low angle shot at the other actress. We used these to show the contrast in power between both people, the high angle shot to show the powerless victim whilst the low angle shot showed the powerful villan. We also used quite a few close up shots in order to capture the expression of fear and anger on each charactors face. A few still shots were filmed of the object we used in our scene just incase we wanted to add that in when editing the scene.
When filming the shots we were using a specific script which we did follow to some extent but we just changed a few words in order to fit in with our particular scene. Whenever we used a different angle to film a shot we went through the entire scene in that angle, that way when in came to editing we would be making the job a lot easier for ourselves because we could cut and paste which part of the scene we wanted in that specific angle.
When it came to the 180 degree rule we remembered to shoot on the same side of the line the whole way through so thankfully we didn't break it. At first using the appropriate terminology on set so everyone knew what was happening was a bit strange a took some getting used to but by the end of the task we had all gotten used to using the right terminology.
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