film still images

Why thrillers thrive

Why thrillers thrive

• People watch thrillers to experience life differently to how they do in reality. Thrillers creat and exciting jump from ordinary life to a life consisting of "emotional disturbances"
• Experiencing thrills at the cinema artificially is the best meidum for receiving the "shake-ups" we crave.
• People feel secure and safe being in a cinema as oppose to the people in the story. They are simply looking at it as if through a window, instead of experiencing the fear first hand.
• The fact we subconciously know we are safe means we can remain comfortable throughout as if we are "sitting in a comfortable armchair"
• The basic sense of security can never be undermined by the cinema as you are merely spectating the thrills.
• Connecting the audience with a character and helping them sympathise with them keeps them interested.
• The cinema beats the stage because you can believe the thrills you see. "The audience thrives on thrills, the cinema thrives on the audience, the director thrives on the cinema and everybody is happy"
• The more exciting the thriller is, the better.

Test footage.

We filmed some test footage so we could then play around with the light and try out some effects in Final Cut Express. I cut the footage and used a range of different techniques and effects on each section. In our thriller we aim to create a dark atmosphere. We are also planning to use a number of point of view shots to imply that the stalker involved in our sequence if following the girl.

• The first thing i tried to alterring the brightness and contrast within the footage. I tried to make it darker to create a sinister effect. I thought this was a very good tool to use and we will be using this in our final opening sequence.
  
• The second technique i used was altering the white and black lines in the colour correction tab. This worked well to create the image of a dark night or the image of a very bright, intense atmosphere.
• The third effect i tried was 'channel blur'. This effect blurs the footage to create a slightly distorted effect, it would be very useful to keep swtiching too when we are trying to create a view from the eyes of the stalker.
• I then selected the 'fish eye lense' on the footage. This created the effect of the fish eye. It distorted the footage and gave it a very abstract effect.
• I then used the effect of 'echo' under the heading of timing. It blurred the image like the 'blur' effect did but made it seem like you were seeing duplications of the footage.
• I then tried out the 'stobe' effect from the same catergory. This slightly delayed the footages and made it quite jumpy which gave the footage a very edgy effect.
• Staying within the same category i then tried the 'trail' effect. This trailed the image and duplicated it. It also gave the effect that it was vibrating almost because of how shaky it was. We liked this effect to use when we are filming handheld.
• The last effect i tried was the 'scrub' effect. It made it seem as if the footage was vibrating but i did not see that much difference to the footage.

From what I tried out i decided for our final footage we will use some of the effect found it the timing category to create the good effect when using the handheld camera trying to create the point of view of the stalker. The fish eye lense will definitely be used at some point because it creates an edgy lense like effect as if somebody is being watched. This research will definitely help us when it comes to doing the final editing of our thriller opening because we now know how to alter the contract and colours to make it seem as if its dark without having to film in the dark and the quality therefore being poor.

The Feedback From Andrea

Andrea gave us some constructive criticism which we have worked hard to change and to make our opening sequence a to the highest standard of quality.

• Andrea informed us that we needed to focus on how we are going portray the feeling of paranoia.
  - To change this we decided to add effects to our footage when editing to exaggerate the feeling. We are also going to make sure that our camerawork and the sound we add will help create the feeling of paranoia and eeriness.
• Andrea convinced us that we should not film at night as it could be very problematic as the footage would not be of a high quality.
  -We took this into consideration as decided that for some of our shot we will film at dusk and other we shall film in the day, however when we film we shall change the brightness and contrast to create a dark night feeling. Les Tombres was a good influence on us for how we could create a night atmosphere.
  
• Andrea also advised us to develop our idea to something else than just following a girl otherwise we are at risk of boring our audience.
  - As a group we thought long and hard about how we could improve our idea. We choose to have a twist in our story, to catch the audience off card and hopefully give them a thrill which will keep their attention. Our film is going to consist of a lot of different camerawork angles and effects to reinforce that our genre is a thriller.
  

Equipment

For our thriller we will use a wide range of equipment ranging from the obvious, such as a camera, and right down to the software we will use to edit the footage and creat a soundtrack to accompany the thriller.

Here is a list of the equipment we will use to create our thriller opening sequence:

Still Camera- the still camera will be used to take still images of certain shots and also some of our work in process

Camcorder- the camcorder will be used to shoot our footage and is possibly the most vital part of our whole thriller project.

Tripod- the tripod will be used whilst filming to help gain a steady shot and to maintain a professional style manner for our thriller.

Apple iMac: we will use the apple iMac to upload all of our footage to and it contains the programme's we need to edit the footage properly and professionally and also to create a soundtrack which is a very vital part in every thriller opening.

Garage band: this is the software we will use to create the soundtrack for our thriller practice.

Final cut- this is the programme we will be using to create the transitions and to edit overall our thriller to help put it into a chronological order and to add various effects titles and so on.

Saul Bass

Saul Bass (May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) was an American graphic designer and Academy Award-winning filmmaker, but he is best known for his design on animated motion picture title sequences.

Amongst his most famous title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm for Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, the text racing up and down what eventually becomes a high-angle shot of the United Nations building in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the disjointed text that raced together and was pulled apart for Psycho (1960).Saul Bass (May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) was an American graphic designer and Academy Award-winning filmmaker, but he is best known for his design on animated motion picture title sequences.

we have decided to take some inspiration for our own title sequence, the way saul bass designed his title sequences changed the way everyone in the industry presented their titles, his work was so far ahead that he was seen as a genius in his field and has more than certainly been the inspiration between some of the best titles seen in this industry.

Production Roles In Detail

We have allocated production roles for each of the members of our group. The production roles we have allocated are roles that we think are suitable for each member and are roles in which they will be able to show their real potential and skill they have at their position.

Rebecca Hewings' position in the group is the cinematographer as this a position she really enjoys and has a good idea of how to use the camera to make it feel like a thriller and to make the audience feel involved and give them a sense of the 'fear of the unknown'.
Annabelle Monks' role is the main female character who is being shown in the opening sequence as the character being stalked. Annabelle is also the producer of the opening sequence as she is able to construct an idea and generate it into a good piece of footage.
Ryan Brook's job in our group is the sound engineer as he has high level of skill of being able to create music that is for a specific genre without telling the audience what genre it is.

We decided as a group that we would all take the position of being the director as we all had a huge input on the idea of our opening sequence and how it was going to shown in the footage. We also decided as group that we would all take part in the editing of our footage as this is one of the main tasks that all of us would like to participate in.

Target Audience

We decided the certificate of our film would be 15. We felt 15 was the right certificate in relation to our ideas for our thriller. Our target audience is teenagers (15+) we feel that the main character being a 16 year old would make it more suitable for teenagers as they can connect to the character and everyday life of that 16 year old.

Details Of Costume with Illustrations

Costumes For Thriller Sequence




Annabelle Monks (Girl Character) - Leggings, Cardigan, Uggs. We chose this outfit for the vulnerable girl character as this is something a girl would wear as a casual everyday outfit.
Stalker - We decided on this outfit for our stalker as we thought it would symbolise a shady and discrete character.

Practice soundtrack for thriller

The Practise Soundtrack


This is my rough idea of what type of music we will have in our final thriller movie, the music starts of slow and eerie, I then included some interjections to show that something different is going on, e.g credits or a close up. The sound then becomes more vigorous which symbolises the change in mood and atmosphere.

Definition of thriller, outline of different sub-genres and hybrids -

Thrillers

A thriller is a suspsenseful adventure. It is a type of film that keeps viewers on the edge for their seats. Thrillers can often be confused with horrors, a way to distinguish which is which is a horror has blood and gore in it where as a thriller seeks to simply thrill the audience as oppose to scare them. There are four different types of thrillers, psychological, crime, action and political. For our thriller opening we have decided to do a psychological thriller as we felt we would be able to do more with it. Our psychological thriller includes the theme of obsession.

Different sub-genres

Story board and Shot list