Shoot and editing

Over all the shooting went well but when we got to our location we found out that there wasn't as much light coming in through the small window and that the floor wasn't concrete so we couldn't write on it, so we got a piece of wood and hid it under the mud, it looked exactly like the floor so that was the first problem. We lit more candles so that the extra lighting didn't look artificial, and it worked the lighting looked natural.

                                       This is the room we filmed in(flash on the camera makes it look lighter)

                                                       These shots are from the day
We also realised that we couldn't shoot the snake eyes scene with the contacts in, in that location as our hands were mucky and it'll be dangerous to put contacts in your eyes with dirty hands so we went back to my house and filmed the scene there, yet getting the same light was difficult as my house has more light then the location did as we had candles set up so we found the darkest room and lit a candle so that it looked like the candle in the barn was reflecting on the actors face. The hardest part was definitely putting the contact lenses in as none of us had done it before but we got there in the end.

Editing


During editing we had to choose the best clips from all of the shoots because we had a lot of snake shots and a lot of different shots from the location. We decided to darken most of the snake shots so that they looked more natural and so that no background could be seen. We also darkened and added contrast to some shots. the main problem we realised was the shaking on some of the shots from the location, we stabilized each shot as much as possible yet there was still shakiness.

Snakes

Reptile Mania in whittlesey is where we got our shots of snakes from, at first we got shots of a smaller snake, yet after a while we noticed we needed something bigger and scarier so we asked if we could get the python out. the python was 8 foot long and we got perfect shots of its body and face, with its tongue flickering and it moving.

The problem with working with animals is that you can't tell them what to do, so it was difficult following the motion of them and making it look natural. The smaller snakes were moving too fast to get good shots or would change direction or go out of the shot completely. The bigger snake was easier to work with because it wouldn't change direction and was quiet interested in our equipment, so we got some good close up pictures of the snake.

Props

 These are the props we will use are candles, chalk and the actor will be wearing a cloak to give it a sense of mystery. For our titles we decided it would be good to do them in chalk as it fits in with the whole theme, and the candle light will make good lighting for our thriller.

we chose this place as it has a sense of creepiness that we wanted in our thriller. It also has plenty of space to film in and different sections which could be used. It is abandoned and over grown so it has the perfect feel to it and no permission will be needed to film in there.

Story Board

This is our story board for our thriller opening.

As there is no speech in our thriller opening we didn't do a script for it.

No Country For Old Men analysis

No country for old men begins with an opening sequence of vast landscapes, just straight on, establishing long shots. The landscapes are just plain and desert looking , with isolation the first thing coming to mind as you cannot see anything or anyone else then these vast landscapes. The place where these shots are based are somewhere like Texas in America. The land looks exhausted and the voice that is the only sound that is heard, is reflecting this. The person speaking over the top is speaking in a monotone american voice, talking about another man, this makes the audience question who the person is speaking about and who they are giving a sense of mystery to the start, yet in a different way to typical thrillers. The shots show time passing, yet everything stays the same and it all just connotates no life and despair to the audience. It also shows the audience the scale of where this movie is taking place, which is yet again giving off a sense of isolation.

Shot two. This is a long shot of the man being led to the police car by the policeman. This shot confuses the audience as from the vast landscapes it just pans onto this shot. It is a shot from behind and uses the rule of thirds as the man and policeman are the along the centre of one line and the vast spaces and road is the centre of the other line. This makes the audience focus on the mysterious man being escorted to the police car and the emptiness to their side. The outfit the police man is wearing looks like a sheriffs outfit and the car looks old, therefore giving clues that maybe this was set quiet a while ago. The amount of shadows present give off a sense of mystery as we also cannot tell who the man is, as he's blacked out.

Shot 3. This is a medium shot just above eye level. We can see the shadowed figure in the back of the police car, the fact that he's shadowed could be connotating the sense of evil or danger, whilst when the "sheriff" gets in the car he's lit up. so a sense of good and evil are present. Not only does the shadowing of the criminal give a sense of evil but also a sense of mystery and suspense as the audience are waiting to find out who this man is. Yet again there is no story, leaving the audience confused, or any sound except the diegetic sound that's already present.

Shot 4. Shot four is a close up of the detective speaking on the phone which zooms out to show what will happen. At this stage the audience finds out a little more of the story, of how the criminal has a weapon and this is backed up when the criminal attacks the sheriff. The full focus is on the sheriff whilst the criminal is out of focus, yet again hiding the identity of the criminal, leaving the audience in suspense. The fact that the attack is unexpected makes the audience uneasy, and how the killer sneaks up on the sheriff whilst he's oblivious, yet the audience can see what is going to happen, giving the sheriff a sense of naivety and vulnerability.

Shot 5. This shot is a birds eye view long shot of the killing taking place. Yet again the sense of good and evil are present with the killer shadowed, and the sheriff lit up. The main focus of this shot is to show the struggle that happens and the calm and concentration in the killers face and body, like he's determined not to let the sheriff live, the saying " like a lamb to the slaughter" come to mind when looking at this scene as everything was so unexpected. There is no noise except the sheriffs shoes against the floor, really adding to the sense of the struggle.

Rationale and proposal

The idea we chose for our final piece is mostly idea 1 with a little bit of idea 2 in it. As idea 1 was the most original and in our audience research people did say they wanted something different with the protagonist being a female and so on. As idea 2 has been done before and mostly has been successful we thought we would use elements like the candle light and hymns in our final piece as it creates tension and carries the whole opening on. The whole mis-en-scene of the opening sequence will mostly be quiet dark as we wanted to use one or two thriller conventions and this and confined spaces ,worked best as we will use  a dark small room where the only lights will be either lights from windows yet it has to be dark enough to light our candles and give off the mysterious effect that thrillers should do. We will use mainly close-ups to build tension and suspense as the audience will not see everything, just bits of the board game and hardly any of the person. At the end of the opening sequence it will be a cliff hanger with in our questionnaire most people said they preferred cliff hangers, our last shot would be the persons eyes and when we would go onto a shot of the snake and then the title of the movie, this should leave the audience in suspense as there will be moments of darkness before the snake and after the eyes, and as there's nothing to tell who the person is or any introduction of them it should leave people wanting to find out what happens next, who the person was and why there was a game being played.

Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire that I made to see what audiences think about the thriller genre and film industry.

Analysis of results of questionnaire

       Do you prefer cliff hangers or resolved endings? Why?

 Most people said they preferred cliff hangers as it leaves you with a sense of depth and tension" 

"Gives you freedom to make up your own mind about what happens"

"Creates tension right to the end" 

      Would you prefer a female or male protagonist? Why?

       Different genders had different answers majority of boys said that they would like the protagonist to be the man as "they can empathise better with them"

      Most girls said that they would like the woman to be the protagonist as "its uncommon, for them to be the main character and are usually the victim"

<    What are your expectations when watching a thriller?

       Tension

       Suspense

       Hidden messages so the audience can figure things out themselves

      Experiences in real life

        

      Overall the results we got are expected as, as a group that is our answers and compared to our pitch these results are useful as we know that the suspense we want to create will be wanted by  the audience and will leave them guessing.

Reaction to pitch

The reaction that we got to the pitch was that all the ideas were good, it was just the locations that we would be able to use to make it all look authentic and not trashy. The idea that gave the biggest reaction to was the snake idea because it is so original the only problem would be how we would do it and where are we going to find the clips of snakes, which is the main thing we need to think about if we do, do this idea. Idea 2 was thought to be the most unoriginal and less thought out then the other two, people said it would be " similar to work that has already been done".

Pitch

 This was our first and strongest idea, where the idea is based on board games and peoples lives at stake through the chance of luck. We also liked the idea of snakes incorporated as we were thinking about the last shot where it would be snake eyes on the dice and the snake and dice would be over layed.

 we wanted to be as realistic as possible so wanted to use contact lenses and real snakes.

 Idea 2 was inspired by the Da Vinci code, where it is all very mysterious and creates tension simply.

 We focused on the light that fire and candles would create with shadows. Our costume inspiration was taken from the da vinci code.

 With idea 3 we decided to play on peoples fears, mostly childhood fears. It would be very creepy and uneasy for the audience, which is what this type of thriller would be based on.

We wanted to give off a creepy atmosphere and play on peoples phobias and these are mostly pictures of fears but also the location that would be used.

Film Institutions

Universal pictures is a well known film institution. It is one of the 6 major film institutions around these days and was founded in 1912 and is still one of the biggest and longest film institutions still running. 8 smaller companies were merged to form universal pictures. The company was sold to General Electric in 2004 and now is in corporation with NBC,  so not only does it own a sizeable collection of films but many TV shows too.

Universal pictures have a good reputation with thriller films with films like :

• Drag me to hell
• The strangers
• The last house on the left
• Stay alive
• unborn

In my opinion this would be a very good institution to produce and distribute our thriller as it is a well known company with a good reputation, especially in thriller productions. It distributes to the right audiences and will make our thriller film successful, with careful advertising .  

Mis-en-scene in thrillers

In the thriller genre there is common mis-en-scene within films, like a common weapon and settings and lighting.
Even though there are common elements they give off the same message to the audience.

Knife
Knives show pain, death, blood and brutality. It is commonly used to engage the viewers attention as it gives off the sign that someone is going to get killed. Knives can also be used to show what type of attack it was as knives usually give off a sign that the killing was personal or just torturous and prolonged.


Shadows


Shadows are also commonly used to give the thriller that sense of mystery and enigma. The killer is usually the shadowed person whilst the victim is usually watched by these shadows. it creates suspense as the shadow is a mystery to the audience watching and usually the victim doesn't realise that these "shadows" are watching them or following them. Shadows may give clues to the killer yet the audience have to work it out for them selves leaving them asking questions.

Detectives
More than often thrillers have a element of the justice system in the, and more than often this element is a detective, and we follow the same footsteps they do. It's a good feature as the audience finds out more as they find out more, the viewer will be basically thinking like the detective and solving the same clues as the detectives are. it makes the audience more empathetic with the film, and maybe sometimes the detectives themselves as often the detectives are caught up in a mess outside the investigation.









Running water

Even though it isn't a major part of the story line or plot running water does have a significance. It is a symbol of death or of life being drained away, it is also associated with blood and suggesting that the characters are in danger. Like in the thriller Psycho.

Location- There is three most commonly used locations in thrillers.

Cities
Cities are often a location for a thriller because it gives it a sense of reality, and brings it home. Cities are often used in psychological thrillers to make you have that fear and bring the drama alive.

Confined Spaces 
In majority of thrillers there will be a scene where the victim or "hero"(detective) is in a confined space giving a sense of no running from the situation. It makes the audience uneasy too because they know that there might be no escape. In Psycho the confined space is ironically the shower where the victim is killed. The shower scene also gives a sense of naivety as in confined spaces you usually cannot see what is going to happen as the victim cant see the killer. Confined spaces can also confuse people as you cannot see what is happening outside or if you can you cannot escape.

Woods/Isolated Places
Stereotypical thrillers use isolated places and woods to create tension and really give a sense of being alone and in danger. The use of these spaces also gives a sense of confusion and being lost. It makes the victim look vulnerable and if they did need help they wouldn't be able to find it as they're in the middle of no where.