Evaluation

1) In what ways does your media product use, develope or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?



Our product uses most thriller conventions and also attempts to take them to another level. It consists of a protagonist and a psycological antaginist (this is where we tried to develope our idea) which can be very confusing at first but as it goes on we begin to see that the girl is having her mind messed around with. We used voyerism towards the end of our piece along with a high angle shot to show the girl is being over-powered and can not keep on top of her feelings. We challenged the conventions by using a young ordinary girl who is having psycological problems. We done this because we didn't want it to be too typical. In most psycological thrillers, it is a man with problem and he ends up killing people. Our piece has no dead bodies or any sign of death because we thought it would be too typical.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product doesn't focus on alot of people, just a young girl. As the actress, I am in my mid teens. However, I look young so it made things alot easier. To base our story on a girl in her early teens, means she could be experianceing hormonal problems that could effect her mind alot and make her mentally unwell. We focused it on the young girl because we was targeting out piece at teenagers and maybe they have experianced some psycological problems (maybe not like our piece) but they could relate and if not they could see how hard it is for those who do.

3) What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?

Film4 distributes films on all scales. They have been known to pick up some films that havn't done very well but also some of the best films known such as "Slumdog Millionaire". Although our film is sort of Americanised, Film4 do seem to pick up on many of these types of films such as "Love Actually".

4) Who would be the audience for your media project?

Looking at our results from our questionaire and our research into thrillers, our target audience would be between 15-25 for both genders. This is due to our content being a little disturbing and younger people may be effected by it. I think people between this age could maybe relate a little bit more to the girls problem because maybe they have been depressed and suffered skitzaphrenia in their teen years. However, older people could also relate to this but maybe would'nt be as interested in this particular genre anymore.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

We began researching thrillers and seeing what conventions attracked us the most. We addressed our audience but createing a questionaire and used the results to match them with the conventions we most enjoyed to. We used these conventions in our piece to attract our audience. We used visual effects to set the scene and style of out piece but also to seperate the present time from the girls dream.

6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From our preliminary exercise, I learnt how to arrange good shots and get them to be very effective. This became a big part in our final piece as we needed the best angles we could and make them mean something everytime. Using the tri-pod sometimes became difficults as it would only go so high and only go so low, and became a problem but we worked around it and it became easy to work with after a while of thinking. The iMac computers were all new to me. I had no idea how to use the computer itself let alone the software! After a few lessons of just experimenting I became very adapted to it and could do things alot more easier, even if we did encounter a few more problems. The iMovie programme did let us down quite regulally. I don't know why but it made out preliminary task go really bad and it kept jumping and speeding up. We still do not know why that happened. Our final piece also took a while to edit as the programme often didn't let us crop our piece properly or add effects. However, we did overcome these problems and produce a good piece.

7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the product?

Looking back to my preliminary task, I have learnt that you should always leave enough time to edit because something could always go wrong. We even encounted this with our final product but still managed to sort it out in time because we knew something could easily go wrong. In our preliminary task we experimented with many angles but found that when it came to editing they did not link together very well. I now know how to link them together at the time of filming rather than later on when editing. I learnt about the 180 degree rule and how to keep continuity, even if it is stilll a hard factor! I need to express my ideas alot more because once I finally did everything came together. Next time I should pick my group carefully as one member did not turn up very much and it made everything alot harder.

1st May - Editing - Final Touch - Alice

Neelam was not in media today. However me and Shelley view our piece again and decided to change the voice over. We made a new one and edited the pitch of it to make it more higher to sound like a young girl. It is SOOOOO much better now.

Final Piece - Alice

Names For Our Piece

We came up with several names for our piece. Here is a list...

• Alice
• Emily
• Daisy
• Candy
• Polly
• Sarah

We chose Alice because for the voice over the "A" in Alice sounds like someone is screaming at first.

29th April - Editing

Yesterday Shelley, Neelam and myself completed our final piece. Ernest had made us 5 pieces of music and we chose the best one. It really goes with our piece well.

For our effects we added "black and white" and "aged film" onto the shots where the girl (I) am dreaming to make a clear distinction between the two times. We also changed the contrast of the clip where the girl is fidgeting in her bed. It made it go completely black when the lights goes off, and go a redish colour when it turned on. This represents the pain she is feeling within her dream. We also soften some of the shots because they were very dark and it lightened them up abit more. The last shot was also edited by changeing the contrast and we chose to make it light so give it a ghostly effect.

The first shot was a long shot. This was kind of our establishing shot to show the audience where the girl is. We could of used the front of the house but it wouldnt of looked very good. We then have a exteame close up of the eye moving around. It shows she is disturbed in her sleep as her own eyes are moving as she dreams. We then go to a midshot and see that she is holding her doll close to her. This shows she needs comforting and that she has a tight bond with the doll.

The shot of the dolls show her obsession for them. We later see they are on her bed so they are acutally her own dolls affecting her mind in her dreams. Maybe the dolls affect her mind in real life??

We used another long shot of the girl turning to show the whole of her body going crazy. This is where we see the are dolls on her bed. It shows her frustration and discomfort the dream is giving her.

A shot of the girls reflection in a mirror with smeared makeup is very disturbing. It shows she sees herself differently when she looks at herself. The makeup is really bad showing there is something wrong with her. Her head is tilted to give more of a disturbed look also.

We used the clip of the eye again but this time we put a closeup of my face after it to create kind of a grpahic match. The eye is moving and the close up my eye also moves giving. I like this part because we have just seen an eye, the audience is automaticly draw to the eyes on the closeup.

I jump up just on the beat of the music. We have a credit to seperate it with the clip where I get out of bed. The music goes well with this because as I jump up on the beat, its just the end of that sequence and then the music gets faster as i get up.

We used a disolve to link the shot of the girl getting out of the bed and then sitting on the floor. It was just to show there was a little bit of time where she did sit down and she didnt just magicly appear there. For this we used a high angle shot to give the represent that she isn't incontrol of herself and her mind. It then has a straight cut to her reflection. She is holding the doll. This is where we begin to see the dolls are affecting her mind; she dreams about them and even when awake, she sees herself holding her favourite doll in her reflection.

We cut down the music a little because at this point it then got alot faster and we needed it do die down a little. It goes back to the beat it started off with and there is another graphic match. This time it is more distinct. We have the natural face and then the made-up face. We have a voice over saying Alice that sounds really good!!!

[However, when doing the voice over and playing it, we did not hear the background noise. I uploaded it to youtube and relised that there is alot of background noise :( ]

Animatic - [Pictures and Writing]

Animatic - [Just Pictures]

This is our animatic of our final piece.

Questionnaire - Results

We gave our questionnaire to 20 people. The results are shown in the brackets below next to the choices.

1) Gender?

Male (10) Female (10)

2) How old are you?

11-14 15-18 (18) 19-23 24-27 28+ (2)

3) What appeals to you the most in a Thriller

The soundtrack (6) The cast (11) Director Plot (3) Others

Please state..................

4) What is your favourite sub-genre in a Thriller

Horror (12) Psychological (6) Action (2) Crime Sci-fi Others

Please state.......................

5) What was the last Thriller you watched?
The most common result was "Final Destination" with 4 results.

6) What mark would you give it (out of 10)? if the number is high, what exactly appealed to you
if the number is low, would could have been better?
On average, the viewers gave "Final Destination" 8/10. They enjoyed the action and the plot.

7) Who do you focus more on when watching a Thriller

The Protagonist (6) The Antagonist (14)


8) What do you find predictable/irritating when you watch any thriller?

Deaths (17) How the Antagonist is presented (3)

28th April - Editing

Today me and Shelley edited some more of our work after school. Neelam could not join us. We showed our piece to our friend Ernest and he agreed to make us some music. He has made some and has sent them too me so now all we need to do is add it to our piece. We arranged our clips and it look really good! I'm worried about the music not fitting very well but it should and then we will be finished!

I was reading back on my posts and I relised I havnt actually said what shots we have used so I will talk about them now.

When we recorded we done it backwards on accident. We done the shots of the girl in the mirror with the clown made-up face. We liked the side table with lots of little bits and pieces on it because it made it look like such an ordinary house and the little pots were very girly. We used many high angle, mid shots and close ups of these.

Shelley left the room to get a few more props and I done and extreme close up of my eye and also a close up of my face screaming. They became very useful in our piece and are some of the main shots that create the kind of skitafrenia effect. This makes it psycological.

The girl is haveing a nightmare and wakes up and looks in the mirror. Her reflection is holding a doll. It is the same doll she is sleeping with. However when she sits down she is not holding the doll as she has left it in bed. This is how we know she is having some problems. We used midshots and longshots for when she is awake and close ups in her dream. The closeups show the freakiness of her dream and how distraughted it is. The next few shots are closeups of her face. We tried to create a graphic match with these shots having her face natural and then with the makeup on.

24th April - Editing

Neelam did not attend our media lesson today but me and Shelley continued to edit. We continued to crop our clips by splitting at the playhead and it worked again! We completed it and then began arranging the order of clips. It is all coming together! I have been on www.freeplaymusic.com and found 3 sounds that we could maybe use. I have shown Shelley and she agreed that would suit our piece. We are going to continue editing in the week and hopefully the music should fit well enough and we don't experiance any more technical problems!

23rd April - Editing

Yesterday, Shelley, Neelam and myself continued editing. It worked for a while but then we had the same problem. However before experianceing it, we did get alot done. We croped alot of our clips and they look really good. We didnt put them in order as we wanted to crop them all to time first. We did not finish croping them all.

22nd April - Editing

On Tuesday, me and Shelley imported our work. We began to crop it but it wasn't working very well. We asked our teacher and he thought it was because we had imported it in large chunks and suggested we split them at the playhead. We done this and it worked. We also found it alot easier to crop it this way. However, the programme then began to go faulty again and began cutting our scenes we needed. We decided to stop and continue it the next day and hope just hope it works.

19th April

Yesterday Me and Shelley decided we to record some more footage. Neelam was not around so could not do it but as we haven't long left we thought it would be best just to record something. We changed our idea again as we could not find a male to film yesterday and we was in need of some footage.

We chose to go back to our mentally unstable girl and her dolls. However, we filmed at Shelley's house so we had a bedroom setting which made it more understandable. We used a variety of shots and used a mirror which gave really good effects! We have lots of high angle shots, low angle, close ups, extreme close ups. We tried to do a silhoette but I don't think it worked as well as we hoped.

Our idea was about china dolls messing with the little girl's mind. She is suddenly woken up and her lights start to flicker. She walks over to the mirror and her reflection is herself with make-up smeared across her face. The dolls are on her bed and in her reflection. I played the girl.

Me and Shelley both took turns doing the camera shots and worked together to decide where it should be positioned and how to set the scene. I think if we edit it really well it can be an exellent piece. However, we need to show Neelam and see what she thinks of it too.

We want to go back to the idea havin a series of shots like Se7en. Our piece makes sense but doesn't. It has that effect of confusin so the audience wants to carry on watching it to see what the dolls have to do with the little girl and why her reflection is different to her normal self. Hopefully we should not experiance problems with the continuity and it will link and look very psycological.

We have not discussed the music yet as we will need to edit it to see what kind of piece will suit it.

Questionaire

This questionaire was created by Shelley. I have read over it and I think it would be really good to use.



1) Gender?

Male Female

2) How old are you?
11-14 15-18 19-23 24-27 28+3)

3)What appeals to you the most in a Thriller?

The soundtrack The cast Director Plot Others
Please state..................

4) What is your favourite sub-genre in a Thriller?

Horror Psychological Action Crime Sci-fi Others
Please state.......................

5) What was the last Thriller you watched?


6) What mark would you give it (out of 10)? if the number is high, what exactly appealed to youif the number is low, would could have been better?


7) Who do you focus more on when watching a Thriller?

The Protagonist The Antagonist

8) What do you find predictable/irritating when you watch any thriller?

16th April - Meeting

Yesterday we had a meeting. We had agreed to film our new idea but it was raining. It was not the only problem, we didn't have a setting to film. Nobody had a shed that we were able to use or a rundown house.

We discussed it a little more but chose to do another idea instead. We want to still keep with the psyco man but have him in an area which is easily accessable. Coming up with various places, we chose on Hainult Forest. We thought it would be a good setting.

Now we know where we were going to film, we thought of ideas. We are going to have a psycotic man that attacks a women. However, it starts off with him digging a whole in the mud. He then has several flash backs.The first will be of him pulling the womens hair and her spinning around to reveal the horror in her face (long shot and close up). It then goes back to the man digging the hole (high angle shot). Another flashback of the lady slapping the mans face, he lets her go and she tries to run but falls to the ground (midshots). Again, it goes back to the man at the presant time and he's laughing (low angle shot). Here I suggested we use a graphic match and have the man laughing in the presant and then in his flash back. After the GM it then goes to the women as she crawls back feeling around for something to throw (long shot). We have not decided what it will be yet but i think an alchol bottle would be good to use. She throws it at the man and as it passes the camera, the shot fades back to the man whilst digging a hole. His face is angry this time and some blood runs down his face where the object hit him (close up and extream close up on the blood). The last flashback will be the man picking up the objects and hitting the women (long shot from behind the man). It then goes back to the presant and we see a hand coming out of the mud as it twitches (high angle). A photo of the women is the thrown ontop of the "grave".

The camera shots/I have mentioned are only what I am suggesting. They are yet to change.
The music will be deep and slow. Were not really sure what kind we are going to use, we will just have to look at some. We also want to add sound of thunder.
When we do the flash backs we will use flashes like lightening.
We have a few ideas of people we could use but we have yet to contact them. We are not sure when we can film as yesterday it rained and the weather is likely to be wet for the next few days.


At this point I suggested we used a graphic match. We will have him laughing/smiling at the end of the last shot and then in the flash back he will still be laughing as he approaches the women

We will see his wierdness threw his laughter as he hurts her. The final shot will be of her hand twitching coming out of the dirt and the man throwing a picture of the women ontop of her "grave".

The music will be very deep and

Wednesday 1st Meeting

Today Neelam wasn't in. Me and Shelley redrew our story board and came up with a better idea. We have decided to use lots of different shots like the opening of Se7en. We have planned a simple story line and worked around it. I don't tink that with our plan we will need a complicated story. Our shots and effects will be good enough to draw an audience, just like as in Se7en; we don't really know what it's going to be about but thats the best thing about it.

We thought of using an idea also like "Train Spotting". We liked the part when he gives a list of things you'll need to get off heroin. We began to think of ideas related to this but decided not to use drugs. However we do like the idea of a man on his own in a run down place like in the film.

We want to use the idea of a man who lives alone. He lives off cold beans and cigarets. We are going for a psycological problem. We are going to show pictures of girls he fancied during his school days, with hearts around them and then crosses. This shows his obsession. He will then have several flash backs of him killing them. I think with the right effects we could make it look really effective.

We was thinking of places to film. We wanted to use a run down place but as none of live in a run down home, we thought maybe a shed. It would be good to use a shed because if the man had visiters, they wouldn't go in his shed so it could be very secretive. Also we do not want to show the mans face. This would create alot of suspence.

The shots will vary but I think we may be tempted to use alot of close ups. We have to make sure that we do not do this. Shots the create silohettes will be great to use. Also low angles would make the man look powering.

We haven't decided on music yet and I'm not sure really what we will choose. We need a good pace to match the speed of our opening so we may need to choose they genre of music after we have edited.

Some Random Media Photos

I made this and though I would post it to show others what great fun we have doing our media course work.

Wednesday 26th

Shelley uploaded the footage due to me and Neelam on a school trip. Shelley said that it didn't make much sense so we have decided to go back to our orginal idea. I am very glad that we filmed it so early because now that means that we still have time to shoot something else. I think we may go back to our original idea of using different shots to set the mood instead of an actual story line, this way the continuity will not be as much of a problem. I personally like the idea of a drug user. It would be easy to shoot because we could just do lot of different shots and use effects to make them swirly, like the person is hallusinating. I also think it would be great if we used a shot from a camera fone, like the person is at a party surrounded by peer pressure. We will need to speak as a group tomorrow when we are all together.

Saturday 21st - Filming

Today we went to St Chads Park to film our piece. We decided prior to this to do it in the back of the park as we will get less disruptions. We set up our scene and Shelley began doing my makeup whilst Neelam set up the camera and tripod. The makeup went really well and i look really freaky!

Neelam worked with the camera and Shelley helped. We done a few shots of me playin with the doll until we relised we forgot a knife. Neelam went back to her house to get one as she lived the closest. Shelley continued filming me using different shots. We then had to stop because Neelam wasn't back as she was absent for about an hour because she needed to sort something else out, and we couldn't do anything else as we needed her with us.

When she finally arrived, she filmed Shelley walking past me and a few more shots before the "dead body" scene which was my turn to do the cinmetography. Fake blood was applied to Neelams neck and the tree. I done a shot of Neelam with the blood on the tree, but the blood wasn't very visable. This didn't matter though as I did another shot without the blood on the tree which was ALOT better and would be great to use.

I think we may have experianced a few problems with our continuity though. Although it was sunny, it was windy so some of our props kept blowing away. Also, we realised later on that when we used different shots, we hadnt put the props back the way they started so we may experiance a few problems when editing. Additionally our interruption where Neelam was away for some time, we forgot what shots we did and didn't do. Hopefully we can work our way around this and if not we may have to refilm a few parts. We have a used a variety of angles so they should connect alot better than out perliminary exercise.

Here is a slide show of few photos of our filming:

Wednesday 18th - Animatic

Today we uploaded our pictures onto the computer and made them into an animatic. This is a rough idea of what our thriller will be like.

Analyse A Clockwork Orange

• Starts with a close up on a mans face. He is looking straight into the camera. This shows he is the main character and we need to focus on him.
• Hes wearing long eye lashes on one eye. This gives a unsemetrical effect and a feeling of inperfect.
• The music is very sinister. It's dramatic but not to the point of anything to drastic.
• The camera zooms out to revele other men next to the main character. They are all wearing hats and suits. This shows a kind of group.
• The camera continues to zoom out we see a black room with white lady manikins. The only colour in the room is the manikins hair.
• On the wall, bubble writing is presented in a wavey position. This gives a feeling of hallusination and drugs.
• The is no editing because it is all in one shot.

I looked at A Clockwork Orange because I liked the eyelashes idea so thought I would check it out. However looking at it in a little more detail, i like the idea of the shot that was use. Im not sure we could make it work in our piece but i would like to try it because it gave a really good effect. The room was very bland with a few hints of colour. I think in our piece we should try to keep to that idea too, to show the contrast in feelings.

Friday 13th Story Board

Today Neelam was away. Me and Shelley attempted finishing the story board but ruined it so we started again. We finished it and took some photos of it so we can do our animatic. We need to add a few more scenes in because when we looked over it we thought of a few extra things we may need so it makes a bit more sense. I think our idea is going to be really good but it's going to be a little hard not to turn it into a thriller. Even so I know we will be able to keep on track and make sure everything makes sense. We need to make things really clear, for example we need to show that the girl is a bit mental and show that nobody can see the doll other wise people may get confused. I think we need to discuss it a little more and use shots that are definitely going to establish this.

Wednesday 11th - Story

Today we stared our story board. We decided to change our ideas.

We are now going to have a girl in her late teens with a mental age of a young child. She will be having a tea party with her dolly and stuffed animals in an isolated part of a park. There will be a flash back of a person snatching away a doll from her and throwing it away. A passer by spots her playing but can only see her with the tea set and a few stuffed animals around a tree that she is sitting opposite. The girl is talking 2 her hand. The girl thinks she is talking 2 her dolly, but the dolly does not exist to anybody else.

The camera goes back to the little girl as she picks up a knife from the table. She runs it across her lips and blood appears. It's like she is applying lipstick but it smuges and looks clumsy. She points the knife fowards and says "want some?" The camerea then gets a shot of a person sitting up against a tree but hunched over like a doll. The person is dead.

The girls make-up on one side of her face will be doll like (with rosey cheeks and long eye lashes) and the other will be like a broken doll (with stitches). We will show one side of the face at a time, starting with the nice side.The dead person will have a dolled up face to. It will be like the bad side of the girl.

We will use long shots when showing the isolation of the girl playing on her own and talking to her hand. Some P.O.V shots when the girl is looking at her doll. Close ups will be really good when we show her face because of the make-up! When showing the dead person I think a low angle would work well because the person is hunched over it will get a good shot of the face.

We will use music like bells and lullabye sounds to create a childish feel. It also can be very creepy. It will be good if we can make it go really wierd leading up to the face of the dead person and it would be like her mind going abit mental.

Preliminary Exercise - Harrassment

Below is our preliminary exercise! Finished!

Friday 6th Editing

On friday we added our details onto our work and then ran it threw. Looking back on it, we found that some effects looked abit rubbish so we took them off, tried others but decided they looked alot better without them. We spent the rest of the lesson trying to add our piece to our blogs but we have yet to figure out how to. Hopefully on Wednesday we will be able to add them!

Wednesday 4th Editing

Today we tried importing our footage again. It worked! We edited it again and it looked much better. Although some of it lacks abit, it was only due to our camera shots not the editing. We relised that we done lots of shots of the same things but never actually used different angles. When it came to editing, the shots didnt really link together very well so we need to experiment with alot more shots never time. However, I think our editing went much better this time now we have the footage working.

Preliminary Exercise Editing

Today we had the chance to edit our scene. It wasn't very successful. For some unknown reason our shots continuously jumped and our sound also crackled on and off. We decided to carry on editing it despite these issues because by the time we encounted these problems, we didn't have enough time to record again. We croped it and began adding transitions. I'm not sure if we are going to carry on editing or record another scene. We will have to discuss this. But today was a great experiance because it's best to encounter our problems now so we relise we need to leave enough time to edit our final piece incase we encounter these problems again.

Wednesday 25th Preliminary exercise

Yesterday we needed to refilm our preliminary exercise, experimenting with the camera. We changed our idea for our scene and made it abit more comical. It was much better this time because we changed our setting and got better shots. As we didn't have a lot of time to film, our acting wasn't brilliant and our shots weren't as steady as they will be in our actual film. However, we used a range of shots even changing them slightly by setting them at tilted angles.
Our short play was me spotting Shelley on a bench and getting over excited. I'm abit of a weirdo and freak her out.
Our shots were good because we used the basics such as long shots and close ups but when we did a tilted angle, it represented the distraught mind of my character. We used a zoom too, but i think we will have to see how it comes out when we edit it because it may not look very good.
Im very excited to edit our piece because it was really fun to film and i now want to experiment using the computers to edit it.

Idea

Our group decided that we liked the opening of Se7en and would like to use the idea of combining lots of different shots instead of haveing a actual storyline. It will be a psycological thriller, with the use of maybe drugs. We might have somebody commit a murder under the influence of drugs, and obviously not mean to. However we dont want to show the murder so we will use a soviet montage and let the audience use their own imagenation.

Analyse Of Salad Fingers - David Firth

Salad Fingers isn't a film but it uses the same techniques as Se7en so I decided to compare them.

• The edgey font that was used in Se7en is also used in Salad Fingers. It looks like a childs handwriting too.
• The shots are steady but the movement in the scene is very sharp.
• The music doesnt screech as much as in Se7en but it has the same repitition and eerie feeling to it.
• The mood is very disturbing too. The creature does very unnatural things that are not usual to society just like in se7en.

Analyse of Se7en - David Fincher

• No action in the credits. Just shots are used.
• Flashey edgey font used, looks like a childs hand writing.
• ECU are used. They show alot of detail of what the man is doing.
• There is never a shot of the mans face, but we still know that he has mental problems or something wrong with the way he thinks from the things we see him doing.
• The speed of editing is really quick, showing the state of the mans mind.
• The music is screeching, also gives the feeling of whats in the mans mind and a sense of irratation.

Friday 13th Meeting

On Friday we had to do a preliminary exercise.We had to experiment with the camera and do a little scene using lots of different camera shots. We needed to show we that we understood and could work with:

- Continuity; where a character always looks the same to show smooth and realistic transitions between various shots.- Shot/Reverse shot; where the camera capture two character exchanging dialogue to produce a conversation- The 180-degree rule; When shooting a scene, the camera must always be in the same position so when editing everything from the characters to the background surrounding will be moving in the same direction in different shots.

Neelam was working the camera but we all worked together to decide on the shots we used. We used long shots, pans, CUs, ECUs and POVs. It was going really well until we nearly finished and then relised that we hadn't changed our tape over so we need to re-record our scene again. Although it sort of annoyed us that we had done all that work for nothing, we don't mind re-doing it because it was fun and now we have a good idea of what we are doing we can act out abit better and experiment with a few more shots. I can't wait to edit it!

Sub-genres of a Thriller

Disaster Thriller - The protagonist's job is to survive and save as many people from a grim fate.
The disaster is usually a natuaral disaster but also can have disasters such as
a terrorist attack.

Psychological Thriller - Less action and more based on the mental condition of the protagonist.
They use complicated story lines so confuse the audience by showing them
the nonsence that the main character sees.

Crime Thriller - Evolves around the life of detectives, or criminals associated with criminal
events.

Techono Thriller - The use of technology or the dangers behind it such us cyber terrorism.

Action Thriller - Uses the race against the clock. It uses alot of violence and definatly needs an
antagonist. They use guns, explosions and large elaborated places for action.
They have elements of mystery and crime in them also.

Drama Thriller - Slow paced and contains alot of character development with a plot twist.

Eco-Thriller - The protagonist must avert or rectify an evironmental or biolgical calamity. Often
comes with enemies or obstacles.

Horror Thriller - Conflict between main characters are mental, emotional and physical.

Medical Thriller - The hero/heroine are doctors or medial personnels and are trying to solve a
medical problem.

Supernatural Thriller - Main characters with super natural powers.

Vertigo- Alfred Hitchcock

• The red used represents danger and passion. A shot of an eye is used givein more sense of putting foward emotion.
• The music repeats itself. It feels like a dream that won't end. It becomes worrying and feels scary.
• The swirls represent confusion, dizzyness and like the music, they repeat themselves giving a feeling of sickness and worry.
• The swirls begin to form a shape of an eye (a graphic match to the eye at the very beginning).
• The film begins with action.
• The music changes and sounds like a flock of bees. A man is being chased by police so it is as if the police are the bees.
• A reverse zoom is used when the man looks down to show a dizzy sort of feeling and scaredness.
• As he looks down the music screeches like his mind is screaming for him because hes too scared to make an sudden movements in the fear that he will fall.

Shaow of a doubt- Alfred Hitchcock

• The credits at the beginning are accompanied with a song called "The Merry Widow". The sound carries on as a sound bridge.
• There is a dissolve from the dancers to an industrial scene. There is a burnt out car and homeless people sitting by a river. This change of scene shows a contrast between social classes of some of the characters that appear in the film. The music becomes very dramatic.
• As the music softens, there is another dissolve to children playing in the street. Yet again it is a contrast to the run down area, as the children are happily playing. This shows the split between personalities.
• The camera moves to a shot of a door then a window and then into a bedroom. Once again the music becomes dramatic showing the importance of the character.
• The man laying on the bed is smoking a cigar. He looks almost as if hes dead. The cigar shows he has power and wealth.
• Low key lighting is used to show the darkness of the man.
• The camera moves to a shot of money on a table and then moves down to show money on the floor. The wealth is yet again shown but also that money isn't a problem for him and he doesn't care for it.
• A women enters the room and tells the man about two men who were looking for him. The man remains calm and uninterested even though we get the feeling the men are up to no good. We see the man is in a high position and has no fear for his life.
• The blinds are closed and the music begins again and the man sits up, as if he is coming to life. The music is very sinister, showing the man definitely, is not a good character.
• The dialogue does not really show what the man is like. However we do not need dialogue because the mise en scene represents the character very well.
• He smashes a glass (showing he's violent and very angry about something and we assume it's the men).
• He has cigars in his suit pocket showing he has a few, and that him smoking one isn't just a one off thing.
• There is a long shot showing the man and the other two men walking down the road. We see isolation from this and also that the men are interested in following this man.
• The music has a beat and is in time with the two men's footsteps, and they also walk in unison giving it a great effect. It's like they know what they are doing and they mean business.
• The high angle shot with the man looking down at the other two men shows he is clever and superior.
• Another dissolve from the silhouette to a black telephone shows darkness about the caller on the other end.
• A high angle shot of Santa Rosa (the perfect American town) is clean and is presented in high key lighting, making it look pleasant and is very different from the industrial area we have just seen.
• A mirroring shot is used when another shot of a different window is used but this time in the perfect town. This means there is a relation to the man at the beginning and somebody in this house.
• The music is more cheerful, complementing the atmosphere.
• A girl called Charley laughs and it sounds just like her Uncle Charlie. This is another use of mirroring. It's good because it shows the relationship they have.

Analysing 8Ball

• Lots of High angle shots to show how low the protagonist is willing to go to earn money
• The person playing pool is framed so we never get a clear shot of their face, giveing a feeling of suspense
• No dialogue gives this scene a good effect because we don't know what's really but we all use our own ideas to create a story line (soviet montage)
• The charcters were not acting, they just used shots and editing to make their film really effective
• The music was appropriate and gave a feeling of excitment
• A pan was used with a long shot at the end. It was good because it showed how close the antagonist was to the protagonist but give a feeling of distance like we are not close enough to help the victim

Thriller Conventions

• A crime at the core of the narrative (often murder, but not necessarily)
• A complex narrative structure with false paths & clues and resolutions
• A narrative pattern of establishing enigmas which with the viewer expects to be resolved
• A protagonist who is systematically dis-empowered and drawn into a complex web of intrigue by the antagonist
• Extraordinary events in ordinary situations
• Themes of identity
• Themes of mirroring
• Themes of voyeurism
• Protagonist with a 'flaw' which is exploited by the antagonist
• Titles often reflect an aspect of the pro/antagonist's psychological state
• There is often a scene near the end of the film in which the protagonist is in peril
• Mise en scene which echoes/mirrors the protagonist's plight

the thriller begins!!!!