Our project is to create an opening sequence to a thriller movie, in which Kiah Wauchope, Vanessa Silva and Zaiba Hakim blog frequently discussing various different aspects to their thriller throughout the project.
Since the majority of our foley sounds were of bad quality, we decided to use a sound effect from soundtrack, this was of a heartbeat, the heartbeat plays through out most of the opening. We had difficulties editing the sound with our video clip in Soundtrack, so we decided to export the sound into Final Cut Pro, and add it to the opening. We then added an instrumental to our remake using final cut pro. Through this short project, we've learnt how to edit sound in Final Cut Pro and SoundTrack.
In the original, they have used non-diegetic music and diegetic speech. The credits are shown in a title sequence after, where as ours are in the opening. The original title sequence makes it look as if the boy may survive, but the music in our title sequence assures the viewer that the boy will die. The original is more dramatic than our remake.
We spent our free time adding sound to the clip, and learning how sound in both Soundtrack and Final Cut Pro works. Since our foley sounds were not so great, we've learn that the next time we go out to record foley sounds we need clearer recording. We decided not to use any of our foley sounds, but did put them into Final Cut Pro to practice editing sound. We've decided to add a heartbeat and instrumental to the clip. Our remake isn't perfect, but if anything the important thing is the experience and practice that we gained out of re-editing this opening.
Group 3 have been chosen as star blog of the week, by Candi Media! We really appreciate this and will continue to maintain our level of work, through blogging, filming and editing.
We've also received this comment on our blog.
After reading a few articles on the site, it has helped to broaden our knowledge on some Japanese-Folklore, which will hopefully help to influence our thriller opening.
When in media my group often discuss possible ideas for our thriller , we've decided to go for an asain inspired theme thats going to give our thriller a bit of originality . However we're not going to let it completly take over our 2 minute film because not everyone who watches thrillers also watch asain thrillers.It's mainly hard core horror people who are looking for something a bit more exotic and guttsy. Through research on 'audience' and 'intertextuality' i've learnt that my group has to be very careful when it comes to executing the filming.
Ideas so far - We've decided that we want out main charatcer to be a female , we can then add intertextuality from asain movies such as a girl wearing 'White' as a symbol of death or having her hair cover her face and just showing one eye .
Film - Ringu
The girl in the Ringu is the what we're taking inspiration from however to make it more like an english or american thriller we would change the main girl character and chose someone with another culture , so an actress that isn't korean .
We would also change the setting , make it more british we only want to take a few things from the film 'Ringu' only include the correct amount of intertextuality
I like the thought of setting the thriller in a park near a church , theres something spooky about that type of setting which would defiantly add effect and appeal to our target audience.
However another setting we might consider is a forest , more or less in every thriller theres some mention or clip with a forest .
Even though this picture is taken during the day it's still very effective .
Intertextuality is when a film 'borrows' things from a film created before , they borrow things such as mise en scene , sound , camera angles or editing , the film psycho was made in 1960 and is famously known for it's shower scene.
The shower head used in the film 'Psycho' is exactly the same shower head used in the film 'What lies beneath'
In these two movies the bathtub are both white and so are the tiles , the shower curtain is the same and the main object that was borrowed was the shower head . In the film 'What lies beneath' the husband drugs his wife so she is paralysed then he puts her in the bathtub to drown . They didn't need to have to show the shower head that was unnessicary but they still included it which is exactly what intertextuality is .
Again as you can see the first screen shot is from the famous shower in 'Psycho' in which the weapon used is a big knife , the second screen shot is from the film 'Fatal attraction' which was released in 1987 only 27 years after the film psycho and as you can see they use the exact same knife , coincidence ? No it's intertextuality.
The camera angle is also very simular to each other
'Fatal Attraction'
In these two screen shots of 'Fatal attraction' and 'The Stepfather ' the bad guys are both climbing the stair case however the camera angles in the staircase climb in the film actually use the same camera angles .
Overall even though intertextuality borrows ideas from other films what it doesn't do is copy , each film tweek their own mise en scene or the camera angles so that the idea is there but it isn't the same .
幽霊(Yūrei) are classed on how they died, and their reason for returning to the living world.
Onryo - Vengeful ghosts who come back from the underworld vengefully, for a wrong that happened to them in their lifetime.
Ubume - A mother who died leaving young children behind, or in childbirth. Often she returns to care for her children and may bring them sweets.
Goryo - an aristocratic ghost, vengeful and often a martyr.
Funayurei - Died at sea, and sometimes resemble a similar for to mermaid/man.
Zashiki-Warashi - Ghosts of young children, often mischievous.
Samurai - Veterans of the Genpei war.
Seductress - A ghost who initiates a death love affair with a living human.
This is the story of an Ubume, who died while she was pregnant.
There are also the buddhist ghosts 'Gaki' and 'Jikininki' who have unfulfilled wishes, their are different to other classifications of 幽霊(Yūrei), due to their religious nature.
In Japanese folklore, the living can release their spirit as an ikiryō 生き霊. This is a ghost that can enact, while still alive.幽霊(Yūrei) often come under the term of obake, which means 'to change' However it has been claimed that 幽霊(Yūrei) haunt a particular personal, whilst obake haunt a particular place.
In our thriller, if we choose to have a 幽霊(Yūrei), we will most likely choose an Onryo as they are vengeful or a Goryo.
About: 幽霊(Yūrei) are analogous to western legends of ghosts in Japanese folklore. The name consists of two Kanji characters 幽 (yū) which means faint and 霊 (rei), which means soul or spirit. Alternate names for 幽霊(Yūrei) include 亡霊 (Bōrei) meaning ruined or departed spirit, 死霊 (Shiryō) meaning dead spirit, more encompassing 妖怪 (Yōkai) or お化け (Obake). Similarly to Chinese and Western 'ghosts' they are thought to be spirits that have been kept from a peaceful afterlife.
The traditional Japanese beliefs, state that all humans have a spirit or soul called a 霊魂(reikon). It is believed that when a person dies, the 霊魂 (reikon) leaves the body and enters a form of purgatory. It then waits for it's proper funeral and pre-funeral rites to be performed, so that it may then join its ancestors. When done correctly, the 霊魂 (reikon) is believed to become the protector of the living family and return every year in August. This is during the Obon Festival, the 霊魂 (reikon) comes here to receive thanks.
However if the person dies in a violent or sudden way such as suicide or murder, and the proper rites have not be performed, or if they're influenced by emotions such as revenge, love, or sorrow the 霊魂 (reikon) is thought to turn into a 幽霊(Yūrei) which can come back to the physical world. The 幽霊(Yūrei) will remain on the physical world until it can be laid to rest, either by performing the rituals, or resolving the emotional conflict it has. If neither are done, the 幽霊(Yūrei) will continue to haunt.
幽霊(Yūrei) appearance: at first 幽霊(Yūrei) had no particular appearance, but due to their popularity in theater and literature they soon began to have their own attributes to distinguish themselves from humans. 幽霊(Yūrei) are normally dressed in white, with is symbolic of a white burial kimono, used in the edo period funeral rituals. In Shinto, where white is a colour of purity traditionally reserved for priests and the dead. The kimono can either be a plain unlined kimono (Katabira), or a katabira with with Buddhist's sutras (Kyokatabira). 幽霊(Yūrei) generally have long dishevelled black hair. When in actual fact; Japanese woman traditionally grew their hair and wore i pinned up, it was let down for the funeral and burial. 幽霊(Yūrei) hands hang lifelessly, with their lower arms outstretched. Some 幽霊(Yūrei) lack legs or feet, similar to western ghosts. 幽霊(Yūrei) were also accompanied by 2 floating flames, these would normally be in unusual colours such as green, purple or blue.
Haunting: 幽霊(Yūrei) Usually stay in a specific location such as where they were killed, or where their body lies. However they may also follow a specific person such as their lover or murderer. They appear at a time when the veil between the world of the dead and living are at their thinnest which is believed to be between 2 and 3am. 幽霊(Yūrei) will continue to haunt until their purpose has been fulfilled or emotional burdens removed. There are some 幽霊(Yūrei), most commonly 怨霊 (Onryō)who are vengeful spirits, that persist in haunting even after their killer has been brought to justice.Yūrei will continue to haunt that particular person or place until their purpose is fulfilled, and they can move on to the afterlife. However, some particularly strong yūrei, specifically 怨霊onryō who are consumed by vengeance, continue to haunt long after their killers have been brought to justice. A famous haunting is of an 怨霊 (Onryō) called Oiwa. To exorcise a 幽霊(Yūrei) you can help it fulfil it's purpose, however with 幽霊(Yūrei) such as 怨霊 (Onryō) this isn't always possibles as they are filled with an emotional rage. Malicious 幽霊(Yūrei) can be repelled by holy Shinto writings , which must be placed on the head of the 幽霊(Yūrei) to banish the spirit. These can also be attached to the door way of a house to prevent a 幽霊(Yūrei) from entering.
As i mentioned in my earlier 'film audience' post , i came up with a simple questionnair to hand out to 6 people : 3 males and 3 females . One of the females would be older than 25 and so would one male , here are the results .
Here is an example of my questionnair , this one as you can see was given to 'Male' between the ages of '16-18' in this he picked psychological thrillers which defiantly backs up my point : "teens go for cross genre thrillers" . The rest of the male's including the one who was 25+ picked psychological thriller for the first question and 'Memento' for the last which all in all show that the male population do like stimulating films which challenge them intellectually . However with the females things were slightly different , the 25+ and one of the adult teens picked romance thriller and the film 'He loves me He loves me not' but one of the females picked psychological thriller as her choice and the film 'Memento' . Overall this shows that not all females like 'Romantic' thrillers and that the majority of 'film audiences' do prefer cross genre thrillers as they have a bit of everything they like .
I asked one of the females i gave a questitonnair to why she prefered the film 'He loves me He loves me not' and what about the picture attracted her .
This is what she said - "I picked this film because it seemed more romantic then the other film and thats the type of film i usually go for , I could tell it was a romantic due to the heart in the middle and because of the womans facial expression. "
When i asked her if she thought this film was a thriller also she responded - "No"
All in all i've learnt through research and my questionnair that the main stereotypes put onto society and gender groups are normally true , even though some female teens may not like romantic thrillers what counts is the majority and thats what film makers go for because the majority gets them bigger figures.
After researching film audiences, I have come to find that many teenagers tend to watch cross genres like horror thriller or action thriller instead of watching a movie solely based on the thriller genre. Although, anybody can watch a thriller, it is more male skewed in terms of adding much more masculine aspects. For example; the movie poster of the 2008 action thriller movie "Taken" can be seen to be aimed at males rather than females as you can see a man in the centre of the poster holding a gun and the colours surrounding him are dark colours, mainly grey and black which will automatically tell the viewers that this is a manly film. However, due to the old age of the man in the poster and the visible violence, the movie "Taken" is sure to be given a rating of the age appropriate 18.
On the other hand, to make horror or thriller movies appeal more to the female target market, film writers are now including romantic twists; this can be seen in the French movie "He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not"- (À la folie... pas du tout).
As you can see from the above opening of "He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not" the entire opening sequence seems nothing like a thriller, but more like a romantic genre based film. The director is obviously tricking the audience, thus captivating them into wanting to watch more expecting to be seeing a thriller. This thriller movie is female skewed, as its using the conventions of a romantic film instead of opening like any other thriller. Furthermore, it can be said that supernatural thrillers are also female skewed focusing on little children and sometimes even using them as the villain of the movie.
Today whilst filming in the Islington area, we had come across an area which may be suitable for our thriller. There is a church with a park right next to it, Seeing as both locations can be feared we thought it might be an idea when we begin our own thriller.
We also thought that if we have decide to have an 怨霊(Onryō)character, it would look quite scary for the character to be playing on the swings, this would portray a child-like innocence of the character... which may help to make the character more fearful.
Foley artists, recreate every sound in a video. This is done to enhance the sound, without Foley sounds, films would never be the same. In some shots there can be over 500 sounds from breathing to footsteps to heartbeats and the wind.
We wanted to record the sound of birds chirping.
Here Vanessa is creating a rustling sound.
We used this water fountain to create a dripping sound.
After editing the Arlington Road opening, we were giving a camera. Our task was to create foley sounds with the camera in 20 minutes. We weren't able to go far, but we did record a variety of sounds... We were lucky enough to capture the sound of a car door shutting. After capturing the sounds, we put them on to our hard-drive. We are going to add sounds to our rough edit of Arlington Road on thursday and friday.
The target audience for thriller films depends on what type of thriller it is , for example :
Teens :This type of audience usually go for cross genre's like 'Horror thrillers' or 'Action thrillers'
The thriller genre is slightly more male skewed , i believe men can take more of the gorry , grusome scenes where as women are more likely to go for romantic films or comedys . However this opinion is all based on stereotypes society place on the female and male gender . Overall though films have to be stereotypical so that they can market their filim to a specific target audience and sell they're product . Stereotypes usually contain only a grain of truth .
Cross genres:These types of thrillers e.g - 'He loves me he loves me not' which is a romantic thriller tend to attract a bigger female audience as they have the 'romantic' element to it .
Psychological thrillers: Films like 'Memento' are see as more intellectually demanding therefore the target audiences are for more of the ages 18 +
In this picture of 'Memento' the film it quite dark and mysterious theres defiantly a serious element from the design all the way to the actors facial expression . Due to all these factors i think it would attract and older audience .
The sixth sense is another Psychological thriller , yet again it has a very serious feel to it .
Research
For the research i made 6 questionnaires and i decided to hand 3 of the questionnaires to girls and 3 to boys to see if the result would live up to my research on what "target audience" would go for specific thrillers .
I also went on youtube to find film reviews on different thriller movies to see what gender the person was and to see if they were infact in their teens , 18+ or 21 +
Memento review -
Memento is a psychological thriller as research would suggest the target audience these films are targeted are 18+ and both female and male .
However i found another 'Memento' review clip
In this review it's another male however this guy seems to be around the 'teen adult age' so therefore it proves that the target audience for certain films and thrillers aren't always true.
How many suspence films were released in 2010 ? 2010
In total, how much did these suspence films take, gross, to the nearest million ? 42 million
Which genre of film had the highest gross in 2012 ? Action/ Adventure
What was the most popular family genre in 2010 ? Animation
Write a short paragraph about how the figures for "suspence" genre films compare with other film genres in 2010 ? The suspence genre figures have defiantly increased as the years went on , gaining popularity through famous actors appearing in the film to help promote it . For example if a film producer wanted to make a suspence film and target it to teens they might have "Justin timberlake" appear this itself would boost the figures. However a genre that has been declining is Sci-fi , on some years the figures are high for example when films like "avator" hit the screens the sci-fi figures were very high. All in all though the sci fi genre's figures are never consistant and seem to be declining.
In class, we did a rough edit the opening 'Arlington Road' using Final Cut Pro. First as an activity we were given the clips n a jumbled order, and had to find the correct order. Once we had the clips in the correct order we created titles. We only had a short time to do this, so we've only listed a few of the main actors, and at the end we've listed the 'most important people' such as the director, editor , and producer. This is to demonstrate that we understand the correct order of a title sequence, and its importance. We used white text and 'Lucinda Grande' font to keep everything consistent, and discrete. In addition to this we used the official directors, producers, actors etc names. We've made the directors credit stand out at the end.
This is a previous group of AS media students' work from 2007. Their thriller is called 'Fanatic'.
Firstly they introduce the distribution and production company (their sixth form). This looks unprofessional, as it appears to be a form they were meant to fill out, but they've tried to use it to create a professional look. They should have just used the logo. They also have a countdown.
The placement of the numbers looks awkward, and overly crowded, I feel that this causes the thriller to look less professional before it has even started, They use the correct bleeps but do not add a bleep at number 2. I think that they were aiming for this type of effect.
Next we see 'Bruna' a famous actress, we hear the paparazzi, calling her name and the snap sound whilst taking photos of her and she walks down the street.
They've used two of the same clip to create this effect. One over the other, with a Chromo-key or 'Green screen' effect on the pink jacket Bruna wears on the top track and then a black and white effect on the same track. However they haven't done it very well, As the red from the photographers hoodie is still showing
Bruna is in a town street, or somewhere quite busy. The Camera angle for this looks like it was done in one mid shot to stay continuous, since anyone could have chosen to walk past them. The shot is a little unrealistic, as the photographer is taking pictures of her with their phone.
Next we see a caucasian man watching Bruna's paparazzi moment through his TV. A wideshot is shown, we can tell that this man is a slob, he is drinking alcohol in one hand with clutter all over the room. The room is bland which suggests that he is poor. Also, at this moment music starts to play, it is of a heavy guitar instrumental, with some percussion, We then go back to the Midshot of Bruna, just to clafiry that he is watching her.
The camera goes back to the wide shot of the man, and then to a close up of the TV, where he puts down his beer, we zoom to the right and pan out slightly. We see him touch Bruna's hair, she shakes her head. She's tied up on a chair, with her hair up, and behind her is a collage of photos, all hers. Her white top has blood and dirt stains, her make up is also smudged down her face, and she has a black rope in her mouth.
I thought that the opening was strong up till this point, afterwards it begins to slack. They use the same song through out the thriller opening, and use the cut outs on the wall to show the credits which is quite creative.
They only show Bruna's hands tied up once in a close up, and then go to a picture of the rope. It looks unprofessional to see the rope like this, especially since they have tried to place a sheet of paper behind it. They also show sinks, and other objects with blood dripping through them, they've also shown what we can assume to be the male character cutting up news papers, and creating letters with them.
They've tried to show Bruna from a few different camera shots and angles, theres a long shot and a medium close up shot, which pans upwards.
The thriller doesn't have many effects after this, they use a few black fade outs, and dissolves. We don't see many other objects through the rest of the opening except a book, with scribbled notes on it. The opening ends with the audio and visual fading out to black.
Our thriller might take inspiration with this, by using dark eye make up, like theirs. However I think we should be more consistent than their thriller. They should have shown her pink jacket on the floor, or underneath the chair, since it made no relevance to highlight it in the first shot, and then never seen the pink jacket again.
Next we see 'Bruna' a famous actress, we hear the paparazzi, calling her name and the snap sound whilst taking photos of her and she walks down the street.
They've used two of the same clip to create this effect. One over the other, with a Chromo-key or 'Green screen' effect on the pink jacket Bruna wears on the top track and then a black and white effect on the same track. However they haven't done it very well, As the red from the photographers hoodie is still showing
They only show Bruna's hands tied up once in a close up, and then go to a picture of the rope. It looks unprofessional to see the rope like this, especially since they have tried to place a sheet of paper behind it. They also show sinks, and other objects with blood dripping through them, they've also shown what we can assume to be the male character cutting up news papers, and creating letters with them.
They've tried to show Bruna from a few different camera shots and angles, theres a long shot and a medium close up shot, which pans upwards.
The thriller doesn't have many effects after this, they use a few black fade outs, and dissolves. We don't see many other objects through the rest of the opening except a book, with scribbled notes on it. The opening ends with the audio and visual fading out to black.