New Plan

After class discussion we realised our past idea had a too complex plot to fit into two minutes. We decided to completely change the idea which gave us the chance to use of new knowledge on concepts and conventions of thriller films.

Shots

1)    Close up of daughter sitting in the back of the car. Camera will be positioned just over the fathers shoulder.

2)    Extreme close up of fathers hand on the wheel, great focus on watch.

3)    ¬Black and white flash back¬ father covering his daughter’s mouth with his hand. Emphasis on the watch.

4)    Low medium/close up of girl exiting the car to go to the toilet.

5)    Close up of girl entering the toilet.

6)    Close up of the father looking at his watch, but not seeing his face keeping an enigma of his character.

7)    Extreme close up of girl sitting on the toilet.

8)    Close up of her phone with ‘999’ dialled.

9)    Low close up of the daughter’s feet under the toilet door- panning slowly to the father’s feet at the entrance of the toilets.

10)                      Close up of the father’s hand slowly opening the door.

11)                      Over the shoulder shot of the father holding the daughter down (smothering her)

12)                      Low close up of her feet shaking and then slowly becoming motionless.

Thriller shot list

Point of view tilt shot fading in and out of focus, this is done to emphasise the idea of disorientation and confusion. Also placing the audience the characters shoes, relating with the character.

low medium/close up on the girl surrounded by rags and covers. To help establish the situation.

There will then be a medium worms eye view shot looking up at the male. The generic conventions of a thriller will be challenged because we are shooting in the day in a wide open car park. The ambient light will cause the mans face to be very dark which creates an enigma and builds suspense.

There will be a low long shot to establish the surroundings. Inside the shot will be the two people opposite each other, the shot will slowly zoom in.

There will be a medium close shot reverse shot on the girl and the males Silhouette.  The shot will slowly zoom into the eyes of the girl until it is an extreme close up and the music is at its peak.

There will then be a low medium shot of the girl running.

Then an over the shoulder shot to help the audience feel the suspense and put the audience in the charecters position.

There will then be a point of view shot from the males point of view watching the girl enter the toilets.

Whilst inside the toilet we will attempt extreme close ups to exaggerate the feeling of claustrophobia, also confined spaces are a common thriller convention.

A point of view shot from the girl attempting to lock the door will refer to the murder scene in ‘Witness’. But also there will be cut shots from the males point of view running towards the toilets.

As the lock slams on the door then there will be a close up of the door as the man beats it. The tension will be at a high and then there will be a close up of the girls hands shaking slowly opening the lock to a point of view shot of the man standing in the door way looking very powerful and threatening.

Introduction of character

Jackie Brown (1997)-Quentin Tarantino

In the title scene Tarantino uses camera angles to help establish a character. The first shot is a medium/close up follow shot of Jackie Brown. The length of the action is over three minutes, as Jackie moves it looks as if she is floating which re-enforces her elegances and effortless nature. Also and she walks her back is always straight which show her resilience and power within society. Another medium low shot helps represent her power within the air force because as a stewardess she has the ability to smuggle money in and out of the country.  There is another close up shot on Jackie’s face with the back ground out of focus which helps show how she has more importance than others in the mise-en-scene.

Her costume makes her stand out from the boring background and with the low medium shot it signifies the status and moral superiority.

Jackie’s strong background and high status juxtaposes the next medium close up of Ordell and Louis slumped on a sofa which makes them look like grungy bums. An image of the statue of liberty holding a gun appears on the screen and this signifies how America is controlled by guns and power. the shot is then a close up of the T.V with half naked women holding guns which helps show how America is run by males and females are objects.

There is a shot in the film which has nearly every generic thriller convention in it, which helps re-enforce the fact that the film is a thriller. There is the dark ambient lighting which creates cold feel to the mise-en-scene. There is the worm’s eye view from the inside of the trunk, and also the use of guns. Ordell’s dark clothing also signifies his dark personality. Ordell persuades Beaumont to enter the trunk using food as bait, this signifies the ‘fat’ America, and so this film is still relevant to the modern issues surrounding society.

Differences between Ordell and Louis

When Ordell kills Beaumont there is a high long shot to make the audience feel as though they are peeking over the fence. The long shot was also used to show Ordell’s distance from moral normality, he is very discrete with his killing. The black car fades into the dimly light space, this is similar to the scene in Essex Boys when Jason drives the white van to the marshes. Both characters are at home in there killing domain and the mise-en-scene reflects them as a character.  The wet floors are another thriller convention skilfully used to reflect the non-ambient lighting which gives a dark feel to the scene. Ordell’s killing seemed planned which reflects his cool, calm and collected personality, Louis on the other hand is very on edge and unpredictable. Yet I think that the darkness of the yard shows how Ordell hides his true personality behind a smoke screen of money and bling whereas Louiscannot cover his emotions which are uncoverd to society when he shoots melanie.Louis on the other hand is very on edge and unpredictable. When he kills Melanie it goes against all of the common thriller conventions. Louis shoots her in broad daylight, in a unconfined car park in clear view of the public. The tension is built whilst Melanie keeps moaning and groaning until she makes Louis snap and shoot her once in the chest and once in the head, which shows the slim similarities between Ordell and himself because they both killed there victims in the same way.

  

Preliminary Evaluation

What planning did you do? How was this useful and how did you change from your plans?
Before we went shooting we drew up a story board plan and a script, this was to make sure filming ran as smootly as possible. The use of a story board made it very easy to visualise the transitions between shots and what the over all film would look like. The script is very useful when organising shots also because it lets you know when it would be suitiable to change camera angle using the '180 degree rule' and shot reverse shot. having the plan set out made it easier also ibn editing, because i didnt have to decide between a selection of shots, i only had one, this mnade editing very fast. we did not plan the suitavbility of the filming destination. this became a problem when we filmed a talking scene and couldn't hear the conversation due to back ground noise.

What camera skills have you developed? How confident are you with using the cameras, and has this confidence changed during the project? Give details of specific camera skills/techniques you have developed/improved, and include areas where you lack confidence/need to improve.
During the duration of the film i learnt that shots can have more of an effect if the are positioned differently, so instead of an over the shoulder follow we we used a low close up on the feet walking. It became aparant that low follow shots are very difficult to keep stable without a tri-pod. As you can see in the perliminary task the low follow shot is very shaky. we attempted using a skateboard to help stabalise the follow shot but unfortunatly it made to much back ground noise.
I found it very hard to get to grips with the '180 degree rule'. I made the mistake of crossing the line, and causing the shot to look messy and confusing to the viewer.

What editing skills have you developed? How confident are you with using the editing program? Give details of specific editing skills/techniques you have developed/improved, and include areas where you lack confidence/need to improve?
Whilst editing me and ruby experimented with slow mo for the first two opening shots, but it made the piece look messy and unorganised. the one thing i found hard with editing was cutting the seperate shots well enough to make them flow into each other without awkward pauses. After practice i can use the editing software to a suitiable standard, but i would like to learn how to adapt the image and use different effects effectively.

THE RULES

180 degree rule – Like the filming seen on a football match, all filmed from one side and the shot includes all characters and scene. great example in this from 0:44 onwards

Shot/Reverse Shot – Shot of one person, then a shot of something else then returning back to the original shot.

Over the Shoulder Shot – A shot which is taken in a conversation over the shoulder of one of the characters. As if the camera was the character talking. this shot is adapted beautifully in "28 Weeks Larter" with a reverse over the shoulder shot.

Wide, Close Up, Extreme Close Up – A transition through a variety of shots to give contrast and fast paced action.

Action, Match on Action – The action matches the transition of the camera.

Cutaway – Cutting from one shot straight to another.

Eyeline Match – Eyes of each of the characters are level with one another.

Noddy – A reaction shot which doesn’t involve speech

Explain differences between Tinker Tailor and Animal Kingdom

The production of Tinker Tailor is very different to that of Animal Kingdom. With Tinker Tailor it was produced by Working Title. Working title are in partnership with Universal who would let working title make any film they wanted under  twenty five million, with Tinker Tailor the budget was twenty million but Universal claimed that the film wouldn’t sell to their American market so did not fully fund the film. Animal Kingdom was co-funded by the Australian government, Film Victoria, Screen NSW and Show Time Australia, which in itself makes Animal Kingdom an independent film because it wasn’t funded by any of the ‘big six’. Animal Kingdom had many unknown actors like James Frenchville, this was done to bring new actors under the spotlight. Guy Pearce is one of the only well know actors in the film, this brought attraction to the film from a pre-existing audience. In the trailer it was apparent that the first thirty seconds was filled Guy Pearce narrating, this was done to sell him as an actor and also the film.  Tinker Tailor was heavily filled with famous actors from the likes of Gary Oldman to Benedict Cumberbatch. With Tinker Tailor the production was horizontally integrated. The film was made by working title, funded by Universal. Universal is one of the ‘big six’ production companies in the film industry; it has major cross media ownerships from the likes of film funding and production to its very own record label. In animal kingdom there was very little horizontal integration, the funds came in from many different film companies. Tinker tailors whole production line was owned by Vivendi, this means that the money distributed circulated around which was very helpful because there was no trouble with extra costs and fees.

Tinker Tailor had a previous TV show in 1979 which was a very slow paced spy series, this slow paced feel has been transferred into the movie. The TV series helped create a pre-existing audience for the film which helped gain attraction. This meant that the marketing for tinker tailor could be very mysterious with its advertisements because people already understood the main themes and plot. This meant there were no flashy posters or trailers over advertising the film. Working title did this to form an enigma around the film which would gain attraction. There was great effort put into creating Facebook pages and twitter groups to target the film at their main audience. Gary Oldman also appeared on soccer AM a week before the film’s release date in the UK, this was also done to build a hype around the film and gather a male orientated audience.   To contradict Animal kingdom had to put in extraordinary efforts to sell itself to the public. In the trailer the film was advertised as a thriller with the use of dim ambient lighting and gritty images, but also it was advertised as an action with the intense cuts between shots and over use of a ticking timer which created immense tension. This was purposefully done to attract a wider attraction to the film and sell better to the mainstream audience with is action aspects. Animal Kingdom was also screened at the Sundance film festival and won the award for best film. Animal Kingdom had an existing audience from word of mouth after it won the award, and it imbedded itself as a classic in the indie film scene.

Tinker tailor has been heavily distributed since its release, it has made £13,743,483 alone in the UK and is due to be screened in sixteen other countries by 2012. This great global distribution is due to the fact that Working Title is horizontally integrated with universal who own focus features. Focus features is an extremely successful company in America which have distributed films like Atonement, Pride and Prejudice and also In Bruges to the American market.  Working title are also in partnership with Optimum releasing which is a very successful distribution company in Europe. Animal kingdom was in partnership with Optimum releasing to help sell the film to the European market and also  Madman Entertainment which sold the film in Australia. The budget of the film was $5,000,000 dollars and the box office return was only $6,019,846. This little profit was due to bad distribution to cinemas and the American market. Over 50% of films profit is from the American film market. Tinker Tailor had amazing success due to the great effort put into using new technologies to sell the film. For example a Facebook page was created which people would like and then there friends would like. This was done to create a snow ball effect.

Tinker Tailor and Animal Kingdom were both filmed beautifully, the cinematography was outstanding. This is very common in indie films, there is great attention to detail in the ways the film is shot and how it portrays the directors ideas. Animal kingdom targets many social issues which means people can relate to the film better than they can to Matt Damen killing off bad guys. A common component to independent films is that social or moral issues are addressed, and this was done amazingly in Animal Kingdom. 

The Ways That Films Are Adapting Their Use Of Technoligy To Attract Audiences.

The film industry has gradually introduced features in there cinema which will increase the public’s participation in watching films outside of the home, by doing this they have brought the home to the cinema. In the 1950’s over 45% of the public went to the cinema on a weekly basis to watch films, this was because many families didn’t own televisions then. But now it the twentieth century nearly every house has at least one television. Mainstream cinemas like Vue and Odeon have now introduced luxury seats which are made to feel like a sofa, this is because viewers complained about uncomfortable seats as a reason to why they didn’t visit the cinema. Other cinemas also offer beanbag chairs, this idea was used because it has become apparent that the amount of 14-18 year olds visiting the cinema has decreased over the last ten years so this was an attempt to regain the younger audience’s attention. Personally the bean bags are cheap and appealing but extremely uncomfortable.

Cinema is approximately 144 years old, which is very old. Movie makers realised that people were getting bored of their movies; this was because all of their films became formulated and nothing new was being made for years. But then a group of people came together and invented three dimensional films. The effect of 3D films was that you felt asif you were in the movie! A movie called ‘Avatar’ written and directed by James Cameron sold out amazingly. In America on its release weekend it racked up $77,025,481 and over all the gross profit was $2,039,472,387. One of the main elements of this films success is 3D; people went to see Avatar for the experience of 3D not the film alone. Over 33% of the cinemas income came from 3D movies last year alone. To me 3D films is a novelty item that film makers are using to earn a large profit from their movies. Soon 3D will fade out of popularity, this has become evident over the last year, there has been a decrease of 20% of the film community viewing 3D films.

There are 528 theatres that use IMAX screens; this is because the quality is outstanding, families could purchase the film on DVD for half the price it would cost to see it at the cinema. Logically people would wait for the DVD, but now cinemas show movies in the highest quality possible it may persuade people to watch it in the cinema. Most large cinemas have tried to fit as many seats in a theatre, not only it allow more people to view the film but also to create a better atmosphere in the audience which makes watching films an enjoyable experience.

Over 97% of the cinemas in the U.K offer teen tickets; this is a great way to attract the younger audience because before they were put off by the high ticket prices. This is beneficial to the cinemas because over 15% of the people that go to the cinema are teenagers. Many high end multiplexes show movies at teenagers and families because they know they will make a profit. Personally as technology has developed  cinemas have clutched at the chance of making money, pushing aside good challenging movies and showing easily consumable movies like ‘Mr. Bean’ and ‘spy kids 3’.