Futher Costume Commentary

As mentioned before, the girl in our thriller wears a white dress to connote innocence and purity, contradicting what you see on the screen.
We also put a red cardigan over the white dress in some scenes, as this has the obvious connotation of blood and death. In the scenes where she is 'innocent' we had her wearing a red headscarf. Again the red connotes blood, but this was not our main intention for this detail. What we wanted to show was childishness. This happy, cheerful scarf is in absolute contrast to the black satin-y one we use when the girl is 'crazy'. 
We focused on quite a few details. For example, we decided to use a dark green nail varnish rather than the obvious black or red. Still a suitable colour, but not cliche.
We have left her hair wild and undone (we felt a sleek hairstyle wouldn't fit).
We had just simple make-up, as anything more complex could distract, although did have quite heavy eye make-up, as quite a few of the clips we use focus on her eyes. We felt that this would add emphasis.

Although neither the song, nor the actual content of the video is particallu relevant, I really like this style of montage. The way it seems to be almost random, yet all fits perfectly is a sense that I would really like to get across in our own montage in our thriller opening.

No Country For Old Men //Thriller Opening Analysis (better late than never!)

No Country For Old Men

Thriller Opening Analysis

This film begins with the sound of wind, followed by the title of the film. It is shown in plain white lettering that stands central against a plain black background. Having such simple title graphics tells the viewer that this is a mature, serious film, as for something such as a comedy bright, friendly-looking lettering is usually used. Lettering like this does not distract from what we are about to see.

The wind sound effect continues, and a non-diegetic voice over begins. Shortly following this, scenes of a desert/ sand dunes begin to be shown. In conjunction with this, the speaker has a heavy Southern accent, and is telling us of being a sheriff, we can safely assume that the location is the Southern States of America. These bleak, empty shots give the viewer a feeling of hopelessness. It feels as if we are lost.

After around a minute and a half of this, a policeman is shown walking a handcuffed man up to his police car. Here the voiceover continues, but it is accompanied by the diegetic sound of footsteps, car doors and the like. The policeman puts some kind of oxygen tank into his car. It seems that this tank belongs to the criminal, as it is unlikely that anything differing from the norm would be carried by a policeman. The camera angle then changes and we see another car behind the police one. It is obvious that this is the car of the criminal as there is no hint of anyone other around, apart from the two we have just seen.

All the shots at this point have been fairly dramatic and surprising rich in texture and colour for somewhere as bleak as a desert. A wide angle lens appears to be used, which adds to the effect of massive scale (and being lost).

Thriller opening practice piece

This is the first sequence of our opening, this sequence is just before the montage and is where we are going to have a few credits between clips! This will have a non- diegetic soundtrack added to it, we also wish to refilm the clip of both eyes closing and opening!!!

Lindisfarne - James Blake

Me and Billy really like this video and feel that the 'uneasy' atmosphere is relevant to our thriller. As well as this, there is quite a sense of mystery that hangs around this video. Several enigmas are raised;

Who is this girl?
What are they doing?
   - drugs?
   - are they a cult?
Why does the girl cry at the end?
   -is it because of what happened?
   -is it because she doesn't want to leave?

Are among some of the questions we asked.

We like this video because it's abstract, which is something we'd like to get across in in our piece, although we feel it's something that is quite difficult to convey, as it's a fine line between being abstract and being completely random.

The girl has a slightly innocent, yet rather haunted look. She also looks lost, and as if she is not entirely sure what is happening. We would like our girl to have this look.
The song is also strange, and builds up in complex layers, which is similar to what we wish to do with our soundtrack. There is no diegetic sound, only the non-diegetic song (apart from where the man appears to be singing the song), which we wish to do.

Location planning

.Close up of her putting makeup on - shot in a bedroom
.Montage - loads of random locations, They will be a mix of inside and outside shots
.Close up of her face, but in a dark room with a light-Shot in a dark room, e.g shed, wardrobe etc
montage  shot and location
.different body part shot - shower
.close up of her smoking - outside
.walking -field
. nervous hands - bedroom
. screaming - field
. close up for her self harming - bath room
. close up of her walking - road
. staring out the window - upstair window sill

Mise en Scene

Costumes.
For the montage of the girl scared, we will dress her in a white dress as this shows purity and contradicts everything else we have seen on the screen creating numerous enigmas within the viewers mind.
This will also allow the girl to stand out as a majority of the shots will be taken in a very dark room.

Opening Music for R2-47

The sound for the 'BloodShed' by group R2-47 I feel is very affective. At the beginning of the clip there is only a simple phone ringing sound effect that has been amplified. As this is the only sound it all of a suddenly becomes eerie and very normal and common sound creates enigmas and supposition within the viewers mind, like why is no one picking up or are they just ignoring it or maybe even they might be avoiding to talk to someone.
A tapping then cuts in running along side the phone ringing. I feel that this could of gone either way as it could of ruined the atmosphere that has been already created however I feel that this not the case and it actually leads the viewer t wonder who foot steps they are.
Both of these are then cut off quickly and sharply which again creates more enigmas simply with the use of sound.
A quiet and quite monotonous tune then slides in slowly building up and thus also building the tension within the audience.
I feel that overall the sound effects and music that are used in the clip work perfectly along side the camera work as the simplicity of the whole sequence allows the audience's mind to really escape and see and hear what ever it is they want to, creating there own enigmas and interpreting the film there own way.

Story Board

To get a visual idea of what we are planning to have within our opening sequence I drew up a story board of a few of the clips. I did not do all of them as our opening is created by using a montage of lots of little clips and it would be far too time consuming to draw up all of them, so I did a selection which I felt high lighted the points that would be within the sequences.
The first few are of the girl getting ready (The first photo)
Followed by the girl in peril (The second photo)

Although the drawings are not the clearest I feel that when it comes to shooting as long as we know the direction we want our film to go the best shots won't be over thought as a mentally unstable person would not plan there next move and if we did we would lose the realistic feel we are so desperate to achieve.

Thrillers & What not to do.

Names of Well Known Thrillers (Classic & Modern)

• Vertigo 
• Hanna
• Cache 
• Inception
• Prestige
• Sherlock Holmes 
• Red Riding Hood
• Woman In Black 
• Identity
• The Town
• Attack on the Block
• LA Confidential
• Momento 
• Black Swan 
• Limitless

All these thrillers, whether they follow the typical conventions or not, are very successful in the film industry. This due to there knowledge of what a thriller should include and more importantly what they should not. These are to ensure the film is not tacky, obvious or simply unpleasant for the viewer to watch and they are;

• No graphic gore or violence
• Juvenile music (unless it is used to create contrapuntal sound)
• Inappropriate humour i.e. dirty jokes
• Framing that shows the antagonist clearly 
• Simplistic plots
• Large or unsophisticated fonts for the credits
• Juvenile animations for the credits i.e. texting hoping around the screen

Certificate Rating

During the production of film taking into consideration the rating of the film is a very important process of the job, this is so not to offend any of the viewers and ensure the content is appropriate.

To make sure I did this job successfully I went onto the British Board of Film Classification.

As our film is a horror and therefore will inevitably include violence used to thrill the audience thus ruling out both both U and PG.

I then looked at 12 and 12a however again the classification said there should be little horror, bad language, no drug use and if there is it should not be dwelled on. Violence should also be kept to a minimal and in a thriller keeping to all these restrictions this would be hard to do without compromising the in depth story lines thrillers need to become successful and follow the conventions.

Moving on from this I then looked at 15 this became more promising for our film as strong language was allowed to be frequent within the film and the strongest of language is permitted if used in context, horror is again permitted, as is the use of drugs in the condition that they are not glamorised or promoted. Finally violence 'may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury.'

The only problem I found with this rating was the rules on 'Imitable Behaviour.' Within the BBFC's guidelines it says that 'dangerous behaviour (suicide, hanging or self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied.' Although this would be fine for the opening sequence as a film as a whole this may be difficult obey, so I think that we should try to keep the self harming down to a minimal within the film so we don't have to push it up to an 18 rating and lose a large amount of viewers for Silent Mind.

In end I feel 15 rating would be best suited for our film.

Planning the Credits- Fonts

When creating an opening sequence you inevitably have to think about the credits that will be running along side the miss en scene you have used and the theme you have chosen to portray and ensuring they work and done look out place playing together.

This means having to think about all aspects, like the font, so this is where I started.

I first looked at the simple fonts on the Macs we have at college and these where the ones I thought would be appropriate.

However after looking at these I found that although there were some potential in a couple there was not enough of a range to make a for definite decision in one of them, so I decided to do a bit more research on the internet looking at a wider range.

These were some of my favourites;

I got all of these on a website called 'My fonts'

Planning for Testing Footage

Plan of testing footage

These are the microelements we have chosen to use within the opening of our thriller.

·      Micro Elements combine in a build up of suspense

·      The protagonist will be seen in peril in one or more scenes before the resolution

·      Themes of identity

How we’re going to portray these microelements.

1.     Micro elements combine in a build up of suspense.

The music will be very distorted in order to make the viewer feel uneasy, this will then be added to by the mise en scene. Our character will be in a very confused state (shown by the distress in the facial expressions) She is also in a dark room, which has connotations of being sinister.

When filming this the camera will use an extreme close up of the character we are filming, this will make the scene very intense and won’t let the viewer escape from there discomfort zone. It could also makes the viewer feel claustrophobic in the same way the character does.

2.     The protagonist will be seen in the peril in one or more scenes before the resolution

In-between the montage clips the main character will be shown in distress. This will be portrayed by the camera shoots and the makeup we will use. There will be an extreme close up of the characters eyes closed and her eye makeup will be smeared in the way it does when a girl has been crying excessively. Another shot could again be a close up of the girl rubbing here arms, this is often done when some one is nervous alerting the audience that the character (for some reason) is feeling scared and/or unsettled. 

3.     Themes of identity

As within our opening the character is shown with two completely different personalities, one, which is ‘normal’, and one which seems very confused and distressed. This will be shown with a mixture of shots, half showing the character in blatant distress and the other half showing her doing normal things like showering or painting her nails. However within these shots there will be slight hints showing that the shots are not as simplistic and straight forward as the eye would have first seen it, for example when painting her nails the colours will be dark and not colours you would associate with young, happy teenagers.