Health and Safety

 These are just some of the health and safety issues that we had to face. The cellar that we used was underground and had doors that had to be latched open so when we came to film we had to ensure that no one was going to fall down the massive hole in the floor so we had bright yellow caution cones surrounding the gap so that staff and students were aware and had been given warning.
Another health and safety issue we faced was the steep stairs and we had to ensure that we would not fall down or trip whilst using them because there wasnt a hand rail we could use.

There was an issue with lighting that we had to face in the cellar so to overcome this issue we had used a lamp and due to the lack of sockets in the cellar we had to use an extension cord to be able to had the lighting down in the cellar. This proved a health and safety hazard because we had the cable leading up the stairs which tripled the hazard of falling down the stairs.

The stalker board!

Stalking our victim...

Our actress Emily Corning, gave us permission to take pictures of her while she was in school. However, we made sure that the pictures were taken in a way that suggested stalking by e.g. hiding behind a bush. We took many of these and used them on the board that our protagonist would have as a shrine of her. These are some of the many pictures we took of her.

 Other pictures we used were given to us by her or were taken from her facebook page (obviously with her consent).

Possible location shots

This was an alternative room that we had thought of using if we could not get hold of the dark room or the cellar. We thought we could have replaced the images that were already on the wall with the stalker pictures and had the place as a sort of studio where the protagonist shrined his victim. 

Storyboard

Our shot List

What went well and even better if about our blogs.

We asked our classmates to evaluate our blog on what went well (WWW) and even better if (EBI) so we can take the criticism and make our blog better.

Planning our storyboard.

Mise en Scene

Costume

Character A - Antagonist: Wearing a black t-shirt and baggy jeans with grey socks when inside his house to develop the photos. This represents him trying to hide that he is stalking character B by wearing baggy clothing. The dark colours symbolise how his mind is dark and he has a lack of bright, positive feelings other than the possession he holds over character B. The baggy clothing suggests that he is trying to cover himself up as he is not completely himself until he has the relationship he wants with character B.

Character B - Protagonist: She will wear pastel colours which indicates her vulnerability. The paler tones to her clothing suggest purity and contrast with the black tones  worn by the antagonist. This is a theme which is common in the psychological thriller genre conventions.

Character B (younger) - The young girl will wear a pale coloured frilly dress which will represent the purity and innocence the girl holds from a young age when she is around character A.

Character A (younger) - The young boy will wear a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to symbolise how he has always been different to other children and does not change throughout his life.

Props

- Collage board filled with photos, writing and titles.

- Camera which Character A will use to take photo of character B.

- Scissors

- Newspaper

- Polaroid photos

- Handbag

Location

- Cathedral, outside when character B is walking up path.

- Cathedral, inside when character B is praying and character A is watching.

- Grassed area by canal in Guildford.

- Art room/Cellar (undecided)

Setting

- Dark Cathedral

- Low light room (art room or cellar)

- Grassed area for children to play

Lighting

- Dark lighting for cellar/art room

- Dark lighting for outside cathedral

- Dim lighting inside cathedral

- Black and white (but bright) for children playing.

Proxemics
- Children in flashbacks are close together
- Character A and B when older are far apart as Character B does not know that she is being followed by Character A.

Understanding camera shots/angles/movement in general - The Talented Mr Ripley Opening Sequence

A close up is used at the beginning of the opening sequence featuring a man on a beach putting on his shoes. This tells the viewer that they will be shown all of the minor details of the storyline throughout the film.

The camera then pans up to show the rest of the man’s body, revealing that he is only wearing swimwear. This confuses the viewers as shows are not normally worn at the beach, this works well with the confusion of a psychological thriller film. The camera cuts to a very long shot, showing the man in his entirety and not cutting any part of him out. This also sets a busy scene of all the people around him. The camera pans round to follow him down to the sea. This gives the idea that he is being watched. The camera then continues to follow the man but as he starts to run the camera also starts to move faster but weaving in-between deck chairs on the beach. This adds to the idea that he is being watched but also increases the pace of the sequence.

As the man stops in the water holding his shoes, the camera also stops behind a deck chair. We see that the man feature in the scene is then shown in amongst a large number of other people. This symbolises how normal the situation is and allows the audience to relate to the situation.

The shot the cuts to a medium close up to show the people behind him before he runs back up the beach to the people that are featured behind him. The camera zooms in slightly as he walks back up the beach but is not as fast as the man walking so it shows the full length of his body again.

The scene then switches between close ups and two shots between himself and the 2 people he is talking to. This includes more characters that are going to be followed in the storyline. The use of intimate shots of the characters faces tells the audience that they will create a close connection with them.

Added to this, is the repeated use of a long shot which features all 3 characters. This suggests that their relationships with each other will become stronger as the storyline progresses.

Collage of iconography

Nine frame structure analysis of film opening - Momento

Poster Analysis - Red Lights

I have chosen to analyse the poster for the film ‘Red Lights’. The obvious choice of red, yellow and orange colours in the images shown connotes danger and warmth. This could symbolise the close connections between people but something negative happening between the people. The close up images of the characters faces suggests that they will be closely followed throughout the film. There are a variety of shapes the images have been cut to, this could connote the limitations the characters have with their aim in the film. Each character is looking at something but it is unclear what as it is not show in the image, this suggests that there is an aspect of ‘fear of the unknown’. The use of a black background suggests that the film will be primarily dark and difficult to understand. This fits with the typical conventions of a thriller. The black background that runs through the gaps between each image suggests that there is something separating each sub-plot in the storyline connecting to create an understanding from the viewers. The white font suggests that there is a sense of purity and simple base to which the plot is set to allow the audience to relate to it. However, the colour red is used in the title for ‘LIGHTS’ suggests that everything the audience relates to could become corrupted as the dark colour connotes danger. The bold and plain font suggests that there is a sense of normality that each character returns to at some point during the film.

Typical Synopsis

Title analysis

Memento (By Christopher Nolan) Opening titles

The actual title of the film (that comes before the other titles), is larger than the other titles but uses the same font and colour. However, the letters are more separate, taking up more space on the screen and creating a bigger difference between the main title and the other titles.

The titles at the beginning of this film are quite simple, and use a light colour that helps them stand out from the background. The light colour connotes pureness and innocence which actually contrasts the nature of the film as well as linking with melancholic music that accompanies the opening. The letters are capitalised drawing the attention of the viewer and emphasising an urgency or importance. They have also been centred on the screen so that they are essentially not hard to miss. 

The titles fade in and out very simply and at a steady pace. Simplicity can be effective because it creates seriousness and leaves the viewer with less to expect. 

What the opening sequence contains:

• Distributors – New Market and Summit Entertainment
• Production company – Team Todd
• Film Supervisors
• Name of Film - Memento
• Names of stars and actors
• Casting Directors
• Music Supervisor
• Costume Designer
• Editor
• Production Designer
• Director of Photography
• Co-Producer
• Co-Executive Producers
• Producers
• Screenplay Supervisor
• Based on the story by…
• Director

Iconic sounds

Wierd Pychotic Laughing

  Heavy breathing  

  Voice-overs

Rain (weather is always gloomy)

Enhanced sounds (detail is very important, so this genre usually makes all the minor sounds louder)

Heartbeat- used sometimes to increase tension

Group discussion we had in the lesson

History of the Thriller genre (focusing on Psychological Thrillers)

The genre of thriller is used in literature, film and television programming with the use of suspense, tension and excitement as main elements. They heavily stimulate the viewer's moods making them feel anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and/or terror. The most common use of subgenre to thriller is mystery, crime and psychological thrillers, however there are also many other subgenres.

History in Literature

• The Little Red Riding Hood (1697) is an early example of a psycho-stalker thriller as an innocent girl is convinced by a wolf to take the long path while he reaches her grandma's house and eats (or hides) her. The ideas of the wolf's stalking and manipulation are conventions of the psychological thriller genre.
• The Count Of Monte Cristo (1844) is a swashbuckling revenge thriller in which the protagonist is betrayed by his friend and is sent to a prison in southern France from which he later escapes and seeks revenge. The story uses conventions such as revenge, power and betrayal which relate to the thriller genre.
• Heart Of Darkness (1903) is a first person within a first person about a man who travels the who travels up the Congo River in search of an enigmatic Belgian trader. Layer by layer, the atrocities of the human soul and man's inhumanity to man are peeled away. This could be seen nowadays as a psychological thriller because of the psychotic theme and conventions it contains.
• The Bourne Identity (1980) is one of the first psycho thrillers to be written in a modern stlye. It tells the story of a man with gun shot wounds who is found floating in the Mediterranean Sea, and when taken to shore he wakes up with Amnesia. In look for his identity, the conventions of ambiguity, and the unknown are shown quite clearly. These are main themes of the psycho thriller genre.

History in film

1920s-1930s

• Aflred Hitchcock's first thriller was the third silent movie The Lodger (1926) which was a Jack the Ripper story. This film was a psycho thriller because it dealt with a psycopath murderer and so had a typical story line of this genre. Hitchcock also produced thrillers such as Blackmail (1929)- his first sound film, Murder!, Number Seventeen,The Man Who New Too Much. These were all suspense films.
• The chilling german film M (1931) directed by Fritz Lang, told the story of a crminial deviant who preyed on children.
• Other British directors, such as Walter Forde, Victor Saville, George A. Cooper, and even the young Michael Powell made more thrillers in the same period; Forde made nine, Vorhaus seven between 1932 and 1935.

1940s

• Hitchcok continued to perfect his recognition in the suspense-thriller genre with films such as Foreign Correspondent (1940) and the oscar winning Rebecca (1940)  about an  unusual romance between a young woman and an emotionally distant rich widower.
• Gaslight (19440 was a psychological thriller directed by George Cukor that told the story of a husband that plotted to turn his wife insane in order to aquire her inheritance.

1950s

• HItchcock then added colour to his thrillers,when he prodcued classic such as: Strangers on a train (1951), Dial M for Murder, To cath a thiefl, Vertigo, and North by Northwest.
• Niagara (1953) by Henry Hathaway starred Marylin Monroe and tells the story of a woman who plotts to kill her husband.
• Spy films were also quite popular in this decade.

1960s

• After Hitchcocks classics in the 50s, he released a shocking and engrossing thriller called Psycho (1960) about a loner mother-fixated motel owner and taxidermist. This was an iconic film because of the famous shower scene in which a woman is stabbed brutally. This scene has been re-enacted in many modern films and it has become an icon of the thriller genre.
• Inspired by Psycho, Michael Powell produced the film Peeping Tom about a psychopath cameraman.
•  Roman Polanski's first film in English, the frightening and surrealistic Repulsion (1965) – with Catherine Deneuve as a young woman who goes increasingly mad.

1970s-80s

• In this decade, thrillers started to get more vivid and Hitcocks Frenzy (1972) was given an R rating because of the explicit strangulation scene.
• Brian De Palma usually had themes of guilt, voyeurism (obssession with spying on others having sex), paranoia and obsession in his films. Similar plot elements include killing off a main character early on, switching points of view, and dream-like sequences. His films include, the psycho-thriller Sisters (1973), a film about dual personalities, Obsession (1976) which was somewhat inspired by Vertigo, Dressed to Kill (1980), and the assassination thriller Blow Out (1981).
• The decade ended with Phillip Noyce's Dead Calm (1989), a psychological thriller with Nicole Kidman, who must fight for her life on a yacht against a crazed castaway.This film showed elements of obssession and trapped protagonists that inspired many thrillers in the 90s.

1990s

• The decade started with  Rob Reiner's Misery (1990) which tells the story of a psycho fan. 
• The theme of obsession was becoming popular and many films featured it: Unlawful Entry (1992), Single White Female (1992), Malice (1993)- starring Nicole Kidman, and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
• Another emerging theme of thrillers was the FBI/agent hunting a serial killer and the most famous example of this was the picture winning, The Silence Of the Lambs (1991) by Jonathan Demme. This was classified as a crime thriller but it also merged into the psycho thriller subgenre  as it dealt with a psychological issues. David Fincher's Se7en (1995) is another example of a crime thriller that was famous.
• Recent thrillers have a lot of influence from the horror genre and tend to use more gore. But some of the best work contains some of the original conventions that made thrillers so captivating. 

Audience Expectations

Audience expectations of your chosen genre:

Psychological thrillers can be based on fear of the unknown. They can include someone who has dual personalities, murderers or mentally unstable
We asked some people in the age range of 16-19 age bracket of what they would expect from a Psychological Thriller film and they said the following:
- I would expect the person to come across as a normal person but have a dark secret, maybe be a mass murderer
-  A twist at the end of the film where everything becomes apparent to us
- Be confused during the film through the events that happen, ie. why they are happening
- Made 'jump'
- Hallucinations
- Someone who is extremely vulnerable
- A main character that is usually a female
- Something dramatic to happen to the main character
- From someones point of view
- I would want to made to feel uncomfortable and would expect there to be a scenario that can be found in every day life to make it seem even more creepy.

Case studies of iconic directors of the genre.

Christopher Nolan is a very famous director from directing The Dark Knight to the psycho-thriller film Mememto. Over a decade Christopher Nolan has gone from producing low budget films to Hollywood blockbusters!

The second film the he directed was Mememto in 2000 which was produced from a short screenplay written by his brother. Mememto starred Guy Pearce and the film brought loads of honors from Academy awards to Golden Globes. Leading on from Nolans Mememto he then went on to direct Insomnia in 2002 which starred Al Pacino and Robin williams

Christopher Nolan has a lot of trade marks, he likes to have his protagonists to resort to tacctics of physical or psychological torture to gain information. For example in 'Insomnia', Dormer drives into oncoming traffic to scare the victims best friend and hopefully get him talking.
His films usually revolve around characters that are afflicted withsome kind of psycholofigal disorder, in Mememto, Guy Pearces character had short term memory. In Insomnia, Al Pacinos character has a sleeping disorder.

He usually starts or ends his films with flashbacks. Mememto follows this trade mark.

Alfred Hitchcock is another famous actor in the psycho-thriller genre, he pioneered many techniques in suspense and psychological thriller genres. He had a really successful career in the British Cinema and decided to go on to Hollywood and continue a bigger career over there.

He directed 'The Birds' in 1963 which was named the 'scariest movie of all time'.
Hitchcock has been given the nickname 'The Master of Suspense' His interest in films began around 1915 and escalated from then.


It was after Sabotuer in 1942 that Hitchcocks fame as a director grew and people began to refer to his films as 'Alfred Hitchcocks Physco' and 'Alfred Hitchcocks Family Plot'.

Alfred Hitchcock also directed the very famous 'Psycho' in 1960 which still scares people to this day. He uses suspense in the film 'Psycho' by alternating between different shot types to create a longer cinematic time. He used this technique in the shower scene in 'Psycho'.

Conventions of the psycho-thriller genre

We have studied some opening sequences/films that belong to the psycho-thriller genre and these are some of the conventions that we have noticed.



Costumes/clothing: The villan or the 'psycho' tends to wear dark colours, jeans or a shirt and dress down or they tend to wear smart suits. For example, in the film American Psycho, the villan Patrick is always seen in a suit.

Mememto opening credits.

Setting: In some of the psychothriller films that I have seen, for example Mememto and Se7en the opening sequence takes place somewhere that is completely unfamiliar to the audience. Mememto was taken place in what seems to be an abandoned room and Se7en has so many extreme close ups that it's hard to understand what is happening. This is also true of the film 'The eye'  as in the first 30 seconds of the film you are given a blurred clip and it's hard to make out what it is.



The eye opening sequence.



Sound: the usual conventions for sound in a psycho-thriller film is to have uneasy non-diagetic sound over the credits coming in and out of the scenes. In films such as Mememto and ..... they use a narrative during the film to show that the whole movie is shown in the protagonists point of view.

Editing, in psycho-thriller films it can be said that there is a lot of faced paced editing involved that can confuse the audience. This can be seen in 'The Eye' where there is an establishing shot of a field and it jumps to a black screen and then back again to the field and then jumps to a close up of an exhaust of a car.