Influences

As a group we unanimously decided to make a Psychological Thriller. We began to research different opening scenes from psychological thrillers and used them as inspiration for creating our own introductory scene for our film. We would draw inspiration for our narrative, locations, costumes, props and camera techniques. Often in psycological thrillers the little details make them much more immerseive, which an opening scene for a film needs to do.

Inception (Dir. Christopher Nolan 2010):

In the opening scene, the audience is dropped right into the middle of a narrative, with no clue as to what is happening - thus engaging them to try deduce what is happening and keeps them interested. As a group we really liked this confusion aspect of the narrative and wanted to be sure to use it in our own opening scene. The opening scene actually links to the ending of the film and if we were to make the entire film, I would have really liked to have used this element too, a cyclic plot. I also liked the use of point of view shots and combining them with camera techniques to show what the character is going through. When Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is gathering himself from being washed up on the beach the camera goes into point of view and becomes out of focus and shakes, to show his disorientation. I wanted to also include hyperbolic sound like where in the opening scene you can hear the waves crashing much louder than they should be, this adds to the disorientated effect. Hidden identity is also used in the form of the children playing on the beach and the old man. I liked the dream aspect of it and I really wanted that to be a key element of the plot for our psychological thriller. The table is highly reflective, this suggests that dreams are an internal reflection as to what someone is experiencing in their life, a way of escapism and self-reflection, I really wanted to use a reflective surface maybe even a mirror to show this aspect to our narrative.

Sucker Punch (Dir. Zack Snyder 2011):

The opening scene contains no dialouge between characters and relies on the facial expressions and body language to tell the story. Although we would use dialouge we liked the idea of using close-ups of characters facial expressions. The song 'Sweet Dreams' is playing throughout the opening, it shows that the main character (BabyDoll) wants to escape from this living nightmare. The opening scene mainly takes place in the house and shows that BabyDoll does not feel safe in her own home, this turmoil and sense of danger is reflected in the stormy weather outside her window. BabyDoll is wearing nightwear/pyjamas for the majority of the opening scene this shows that she may have been comfortable and now she is vulnerable. Whilst climbing down the guttering she looks out of place being in her pyjamas and this also shows her desperation. The step-father is wearing a suit and tie, he is also usually filmed above BabyDoll, this shows his power and dominance, we wanted to use costumes as a way of showing the relations and position of our characters in the narrative. When the step-father figure is opening the will of the dead mother, there is a close-up of the letter-opener, this implies violence and seems more suitable given the location. BabyDoll's hair is bleach blonde and this is an extreme way of showing her innocence, she is unspoiled. The clip implies that her step-father tries to sexually assault her, he grabs her pyjama top and tries to pull it open while pushing into her room. But, then he turns his attention to the younger sister. The younger sister has dark hair and this could foreshadow her subsequent death. This is a twist in the first scene of the film, by trying to protect her sister, BabyDoll accidently kills her. This increases the audience's sympathy for her and builds a connection between character and audience. There is a shot of one of the buttons spinning on the floor and this could represent BabyDoll's life spiralling out of control, we wanted to use little metaphors like this in our own film. When BabyDoll's eye can be seen through the keyhole, the reflection is used as a link between scenes. Reflections can also be used to show how the character sees themselves or their current situation, later on in the film there is a scene in a dance studio where the whole wall is mirror. The weather and lighting is also used to show the bad things are going to happen. We liked the use of a female protagonist, they are not very common in the Thriller genre and so we liked to think that we were having a modern and interesting aspect to our film.

Blue Velvet (Dir. David Lynch 1986):

Although this film is not a Pschological Thriller, it is a Thriller that contains elements we liked. Such as the overly-happy sickly sweet element. It seems to perfect and too nice to be true. However, the cracks in the perfection soon start to appear, the first hint that not all is well is a close-up of a gun on the TV. Followed by the old man watering the plants, the hose pipe is knotted on a plant, the old man unknowingly pulls tighter, this foreshadows his breathing problems and near death experience.

Black Swan (Dir. Darren Aronofsky- 2010):

In the begining the girl dances in a simple white costume, this shows her innocence but during th dance, her costume (through camera movement and editing) transforms into a much more elabourate dress, this foreshadows the transformation she will undergo throughout the narrative. A man dressed in black enters the dance, he represents the dark elements of life and the challeneges she will face, the girl is thrown around by him. He transforms when spinning around and hyperbolic sound is used when the girl tries to escape, her breathing becomes very loud, showing her struggle. The editing is very quick and sharp and then slowly fades to black at the end, signifying the end of the narrative or the young girl's life.

Shutter Island (Dir. Martin Scorsese 2010):


The Audience is given a date, this gives them some understanding of what to expect from this time period. Therer is the powerful and symbolic opening shot of the ship emerging from the mist, it shows the confusion and shrouded truth of the mind of a mentally ill person. Also, Leonardo DiCaprio's character talks to himself in the mirror, we really wanted to use a mirror as part of self-reflection. Flashbacks are also used, they are useful because they drip-feed the audience information so they are always paying close attention for fear of missing something essential to the narrative. There are many close-ups of the character's faces so you can see their reactions, we liked this aspect so we wanted to use it in our own film. The music compliments what is happening on-screen going from quiet and not very noticeable, to being extremely loud and garish, like a foghorn warning the audience of the danger to come.
We really liked this aspect so we considered finding some music to compliment our narrative.

Reverse Dolly Zoom/ Zolly Shot:

We really wanted to use a reverse dolly zoom in our film, to show the fear and confusion of our main protagonist, so we looked at some examples from other films. From a gradual shift in Goodfellas (Dir. Martin Scoresese 1990).

To a much more rapid reverse dolly zoom, sometimes reffered to as a 'Vertigo' shot. Like in Jaws (Dir. Steven Speilberg 1975) or The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring (Dir. Peter Jackson 2001):

The Preliminary Task

The Task:

We had to film and edit a sequence of a person entering a room and exchanging brief dialouge with someone else. The sequence had to include 180 degree shot, match on action and shot/reverse shot.

Planning our Ideas:

As a group, we all wanted there to be some form of plot and not just somebody walking in and talking. We went into a small media suite to brainstorm our ideas. It was there that we began to think about our plot, a small window looking out onto a field gave us the idea for a person to stand dramatically at the window, waiting for the another person to walk in. We then progressed onto the idea of a strong business-woman and a hitman discussing their next target, our plot then evolved onto a comic element. Originally a Thriller idea, the plot was now taking the form of a Thriller parody, the hitman's targets were going to be of a feline variety, that was going to be the main plot twist. We all really liked the plot-twist so we set about storyboarding for our parody.

Storyboarding:

 Shot 1: We wanted to fade into the shot, an over the shoulder shot was going to be used so that we could see Daniel (The Hitman) approaching from behind, this part of our short film was filmed in the foyer of the media suites. The diagetic sound lets you know that the setting is a place of work.

Shot 2: This shot was going to have Daniel entering the space, then on cue I was going to turn around and tell Daniel to "Just go straight in". We wanted the idea of a receptionist so it would show Lizzie's character was a successful business woman. We were influenced by the TV show 'The Apprentice' the receptionist serves the role of showing the employer's success. We had a twist, a male receptionist shows how hegemonic (dominant) Lizzie's character is. Daniel then walks away towards the door.

Shot 3: This shot was going to be framed by the door, the window in the door in of the media suite would be the centre of the shot. Daniel was going to appear at the window as he got closer, this is the first real look we get at the hitman.

Shot 4: We wanted a close-up of the door handle, to emphasise Daniel's entrance, this also served as our match on action, the pace was kept by the speed of how the door handle was opened.

 Shot 5: Usually the waiting powerfull character is looking out of the window, for the parody element we closed the blinds, so it looked like Lizzie's character had been staring at the blinds all that time. Daniel was meant to slide in the shot at the opposite way the door opens and at the same pace. Lizzie was meant to turn her head and say "I've been expecting you!" this is the parodical element coming through again, it is almost a stereotypical line.

Shot 6: We had included a close-up of Lizzie's hand crushing a piece of paper (a photograph of the hitman's target). We included it to show the stress and frustration that Lizzie's character was going through.

 

Shot 7: Lizzie turns around and sits down looking opposite Daniel in one swift move.

 

Shot 8: To carry on with the Thriller part of the genre we had a close-up of the over-turned hitman photos to keep the hidden-identity element and to add to the shock and humour when they are revealed. The shot will end just as Daniel's character turns it over - to tease the audience.

Shot 9: This consisted of an over the shoulder  shot of Lizzie, with Daniel's character saying "So how shall I do it?" this line implies how should he kill the target but then it's not made explicit. So there is still an air of mystery.

 

Shot 10:  We reversed the shot and had an over the shoulder shot of Daniel with Lizzie's response "I don't care as long as it's done" this was to show her impatience.

 Shot 11: We wanted to include a slightly higher angle reverse shot, so Lizzie stayed within in the frame when she stood up and to make Daniel look much more vulnerable and smaller. The dialouge to spark Lizzie's anger would have to be impertinent/probing so we made the line "Why do you want him dead?"

Shot 12: Here we used the 180 degree shot to show Lizzie's height and dominance over Daniel's character and the diagetic sound of her hands slamming on the table. The dialouge was going to be "That is none of your concern! So are you in... or not?" this was later changed on the day to "That is none of your concern! Now kill him" this soinded much more aggresive and flowed better.

 

Shot 13: The final twist was going to be revealed in the last shot, with a slight tilt to keep the tension and then thr revelation of the collection of photographs of the Hitman's targets, this would then fade to black for the credits.

 

The Run-through:

 

In order to see if the shots would work and if the lines would work well, we decided to have a run-through practice of our preliminary, we were then also able to see if our film would fit within the time constraints. At first we wanted the over the shoulder shots facing the people not speaking to see their reactions but then realized it did not work very well so we knew we had to change it in our final Preliminary film. Below is the video of our run-through (bloopers included):

 

Costumes:

 

After filming the run-through of our preliminary, we then thought about the costumes for each of our characters. My brief scene as Secretary would involve me wearing a shirt and tie to look adult and professional. Daniel was going to wear some worn jeans and a hoodie to look more thuggish. Lizzie was going to wear a skirt and blazer to look intelligent, professional and wealthy, also wearing heels to make her taller. Even though we were filming in black and white, Lizzie was going to wear red lipstick to look more mature and dangerous.

 

Editing:

 

Upon completion of our filming for our final Preliminary film, we set about editing. We chose to fade into our establishing shot, so the audience would be eased into the narrative. We then proceded to use cuts to keep the pace, with the timinngs we used though the editing is almost seamless such as when Daniel walks across the the secretary's desk. It gives a professional and well made feel to the film. We decided to use black and white for the film to give it a darker film noir look and also as a parody it would add a funny edge and tribute to classic old thrillers. between the second from last and last shot we used a dissolve to keep the suspense and intruige before the hitman's target was revealed and also to experiment with different types of editing. For the credits we used traditional rolling credits and used music from the blooper reel to add to the comeidic effect of the film. However we originally had planned on using the rather melodramatic "O Verona" by Craig Armstrong but it would have meant that the credits would need to be longer and we would also need copyright permission. Here is the audio for "O Verona"

 

 

The Final Film:

 

From storyboard to screen:

 

Along the way we made some changes between storyboard and screen, these were often made on the day when we had new ideas and methods of filming. Examples of such changes are:

-Shot 1: We split a would-be tracking shot into two shots, to show Daniel's charater getting closer to his destination and also to try a hand at making 'invisible editing'.

-Shot 3: Since it was a quick shot and also to keep the pace of the film we changed it to just a mid-shot.

-Shot 12: We altered the dialouge to "That is none of your concern! Now kill him!" which was originally "That is none of your concern! So are you in... or not?" this was to make it sound more blunt and aggresive and also to add humour

 

The Blooper reel:

 

This contains all the original footage for our preliminary film. At the begining we realized we had left the door open and this would conflict with the continuity of the film so we had to redo the scene with the door closed, there is a point where I realised that if I left the room with the camera that I would be able to fit Daniel and Lizzie into the shot frame a lot easier.

 

 

The Final Edit:

 

After all the hard work of planning, storyboarding, filming and editing our film I was extremely proud and happy with the end result. The film is everything we wanted it to be, we wanted it to be well edited and put together with a funny parodic element to it and we all had a lot of fun producing it (evident from our blooper reel):

 

Key Features

We need to include several key features in our preliminary task and main task. This is so that we gain important experience of filming and editing.

Match on Action: This is commonly used to keep the pace going and constant, especially when jumping between scenes. We came up with several ways to keep the pace, including keeping Daniel's walking pace consistant with the pace at which he enters the room. The use of cuts also means the pace is constantly building. We wanted the pace to lead up to the end of the sequence in which Lizzie's character would lose her temper. So, the features we needed to include played a big part of what the storyline of our short preliminary would be.

Shot/Reverse shot: The most common way to show a conversation between two people, showing the exchange of dialouge. It is particularly important to have a fluid shot/reverse shot so the conversation seems real, we would need to finely edit these clips together so it appeared that it happened all at once and organically.

180 degree shot: This means we get an array of shots so we can see how the characters relate to each other, not just over the shoulder but also from the side on, so you can see any changes in height (dominance and power). This shot is useful to show a shift in power and seeing characters reactions to dialouge.

 

This scene uses all three and also includes a sound bridge between each of the scene changes, as well as seamless match on action. The scene is essentially three seperate scenes edited into one, they occur at different times and with different people but have a constant pace to them, the scene can be seen as confusing as the character tells all the different people a different story, there is some risk involved and so the pace is kept and keeps the audience intruiged as to where the story is going. (Apologies for the language at the begining).