Friday, 10 January 2014
Past Student Thriller Analysis
Past Student Thriller Analysis
Channel for Past Student Thrillers:- http://www.youtube.com/user/robertclackmedia/videos?flow=grid&view=1
The Routine:- http://www.youtube.com/watchv=qNxP9HjpivQ&index=2&list=PL643A575553997720
The plot of this video is that the main character goes about every day in a kind of routine (hence the title). However, one day, there are things that are out of place, e.g. his right slipper is in the wrong place, there is blood on the knife he usually uses to cut his apple everyday. It soon comes to light that someone is out to get him and put him out of his usual routine. Eventually, the main character is knocked out and kidnapped by the mysterious man.
What makes this video unique is that, after showing his routine once, they reuse the shots used the first time for the next few times to show that this routine is repeated everyday.
Night Walker:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MU-b322M8w&list=PL643A575553997720&index=8
The plot of this video is that the main character is walking normally through the streets at night on her way home. Relatively normal things happen at first like the main character calling her mum, saying she'll be home in 5 minutes, and a man asks her for the time. However, the main character is then followed into a small road and kidnapped by a mysterious man.
I like the set-up of this video as a Thriller film. It uses a tense but ambient vocal song in the background (Wait for Me by Moby), the video is set at night, so it is dark (save for the lampposts) to emphasize anxiety and suspense to the viewer as usually, bad things happen when you are out alone at night and the credits sway or sweep onto the screen like smoke to portray a mysterious sense in a way as absolutely anything could happen at night.
Watch Your Back:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L0aifQENSc&index=14&list=PL643A575553997720
The plot of this video is quite vague. It shows a man first walking up a flight of stairs to what might be his apartment and then walking through a neighborhood and a local park. However, it seems that he is being followed by a mysterious man wearing a mask. All the while, there are several sudden shots throughout the film showing photos on a wall, each showing a man in a certain location. It could be speculated that the main character was caught by the mysterious man as the camera (the P.O.V of the masked man) is shown rapidly zooming in on the back of the main character before the screen goes black. The final few shots show the man with his mask revealed to the viewer.
I also like the set-up in this video as a Thriller. There is suspenseful music playing in the background, the shots occasionally switch from normal colour to greyscale and back and there are 2 Jump Cuts when the main character enters the park that turn into Dissolves to very faintly show the characters last two positions and convey a sense of suspense and mystery. The editing is erratic to convey anxiety to the viewer, constantly switching between scenes with the main character, scenes seen through the P.O.V of the antagonist and shots of the photos on the wall. The narrative also seems to be non-linear due to the main character, at one point, walking up the stairs to his apartment and then suddenly switching to him in the park. I also like how the Company Ident Sequence of this film (A J-PEC Production) was created in a way that made it look like a major studio that would be the kind of studio that would produce/distribute this film.
Channel for Past Student Thrillers:- http://www.youtube.com/user/robertclackmedia/videos?flow=grid&view=1
The Routine:- http://www.youtube.com/watchv=qNxP9HjpivQ&index=2&list=PL643A575553997720
The plot of this video is that the main character goes about every day in a kind of routine (hence the title). However, one day, there are things that are out of place, e.g. his right slipper is in the wrong place, there is blood on the knife he usually uses to cut his apple everyday. It soon comes to light that someone is out to get him and put him out of his usual routine. Eventually, the main character is knocked out and kidnapped by the mysterious man.
What makes this video unique is that, after showing his routine once, they reuse the shots used the first time for the next few times to show that this routine is repeated everyday.
Night Walker:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MU-b322M8w&list=PL643A575553997720&index=8
The plot of this video is that the main character is walking normally through the streets at night on her way home. Relatively normal things happen at first like the main character calling her mum, saying she'll be home in 5 minutes, and a man asks her for the time. However, the main character is then followed into a small road and kidnapped by a mysterious man.
I like the set-up of this video as a Thriller film. It uses a tense but ambient vocal song in the background (Wait for Me by Moby), the video is set at night, so it is dark (save for the lampposts) to emphasize anxiety and suspense to the viewer as usually, bad things happen when you are out alone at night and the credits sway or sweep onto the screen like smoke to portray a mysterious sense in a way as absolutely anything could happen at night.
Watch Your Back:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L0aifQENSc&index=14&list=PL643A575553997720
The plot of this video is quite vague. It shows a man first walking up a flight of stairs to what might be his apartment and then walking through a neighborhood and a local park. However, it seems that he is being followed by a mysterious man wearing a mask. All the while, there are several sudden shots throughout the film showing photos on a wall, each showing a man in a certain location. It could be speculated that the main character was caught by the mysterious man as the camera (the P.O.V of the masked man) is shown rapidly zooming in on the back of the main character before the screen goes black. The final few shots show the man with his mask revealed to the viewer.
I also like the set-up in this video as a Thriller. There is suspenseful music playing in the background, the shots occasionally switch from normal colour to greyscale and back and there are 2 Jump Cuts when the main character enters the park that turn into Dissolves to very faintly show the characters last two positions and convey a sense of suspense and mystery. The editing is erratic to convey anxiety to the viewer, constantly switching between scenes with the main character, scenes seen through the P.O.V of the antagonist and shots of the photos on the wall. The narrative also seems to be non-linear due to the main character, at one point, walking up the stairs to his apartment and then suddenly switching to him in the park. I also like how the Company Ident Sequence of this film (A J-PEC Production) was created in a way that made it look like a major studio that would be the kind of studio that would produce/distribute this film.
Titles
Titles
This shows the order in which the Opening Titles of a movie and your own Thriller coursework should be shown.
Ident
'Fade In' to Opening Credits in this order:
This shows the order in which the Opening Titles of a movie and your own Thriller coursework should be shown.
Ident
'Fade In' to Opening Credits in this order:
- Your Own Production Company Name
- A Film by... ('Director's Name')
- Starring/With... ('Male Star' or 'Female Star' or other way around)
- Title of Film (optional between no. 4 and no. 9)
- Also starring... (2/3 names, each with separate titles)
- 3/4/5 of the following:
- Edited by...
- Music by...
- Cinematography by.../Director of Photography
- Casting by...
- Set Designer
- Costume Designer
- Script
7. Producer(s)
8. Director (always last, similar to no. 2: A Film by...)
9. Title (optional between no. 4 and no. 9)
10. Fade out screen and Fade out music
Use LiveType to make the titles more appealing and space them out over the 2 minutes of the Opening Titles of the movie to give time for the audience to read them. They can be over a black background or over a scene occuring during the opening (but make sure both the titles and the scene are clear to the audience).
Sunday, 24 November 2013
No Country For Old Men by Joel and Ethan Coen
No Country For Old Men
No Country For Old Men is a 2007 "Neo-Western" Thriller based on the 2005 novel by Cormac McCarthy.
The plot is about a hunter who, after discovering drugs and a case full of thousands of dollars at a massacre site, becomes the primary target of a psychotic murderer who uses fear and an oxygen tank as a weapon.
Cast and Crew
Joel and Ethan Coen:- The screenplay directors (brothers) of No Country For Old Men.
Tommy Lee Jones:- A widely famous actor known for his roles in No Country For Old Men, the Men In Black series, The Fugitive, etc. In No Country For Old Men, he plays one of the three protagonists, a sheriff called Ed Tom Bell.
Javier Bardem:- A famous actor known for his work in No Country For Old Men, Skyfall (2012), The Sea Inside, Biutiful, etc. In No Country For Old Men, he plays one of the three protagonists and the main antagonist, an intimidating psychopathic murderer called Anton Chigurh.
Josh Brolin:- A famous actor known for his roles in No Country For Old Men, W., Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, The Goonies, etc. In No Country For Old Men, he plays one of the three main protagonists, a hunter called Llewelyn Moss.
No Country For Old Men is a 2007 "Neo-Western" Thriller based on the 2005 novel by Cormac McCarthy.
The plot is about a hunter who, after discovering drugs and a case full of thousands of dollars at a massacre site, becomes the primary target of a psychotic murderer who uses fear and an oxygen tank as a weapon.
Cast and Crew
Joel and Ethan Coen:- The screenplay directors (brothers) of No Country For Old Men.
Tommy Lee Jones:- A widely famous actor known for his roles in No Country For Old Men, the Men In Black series, The Fugitive, etc. In No Country For Old Men, he plays one of the three protagonists, a sheriff called Ed Tom Bell.
Javier Bardem:- A famous actor known for his work in No Country For Old Men, Skyfall (2012), The Sea Inside, Biutiful, etc. In No Country For Old Men, he plays one of the three protagonists and the main antagonist, an intimidating psychopathic murderer called Anton Chigurh.
Josh Brolin:- A famous actor known for his roles in No Country For Old Men, W., Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, The Goonies, etc. In No Country For Old Men, he plays one of the three main protagonists, a hunter called Llewelyn Moss.
Saturday, 23 November 2013
Collateral by Michael Mann
Collateral
Collateral is a 2004 Crime-Thriller movie about a taxi driver who is taken hostage by a hired assassin and forced to take the assassin around Los Angeles to each of his targets' locations.
Cast and Crew
Michael Mann:- The director of Collateral. He is also known for his directing his others movies:- Heat, The Insider, Public Enemies, The Last of the Mohicans, etc.
Tom Cruise:- A world-renowned actor famous for starring in Collateral, Top Gun, The Mission Impossible movies, Minority Report, etc. In Collateral, he plays the mysterious and no-nonsense assassin-for-hire, Vincent.
Jamie Foxx:- A famous actor, comedian and singer-writer known for starring in Collateral, Django Unchained, Law Abiding Citizen, Ray, etc. In Collateral, he plays the short-tempered and, at first, fearful taxi driver, Max Durocher.
Jada Pinkett Smith:- A famous actress known for starring in Collateral, Scream 2, the Madagascar movies, The Nutty Professor, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, etc. In Collateral, she plays the lawyer prosecuting the head of the assassins organisation Vincent works for, Annie Farrell.
Production
Collateral was Mann's first feature film to be filmed using high-definition cameras.
The trailer for the movie demonstrates the HD cameras.
Michael Mann used Viper Film Stream High-Definition Cameras to film most of Collateral's scenes. This was the first time these cameras ever used in a major motion picture film.
Many scenes in the movie show clear evidence of the use of these cameras, e.g. any scene depicting the Los Angeles skyline and landscape.
Marianne Webb and Joe Howlett's A Level Media Preliminary Task Video Analysis
Marianne Webb and Joe Howlett's A Level Media Preliminary Task Video Analysis
The story of this video was one originally made up by our teacher, Mr. Johnson, in which two people meet up to trade money for a bag containing an unknown object.
We made sure to include all the editing techniques:-
The story of this video was one originally made up by our teacher, Mr. Johnson, in which two people meet up to trade money for a bag containing an unknown object.
We made sure to include all the editing techniques:-
- We created Match-On Action when my character enters the room from one side of the door and enters the room on the other side. We created this in two shots, one was of my character on the outside of the room, entering through one side of the door and the other was of my character entering the room on the other side of the door, on the inside of the room. This was meant to show the continuous action of a person going through a door into a room.
- We created an Eye-line Match when, after the trade has been made, the two people look each other in the eyes for a few seconds before the person with the bag leaves. We made this technique in two shots, with each shot showing one of the two people looking in the direction of the other person, making eye contact through the lining-up of the two shots. This was meant to show that the two people find each other suspicious and do not trust each other.
- We created a Shot-Reverse-Shot when the two people are discussing the password and the money. Every time one person talks, the camera switches to an Over-the-Shoulder shot of the opposite person to have a clear view of the talking character "over the shoulder" of the character sitting opposite and to show that the opposite person is looking and listening to the talking character. This is meant to show that the two people are conversing with having a clear view of both characters.
- We used the 180-degree Rule when the two people are having their conversation. The conversation is always shown from the left side of the two people. This was meant to prevent a mix-up from the viewer between the two talking characters.
We made sure that we used each technique accurately and with no mistakes, especially the Shot-Reverse-Shot.
Overall, I think this movie was simple and well done. I think the most positive elements of the movie were, for the most part, the editing techniques. However, we did make a continuity error when filming the Shot-Reverse-Shot. In some shots, on the table behind Joe, the table is empty, but in later shots, there is a book on the table.
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