Recce Shots

Here are some Recce shots of our location for our film opening:

The Bedroom

The Tower

Conventions of a Crime/Thriller genre

I have done some research into what the conventions of a crime investigation/thriller movie are.
Using the internet and my own knowledge, I have created a thinking map on what some of these conventions might be:

Here is the trailer for Taken, a crime investigation thriller movie released in 2008


This trailer presents more conventions of what makes a good crime/thriller movie:

• The antagonist getting taken, abused or murdered
• The protagonist saving the antagonist, at the end of the film
• A realistic setting and situation
• A believable background story
• A happy mood at the beginning of the film, then something suddenly happens which changes the atmosphere of the film/the pace of the film.

Props List

The Wring

My group and I have decided to call our film 'The Wring'. The red ring in the film symbolises the murder of the woman, and many other things as the film progresses. The way in which the woman dies is by getting strangled (wrung), therefore we felt as if our title should be a mixture of these words, so that it has multiple meanings to it and it can be deconstructed in many different ways. This will help the audience understand the genre of the film and what might happen in it.

Final Decision for our Film and Opening Scene

Our Final Decision

My group and I have made our final decision on the narrative for our film and opening scene. We have taken the ideas from both of our two original plans and have merged them together to make our new original film.

We have decided to do a 1920's crime investigation/thriller film. The film is mainly located at a gothic style tower in Hadlow, and is filmed entirely in black and white, apart from the ruby jewel on the ring which we will be in red.

These are some recce shots our location:

This is the view at the top of the Tower:

We are going to use a bedroom inside this building as the location for the beginning of our opening scene:

We feel that this is the perfect location to use, as this building was around in the 1920s so it fits in perfectly with our mise-en-scene.

Here is a Prezi presentation which goes through the course of the opening in finer detail:
   

Dolly Zoom

My group and I have been inspired by the 'Dolly Zoom' shot. This is when you move the camera forward, with an object or person in focus, and then zoom out at the same time. It gives the effect of the background expanding. You can do this shot by zooming in and tracking out as well, which gives the opposite effect. 

We have found a couple of examples from some famous films:

Jaws 1975

Vertigo 1958 

(0:31), (0:48)

I have tried to do a 'Dolly Zoom' myself, as my group and I are hoping to use it in our opening scene:

The Dolly Zoom is a very difficult piece of cinematography to master and is highly regarded within the film industry, due to the precision of keeping the zoom and the track at the exact same speed to get the best effect. Only very few films and television shows that I know of have been able to use this shot effectively, and it will be a great experience to try it out. I feel that it will be a very neat shot if we master it correctly, and I am very excited to see what it will look like in post-production.

Mood Boards

To help us convert our thoughts for our opening scenes into something physical, we created a mood board for each of our film openings.

This is the mood board for our 1920s style idea for a film opening:

We chose pictures that we found were relevant to our narrative:

• The two women dressed in 1920s clothes- to show what our protagonist will look like in costume and makeup.
• Screen shot from the film 'Schindler's List'- to present our idea with the film being in black and white but the ruby on the ring being in red.
• The crime scene- in order to represent the genre of the film, which is a crime investigation thriller.
• The ring- to insinuate that the film has a connection with a red ring.
• The 1920s car and the woman at the dressing table- to show our understanding of mise en scene within a 1920s style piece.
• The big house and party scene- to represent a party and a sense of isolation which comes with that, as the house is big and seems as if it is in the middle of nowhere.
• The woman looking shocked: to present an idea of fear and horror.
• The door knob- for presenting our idea of the door knob being the last shot of the opening scene.
• The binoculars- to give a sense of hidden identity (when the murderer is watching the woman going up the drive)

This is our mood board for our second idea:

• The Tower- to show the location for our film.
• The bedroom- the place in which the girls are gathered in when the lift opens and reveals that one of the girls has been killed.
• The group of friends- in order to establish that there are strong relationships between the girls and that they trust each other, which is one of the key themes in the film as the girls have to trust each other to complete the challenges so that they can escape.
• The pictures of the lift- to present the main idea of the horror film.
• The knife with the blood- to foreshadow a painful and brutal death.
• The candle- to represent a tiny flicker of hope of escaping this dangerous and threatening situation.
• The staircase- the interior of the top of the tower to show how open it is and that there is nowhere to hide...

Mood boards are a great way to present ideas on because they allow the audience to create their own interpretation of our ideas, and to connect with our ideas through the emotions that may be created by some of the images. For example, the blood on the knife creates a mood of horror and brutality, which the audience could be shocked and scared by. The audience could then begin to understand the narrative and genre of the film, and then begin to picture what some of the scenes might consist of, so taking the example of the knife again, they could imagine a scene where a character kills another character.

The Beginning of our AS Coursework

For our AS Media coursework, we have to create the opening of a film which includes credits. My group and I have started to brainstorm some ideas of two possible films, of which we could film the opening for our coursework.

Our first idea was inspired by films such as 'Some Like it Hot' and 'Schindler's List'. We thought of creating a thriller / crime detective film based in the 1920's, filmed entirely in black and white. In the opening scene, the protagonist is getting ready for a party in her dressing room. She is putting her make up on, getting dressed, sorting her hair out and then she puts on a red ring. The red ring and the red coloured lipstick are the only things that would not be in black and white. This idea was inspired by the girl in the red coat from Spielberg's movie 'Schindler's List', which is filmed in black and white but the red coat is the only thing in colour.

We thought that this ring could be a leitmotif throughout the film, and that it would begin to symbolise different things as the film proceeds such as death, due to its blood red colour, and danger.


Our second idea was a horror film set in an old tower which has been converted into houses.

The opening scene would begin with a Victorian housemaid cleaning the living room of the tower.
There would be a series of paranormal activity which would then lead to the housemaid's death. The rest of the story would be about a group of teenage girls who are house-sitting for a friend 150 years later after the incident and their experiences in the haunted house. We were inspired by films such as 'The Conjuring' by the events that had occurred in that house before the girls were there, and the Saw films, as the girls would have to complete a series of gruesome challenges in order to escape the tower.

My Presentation of a Film Opening

One of our tasks in our Media lesson was to choose a film opening and analyse why we thought that it was interesting: by looking at the use of different shots, the use of sound and the use of Mise en Scene. The film opening that I chose to analyse was 'Les Miserables' (2012). Here is my emaze presentation on why I found it an interesting film opening, enjoy!

Introduction

Introduction to my Coursework Group

Here is a short video of my group and I talking about what we have to do for our AS level Media Studies coursework.