Main Task : Mise-En-Scene

Colour/Grading-

We want to colour grade our video so that it was a creepy/cold feeling that we’ll achieve through using blue/dark/ grey tones

Composition-
ACTORS: The Visitor is dressed so that it contrasts from the setting. Our actor mimics the age that we want for the Visitor and carries through with her appearance e.g. long dark hair-dank, Very little make up-not glamorous, ankle length dress.

SETTING: over cast, grey, foggy (we want the setting to have an ominous)m

Lighting-

We need to have lighting that is twilight e.g it’s still light but vision is impaired due to the poor ligt quality this will give us a creepy feeling to our piece and will help to emphasise the mystery of the girl that appears in our film opening. (half light )

Object (props)-

No props

Setting-

We have two settings within the same location. The first is in the woods and is where we first see the girl the second is in a dilapidated shed just down the road it has a sinister/ mysterious edge to it that provides the film with the feeling we need.

Main Task : Research on Thriller genres

Researching for Thriller genres was crucial for us to understand and get hold of as we wanted to know what people likeed from Thriller, what people didn't like from Thrillers, what they wanted more of etc...

Primary Elements:
•       The protagonist(s) faces death, either his and/or her or somebody else's.
•       The force(s) of the antagonist's must initially be cleverer and/or stronger than the protagonist's.
•       The main storyline for the protagonist is either a quest or a character that cannot be put down.
•       The main plotline focuses on a mystery that must be solved.
•       The film's narrative construction is dominated by the protagonist's point of view.
•       All action and characters must be credibly realistic or natural in their representation on screen.
•       The two major themes that underpin the thriller genre are the desire for justice and the morality of individuals.
•       One small, but significant, aspect of a thriller is the presence of innocence in what is seen as an essentially corrupt world.
•       The protagonist(s) and antagonist(s) may battle, themselves and each other, not just on a physical level, but on a mental one as well.
•       Either by accident or their own curiousness, each character is dragged into a dangerous conflict or situation that they are not prepared to resolve.
Story and Setting:
The protagonist in these films is set against a problem – an escape, a mission, or a mystery. No matter what sub-genre a thriller film falls into, it will emphasize the danger that the protagonist faces. The cover-up of important information from the viewer, and fight and chase scenes are common methods in all of the thriller subgenres, although each subgenre has its own unique characteristics and methods. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with each other or with outside forces – the threat is sometimes abstract or unseen. An atmosphere of creepy menace and sudden violence, such as crime and murder, characterize thrillers. Thrillers often present the world and society as dark, corrupt and dangerous.

Thriller and Mystery:
Thrillers often overlap with mystery stories but are distinguished by the structure of their plots. In a thriller, the hero must stop the plans of an enemy rather than uncover a crime that has already happened. Mystery thrillers also occur on a much grander scale: the crimes that must be prevented are serial or mass murder, terrorism, assassination, or the overthrow of governments.
Thriller and Crime:
Pure crime films/novels focus on a specific crime or set of crimes, and solving the mystery or tracking down the criminal(s), with no or little violence but more drama throughout. Thrillers are usually fiction-based and fast in pace, while crime fiction tends to be more leisurely paced, dramatic and realistic. Generally, violence is also lacking in crime fiction, but this depends on whether the work is based on the mafia, where violence is intense.

Main Task : Location and Ideas.

Location for our opening sequence was very important as our idea was based around the location.
Our initial idea was about a girl getting tortured at 'Crockham Manor' Newbury (picture 1). We wanted her to have a older man that would drag a girl through a corridor (picture 2) and into a bathroom (picture 3), where she would be tied to the radiator on the left while the male subject pours water into the bath. Then he takes the female character and drowns her in the water.

(Picture 1)

(Picture 2)

(Picture 3)

Unfortunately, after doing research into this location by contacting people (i.e. http://trevbish.co.uk/crookham-court-manor-newbury/ ) who had already been to this place, they told us that we could not film in this location due to the high security that has just been placed. Some sources even got a chance to speak to the owner and he said that he didn't like people coming into the area and put CCTV around the area so they could charge others for trespassing.
So as we said that wasn't a possibility to work with - we had to chang our idea, concept and also genre. So we decided to look for other areas, one of my collegues knew areas around Maidenhead and Bray which 

Analysis :Director #2 : Martin Scorsese

NAME: Martin Charles Scorsese

OCCUPATION: Director, Producer

BIRTH DATE: November 17, 1942 

EDUCATION: New York University

PLACE OF BIRTH: Flushing, New York

 

Early Life

Scorsese's parents, Charles and Catherine, both worked part-time as actors, helping set the stage for their son's love of cinema. Because Scorsese was afflicted by severe asthma, his childhood activities were limited; rather than play sports, he spent much of his time in front of the television or at the movie theater, where he fell in love especially with stories about the Italian experience and films by director Michael Powell. By the time he was 8 years old, Scorsese was already drawing his own storyboards, often complete with the line, "Directed and Produced by Martin Scorsese."

Career Highlight

After completing his MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in film directing at NYU (New York University) in 1966, Scorsese briefly worked at the university as a film instructor. His students included Jonathan Kaplan and Oliver Stone. In 1968, Scorsese completed his first feature-length film, Who's That Knocking at My Door?
In 1973, Scorsese directed Mean Streets, his first film to be widely acknowledged as a masterpiece. Also introduced Scorsese to Robert De Niro, sparking one of the most dynamic film making partnerships in Hollywood history. 
The 1990s saw the release of two of Scorsese's most important Mafia movies to date: GoodFellas, a 1990 film based on the life of former gangster Henry Hill. Scorsese believes that "there is no such thing as pointless violence" on-screen. "Deep down you want to think that people are really good—but the reality outweighs that."



0:35 - 1:36 shows the honour that De Niro has for Scorsese.



0:17 - 1:50, a few years later and De Niro still seems to be close with Scorsese. We can see that through the humour that he deliver to the audience and Scorses himself finds it humorous. This tells us that not only have they been working together but they built a strong bond of friendship.

Leonardo DiCaprio has become Scorsese's go-to actor recently for lead roles, starring in Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006)—which won Scorsese his first Best Director Oscar, Shutter Island (2010) and now The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013). "He saved me," DiCaprio said. "I was headed down a path of being one kind of actor, and he helped me become another one. The one I wanted to be."

 

1:53 - 2:59, Leonardo gives an inspirational speech about Scorsese past movie making that highlights the truth of his words before when he meant ''He saved me''. You can hear and see his facial expressions that show his delightfulness of working with such a great actor.

Personal Life
Scorsese has been married five times. Recently, Scorsese has been married to Helen Schermerhorn Morris since 1999 and has 3 daughters.
Scorsese is very involved with his long term actors such as Robert De Niro that he is continuing his passionate work with him to create and develop more upcoming films

Noticable Work

Good Fellas
 

 

Goodfellas is a 1990 American Crime Drama. It is a film adaptation of the 1986 non-fiction book 'Wiseguy' by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese. The film is about the troubles and successes of the Lucchese crime family over a period from 1955 - 1980

 

 

The Wolf Of Wall Street

 

 

 The Wolf Of Wall Street is a 2013 American black comedy, based on Jordan Belfort's memoir of the same name. Based on a New York stockbroker who runs a firm that engages in securities fraud and corruption on Wall Street in the 1990s.

 

 

 

Analysis : Director #1 : Steven Spielberg

NAME:  Steven Allan Spielberg
OCCUPATION: Director, Producer
BIRTH DATE: December 18, 1946 
PLACE OF BIRTH: Cincinnati, Ohio
Religion: Judaism
Notable work(s):Close Encounters of the Third Kind
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Jaws
Jurassic Park
Lincoln
Munich
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Saving Private Ryan
Schindler's List

Early Career
He became one of the youngest television directors for Universal in the late 1960s. A highly praised television film, Duel (1972), brought him the opportunity to direct for the cinema, and a string of hits have made him the most commercially successful director of all time.

Career Highlight
His films have explored primeval fears, as in Jaws (1975), or expressed childlike wonder at the marvels of this world and beyond, as in ET (1982). Spielberg has also tackled literary adaptations and audiences around the world were riveted by the continuing adventures of his daredevil hero, Indiana Jones
Spielberg is also known for his impressive historical films. The Holocaust drama Schindler's List (1993) starring Liam Neeson as a businessman who helps save Jews won seven Academy Awards, including Spielberg’s first win as Best Director. He accepted no money for his work on Schindler's List, and instead donated his salary and all of his future profits from the movie to The Shoah Foundation.
His first film company, Amblin Entertainment, which was founded in 1982, produced several other successful films, notably Back to the Future (1985) and its two sequels, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).

Personal Life
From 1985 to 1989 Spielberg was married to actress Amy Irving. In their 1989 they had a divorce settlement. Spielberg subsequently developed a relationship with actress Kate Capshaw. He now has 6 kids and lives in LA, California.
Spielberg has been an avid video gamer. He owns a Wii, a PlayStation 3, a PSP, and Xbox 360, and enjoys playing first-person shooters such as the Medal of Honor series and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Main Task : Conventions

We tried to find something that we all wanted and put it on a mind-map (not all of our ideas are on it). We firstly said ideas and put it on a white board such as a hall and someone getting tortured. Then we saw a rough photo of a bathroom in a derelict location that we loved and wanted to shoot there (this is before we found out the location was not available )

This lead us to the thought of a Thriller - Horror genre. We were all happy with the theme as it linked to the location we wanted. So we knew that we wanted some Enigma to be created to make our audience have an suspense and intense reaction.

That meant that we needed quick cuts to emphasis the hype and intensity. We wanted effects which were grainy or black and white, which give a colder feel to the connotations we are trying to portray.

Learning Tasks : Mc/Macguffin and Tom Hanks Forrest Gump

We were set to think of things that associated with particular objects. These are what I came up with:

A Ball

American Dream

Playing with fathers

Sunny Days

Happy Days

Cricket - India

'Extra' Gum

Mint

Green

School

Tables

Ice-cream

'Humdinger' (the business)

Buzzlight Toy figure

Childhod

Toy Story

Inspiration

Space 

TV

Fun

These are connotations of the objects.

Connotations : Non-literal meanings we interpret of something

Then we did a feather

Feather

Light

Air

Space

Freedom

Angel

Heaven

Wings

We linked this to Tom Hanks Forrest Gump opening scene where the feather floats around until it lands near a person.

The simplicity of the feather really interprets the main character as the feather floats around carelessly, getting close to people but moves around is exactly like the character - Forrest Gump.

Forrest goes around and meets people but moves around until he finds himself.

This is a Mcguffin: An object or device in a film or a book which serves merely as a trigger for the plot

Analysis : Goodfellas

Henry Hill and his friends work their way up through the mob hierarchy.

From 0:00 - 0:12, Warner Bros Picture (WBP) appear by a shot of a studio land and it having a ripple effect until the outer circle of the WBP comes across of the screen and the logo is shown to us and the background is a bunch of clouds. Then it follows for 2 more seconds until 0:14 which it says Warner Bros Pictures Presents. Then it runs for another 3 seconds saying 'A Irwin Wrinkler Productions'. This leads to another 3 seconds until 0:20 which says 'Martin Productions' in white behind a black screen. This presents the director which most films commonly use. From 0:20 until 0:39 (19 seconds), the cast is presented by their names swiping across the screen in expanded and faded typeface and then in an ordinary bold font the cast name appears. During this (it actually started at 0:12) we can hear multiple vehicles zooming past so they are trying to present each name as a car that zooms past. 'Based on a true story' comes on the screen but not as a swipe across. 
Then at 0:43, visuals present a vehicle driving but the camera starts off as it is follows the car but pans to the side of the car and passes it. This continues until 0:53 which then takes us to a black screen which has the statement 'New York, 1920'. From 0:57 - 1:20, we see a dark setting assuming it is night and we are situated inside a car. There are 3 men in the car, 1 driving and 2 asleep passengers that wake up to a sudden suggested broken tyre and this is presented by a medium close-up. There are sounds of bashes and the car seems to slow down, there are 'New York accents'. At 1:20, all 3 men get out to check the rear tyres and the faces shown by red reflection of the rear lights (mid shot) and there are also sounds of footsteps and car door slamming shut. Between 1:29 - 1:33 (4 secs), quiets bangs from the boot continue and there is a zoom of the boot shaking as if there is someone in there trying to get out. From 1:33 - 1:43 (10 secs), there is a pan of characters getting out their weapons and there is still a quiet bangs from the boot. Then from 1:43 - 1:48 (5 secs), there is a cut-in of hands unlocking the boot and a blood-covered man that can barely move is in there. From 1:48 - 1:52 (4 secs), 1 character stabs the knife into the man several times then there is a rection shot for 2 seconds of the 3rd character which unlocked the boot. After, the 1st character gets his gun and is about to shoot. Then at 1:55 - 1:56, there is a quick reaction shot and the shooting visuals and sounds begin at 1:56 and carries on until 2:00.

The opening was AMAZING, out of the 6 that I analysed this opening kept me on my feet the whole time. The creative idea of the diagetic sounds in the background of the car shooting past is a phenomenal way of setting the 'scene' (in a way). I loved how they made the credits zoom past while the sound of zooming cards were created and then the names stayed - it was very effective. The fact that the film got straight onto it, for example, they started to hear a jolt in the boot and they all got out to torture him. It was all straight to the point and although it was stereotypical mobs, the audience knew what was happening and who these people were without any sense of unknown but it still created enigma.

Analysis : Captain America (edits)

It's 1942 and America has entered WW2, and sickly but determined Steve Rogers is frustrated after being deemed unfit for military service. Rogers then volunteers for a top secret research project that turns him into Captain America, a superhero dedicated to defending USA ideals. the film starred Hollywod greats such as; Stanley Tucci, Chris Evans and Samuel L. Jackson. It was dirceted by Joe Johnston, and was first released in July 2011.

 Between 0s-18s the Paramount logo and soundtrack appears, this is followed by a blank screen until 0:21 seconds. From 0:21 to 0:33 seconds the Marvel logo appears, followed again by a blank screen for 3 seconds. At this point the film starts, it is unclear as too what is happening as the scene is foggy suggesting to the audience that the climate is cold, at 0:47 seconds headlights can  be seen coming closer towards the camera until they expand to the full screen at 0:52 seconds, it then cuts to a POV shot from the car and we can see a man holding a stick with a light on it, presumably to find his and the people in the car's way to what they have discovered, seen as this is super hero movie we expect it be to be supernatural and big, however it it is still unclear as to why anyone is out in this climate. At 1:12 dialogue starts and they have been introduced as 'the guys from Washington'. The scene continues with various different camera shots and angles. At 1:47 the zooming effect starts on the spaceship and here also the music becomes louder as the space ship is reviled on camera

Analysis : Love Actually

Follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely and interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London, England.

The film starts with the 'Universal Pictures' visual and soundtrack which is one of the productions for 21 seconds then 'Studio Canal' follows this for another 17 seconds until  0:38. 'Studio Canal' has a shot of a cloud and then turn into a black screen with a particular type face that says 'Studio Canal'. 'Working Title' follows by a black screen with animated drawing of yellow circles and then the writing of 'Working Title' appears with a slight very dark blue background. This takes 11 seconds until 0:49 secs and there is no sound added to this.
We are presented with a women walking to her presumed partner and hugs him at an airport. Meanwhile, this is happening we see the writing (which is overlayering on the bottom left hand corner) 'Universal Pictures and Canal Studio Presents'. This takes 5 seconds until 0:54. At 0:49 we are presented with music that seems reflective which does not stop until 1:13.The women is still hugging her partner until 0:59, but while this is taking place between 0:54 and 0:59 (5 secs) we see the writing 'Working Title Productions' Between 0:59 and 1:50, the screen changes to different people greeting friends, family and loved ones in the airport. While this happens, 'In association with DNA films' comes on the screen. at 1:13 we hear a diolgue that starts (Hugh Grants monologue) and it stops at 1:50. Between 1:50 - 1:58 we see the same typeface (as the other productions are presented in) that fades in which states 'Love actually is all around us' and there is no sound from here on to the 2 minutes. Then at 1:58 until 2:00 the word Love Actually appears with a black background. Love is in a red colour and Actually is in a white colour.

The opening seems to capture the excitment of seeing that person for a very long time and shows how important love is. The way they present the different people greeting each other  they make it a simple but effective. Normally films make a big deal about the productions and directors and put them on a black screen and have their typeface very large a bold whereas is 'Love Actually' they seem to lack the boldness of the productions but simply put it on the side where they are noticeable and doesn't distract the audience. I prize the first 2 minutes of this film because it gets straight into it, Hugh Grant starts his diologue explaining the greatness of 'Love is all around us'. Especially at the end where they put the 'Love Actually' seperate but 'Love' was in red truely captured the essence of what the film was going to be about.
Although the opening sequence seems to lack a good music choice from the first 2 minutes, they use a presumed reflective music where there is nothing to reflect on apart from the people in the airport either kissing or hugging. It didn't have a great effect on me, it was only the visuals that made by heart warm up. If they had used something like a well-known love song such as 'Love, Love, Love' by The Beatles, I think it would of had a bigger effect on the audience to capture the essence of love!