Saturday 26 February 2011

127 Hours Poster Analysis

 127 Hours Film Poster
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When the audience first look at this poster, they have reason to be intrigued as they can see an aesthetically pleasing optical illusion as the coming together of cliff edges visually and metaphorically symbolize a timer. This contributes to the main theme of the advert, which is losing time, as it emphasizes the meaning of the text ‘127 HOURS’ and ‘every second counts’. The cliff edges also help to set up a narrative moment in the advert as we can see a man who appears to show little movement is stuck. This foreshadows aspects of the plot in the film teasing the audience, film posters often do this in order to give the audience something the associate the film with and to see if the film’s visual representations of genre and narrative suite to their taste.

The text at the top of the advert ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ obliges the audience to associate this film with an incredibly successful and well-known film as soon as they see the text. The poster does this to prompt the audience on to go and see the film, which is of course the main aim of the poster.

The lighting in the advert also generates a meaning about the film’s narrative. There is a strip of intensely bright light across the centre of the poster and the charachter in the advert. This symbolises the intense part of the plot as giving away the fact that it has an element of the action  genre.
By Colin Chadwick

Friday 18 February 2011

antagonist and protagonist analysis

an antagonist is a character who opposes the protagonist. they are considered the "bad guys" in movies and they usually experience a period of power over the protagonist at some point in the movie. during some point of the movie, the protagonist reveals a flaw in their character that gets exploited by the antagonist. after this, the protagonist is forced to face and over come their problems and "save the day" from the antagonist.
a protagonist is a character who is considered the "good guy" in a movie.
within our thriller sequence, we have both a protagonist and an antagonist. they are easy to differentiate because, although they are wearing similar clothes, the antagonist is generally wearing dark clothes and the protagonist generally wears light clothes. this emphasizes the elements of good vs evil which is also present in our opening sequence.

Character Analysis

we analyzed the conventions of Leonardo d'caprio's character in inception. the characteristics that you see from a character which stars in a thriller movie are usually very smart, mentally strong or weak which usually gives the movie meaning.
leonardo d'caprio is very smart and he knows a lot about the subject which he operates in, we know this because he says that he is the best in his department. this leaves the audience on edge because he knows a lot more about the main subject of the film than the audience so they don't know what to expect. also he is very calm and collective, which is a contrast because the film's narrative is in great depth and is about serious matters, this leaves the audience on edge because they are unsure on what and why he is calm. in this movie he is the protagonist because he isn't making harmful situations for no reason, he has a objective and aims to fulfill his objective. this makes the audience feel sympathy for him because he is going through so much hassle to try and achieve his objectives.

Thriller Rough Cut

Thursday 17 February 2011

these are different sounds that we could use for our thriller soundtrack. this is just a few sounds that we could use for any part of our soundtrack or we may not even use for our project.

Tuesday 8 February 2011

thriller soundtrack

there are different types of sounds that can be used for a thriller soundtrack. for the James bond films, which can be classed as 'spy or espionage thrillers', you hear a snare drum rhythm in the background. this sequence is common with espionage related sequences so follows the conventions of the James bond thrillers. this particular theme tune also includes trumpets and other wind instruments above the background. this is to add density to the soundtrack and give the feeling that there is a lot of things going on at once.



for the dark night, a lot of heavy and dark tunes are used. because high pitched notes are used very often within the soundtrack, there is the feeling of danger and foreboding. this is a successful technique and we are considering using this method for our own thriller soundtrack.



this next soundtrack is from the thriller  inception. like previous examples, it uses string and woodwind instruments for dramatic effect. this soundtrack uses a crescendo with the sounds getting progressively louder. this gives the feeling of growing danger which we are thinking about including within our own soundtrack.

Friday 4 February 2011

why thrillers thrive

we watch thrillers so that we can experience 'shake ups' to enhance our living and watching thrillers is a great way to do this. in films we are able to see everything that is happening on the screen without experiencing it first hand. we enjoy watching movies because we become immersed in what is happening and participate in the movie rather than simply watch it. films allow us to feel what the characters are feeling but because we are watching it, we know that we are safe from what is actually going on. the main purpose of the film is to portray emotions that hold the attention of the audience, from happiness to sadness, although they are safe from these emotions, just experiencing them in their subconscious minds.

Thursday 3 February 2011

shooting schedule

we will be filming between the 7th to the 18th of February. this means that we will have 6 media lessons to film in as well as any free time that we have available. because we will have 9 hours worth of lessons, we will try and get all the filming done within that space to avoid problems with everyone's schedule. we have decided to film our thriller opening sequence during the night because nighttime is a major feature of our production. this will mean that we have to do some out of college shooting because we obviously don't go to college at night.
whenever it is not possible to film during our lessons, we will be doing extra research and continue to blog work.
Monday 7th - film after college
Tuesday 8th - film during lesson
Wednesday 9th - no filming
Thursday 10th - film during lesson
Friday 11th - film during lesson
Saturday 12th - no filming
Sunday13th - no filming
Monday 14th - no filming
Tuesday 15th - film during lesson
Wednesday 16th - no filming
Thursday 17th - film during lesson
Friday 18th - film during lesson

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Mise-en-scene

location
our location is set in olivia's house where the opening sequence will begin where the man is in the dream and another location will be on her street for a short period of time where you will see the man walking back home from dropping his son of at his ex wifes house. also at the end of the scene where the antagonist and the protagonist have a face off, this is where the two character settle there differences. carpark1 751

props
in our opening sequence we will be using chairs to have the hostages tied up on whist they are being kept hostage. also we will be using a phone for when the father is contacting the ex wife. We will also use a pretend gun for when the kidnappers are holding the child hostage. We will also use rope to tie the child to the chair. the kid will have some toys to play with to show the audience that he is a child.Toy Gun_x600

lighting
in our opening sequence we will be using the natural light during the day in olivia's house, also when we see the man going to bed there will be little light to emphasize the night time. when we go into the street again we will be using natural light and the only light avalible would be the street lights. when we go into the car park we will be using the lights which are avalible in there which means it will be gloomy and this will create the eary atmosphere.misty-street-lights

costume
the costume for the man will be casual, being a t-shirt and jeans. when he goes to bed you till see him in a dressing gown to show the audience that he is going to bed. the kid will also be wearing a dressing gown, to show that he is a child.

shot list and risk assessment

this is our shot list for out opening sequence
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this is our risk assessment
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thriller opening script

the opening sequence starts off with a shot of the dad sleeping uncomfortably in his sleep. because we want to show him having nightmares, the dad will have to be tossing and turning in the bed and looking restless. the next scene is off his ex-wife and his young son tied up in an empty room looking terrified. there is then a jump cut back to then dad as he wakes screaming and shouting which emphasizes the fact that he was having a nightmare. the story then jumps forward in time to the dad running frantically down the street at night. the dad then walks up to a deserted warehouse panting to show that he is tired and worn out from running down the street. we then see the father walking down a corridor with his footsteps bouncing off the walls. after a sudden scream, from the mother in a different part of the warehouse, the dad spins around and runs in the direction of the scream. we then see the kidnapper with the two hostages. the father walks forward slowly to confront the kidnapper and once they are close enough to speak clearly, you hear the dad say something along the lines of "you wont get away with this" then the scene fades and the movie starts.

location Recce

the first location where we will be to film our thriller opening sequence will be at olivia's house, there are little constrictions to this location because it's her house and we have been granted permission from her family so that we can use her house. olivia has a little sister and brother that go to bed fairly early, this could cause a diversion in our filming routine because we would not be able to talk loudly or shout to emphasize the characters feelings and emotions. the next place we would go is the car park under the grande arcade in cambridge, there are quite a few restrictions because there will be cars down there which might get in the way of our filming, also we would have to get permission from the security guards, this could be a fatal drawback in our productions because they might kick us off and that means that we would have to re-locate and find a new location of film at. if we do get kicked out of this location colin has a garage which we could use but the car park would be better, there are no constrictions for colins garage as it is his, and his parents will let us. another location would be outside olivia's house, there are little restrictions to this location because it is on a small road, with a small amount of house's therefore not many cars and people disturbing our filming process.

storyboard thriller opening

this is our storyboard. this is only basic and could change when it comes to filming and editing our production.
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