9) Hitchcocks traits in our Prelminary planning

Why/how did we chose to use Alfred Hitchcock’s style of filming a thriller?

In the first shot there is a close up mirror shot of Dannii, with a foot in the background which shows double identity, which is a trait of Hitchcock’s thrillers, showing the audience that Dannii has two different sides to her. The foot in the background also creates mystery and suspense, to help build up to the shock when the audience become aware of the mystery.

To get from the first shot to the second, we used a panning shot, down to a close up of her blood covered hands, progressing into a zoom in to the plug to emphasise the double identity that she is able to wash away the evidence without anyone being aware and carry on with her ‘normal’ life that the characters think she lives. The audience will know about Dannii’s two sides, which is effective for Hitchcock’s movies and will show thriller traits keeping the audience a part of the narrative. We then cut to a panning shot of Shannan walking through the toilet door on her phone, completely unaware that someone is dead in the toilet she is about to go in, we then cut to Megan’s body on the floor which is the first time the audience see her whole body which builds up the shock and then adds to the suspense and tension as Dannii is still in the toilets, from the close up of the body we cut straight back to a close up of Shannan’s face to reflect her state of mind and to show her shock. This also builds tension for the audience as they are aware that Dannii is the killer and Shannan is in danger.

 We then use a panning shot of Shannan turning around to see Danni looking in the mirror washing blood of her hands which is letting her secret out and through an over the shoulder mirror shot, Danni and Shannan have a conversation;

-      Dannii: Now it’s your turn.

-      Shannan: What?! What do you mean?

-      Dannii: You know what I mean.

During the conversation there is a quiet sinister sound track, which the gets louder as the camera gets further away.

After this conversation, we use a progressive long shot of Shannan and Danni staring at each other. The camera continues to get further away, and eventually goes out of the toilets and watches the toilet door shut. At this point the music is at its loudest and stops when the door shuts fully so the audience are left unaware of what happens to Shannan which creates tension and suspense to find out the mystery.

Storyboard of our preliminary plan:

 

Natasha

8) Theories

example of the Blumer and Katz theory.

SEMIOTICS

Ferdinand De Saussure - the founder of semiotics ,focused on linguistics and understanding of the messages behind sounds and units of words and communication.
In Thrillers semiotics can be shown trough the speed of cuts and close ups of signs and signifiers triggering the audiences thoughts, alot of the time thrillers focus on signs of insignificance to trick the audience this is to keep the audience thinking, to emphasis on the shock.
Signs and Signifiers
A sign is something that signifies a greater concept and be signed in many different ways;
- word
- icon
- colour
- symbol
- picture
- sound

Signs signify things that have a cultural reference, as a lot of signs already have a wide meaning which will be recognised by the audience allowing them to have a good understanding, for example the colour red instantly signifies danger so by using aspects like this it is already helping create the atmosphere and therefore signs are very important in thrillers as there needs to be a very specific atmosphere throughout which is why most thrillers use dark lighting as this instantly signifies mystery.


Example:

The gun is a sign of danger - signifies death

Dark background in the trees is a sign of mystery

Natasha

6) Thriller Characters

PYHSCO

Janet Leigh, was well known for her role as Marion Crane(Mary Bates) in Psycho in the 60s. Her character dies in an iconic scene... She goes to her room and takes a shower, which feels to her like absolution for a crime she had commited. But it's too late for that. The motel owner enters the bathroom masquerading as his mother carrying a kitchen knife, which he uses to stab Mary to death. 

Janet Leigh appeared in  other thrillers like Touch of Evil and The Fog. She plays similar helpless characters in most of her films and is usually a victim. She was chosen for her role in Psycho for her good looks and acting skills. This meant that she was type casted from then on.

 JAWS

Spielberg wished to avoid hiring any big stars. He felt that "somewhat anonymous" performers would help the audience "believe this was happening to people like you and me",

Quint was a typical shark hunter and normal looking therefore the audience could relate to him which is what Spielberg wanted for his Jaws movie. Quint captained the boat and became part of local lore after his last trip out to sea in a bid to capture a giant killer shark. Hired to catch the shark, Quint was joined by characters Brody, and Hooper to try and capture and kill the shark. Quint was chosen for the leading role in Jaws as his appearance and accent was typical of a shark hunter which added to to mystery of the thriller and enabled the audeince to relate to it.

Typical thriller characters include:

Antagonist (villain/badguy)

Protagonist (hero/goodguy)

Anti-hero

Detectives/crime solvers

Red herring (disruption of the main focus)

Femme fatal (typical seductive women)

Damsel in distress (happy ending)

Sidekick/helper/accomplice

Victims

 

Natasha

5) Film Noir

Film Noir is an important part of producing thriller movies.

Film;

these are a few of the aspects which create/represent 'film'

Noir;

this is a few aspects which construct/represent 'noir'

To study Film Noir we watched part of Double Indemnity, and it was very clear it was film noir as it included aspects such as; 

• Dark shadows
• Back lighting
• Smokey atmosphere - covering faces
• Smoking
• Murderer
• Mysterious characters
• Characters wearing over-coats and top hats
• First piece of dialogue we hear is a murder confession
• Deciet
• Villain
• Hidden secrets

elements that make Film Noir distinct;

- City scene - shown through establishing shot at night creating mystery

- Crime scene

- Detective investigation

- Femme fatal - manipulative, and more dangerous than the murderer

- Shadows created from street lamp lighting, creating tension and suspense

- Dark setting

Will include characters such as;

- Heros

- Villains

- Detectives

- Agents

- Cynical, tarnished, obsessive, menacing, sinister, frightened and insecure character struggling to survive.

- The protagonist usually driven by their past or by weaknesses to repeat mistakes

Visual style;

- Deep focus/depth of field

- Disorientating

- Ominous shadows

- Skewed camera angles

- Unbalanced compostion

- Cigarette smoke

Setting;

- Low key lighting

- Gloomy

- Claustraphobic

- Dark alleys

- Shadows

Iconography;

- Detectives

- Police

- Murder

- Corruption

- Seductive female

- Guns

- False love

- Dark places

All of these aspects are important and some essential in creating thrillers and this work on Film Noir will help us to create ideas and set the scene and right characters to create a sinister atosphere for our own thriller in order to create tension and suspense for our audience.

Natasha

4) Hitchcock; The Birds clip analysis

From this clip in the Birds we can see that Hitchcock has positioned the character to the corner of the frame to show that the audience are aware of what is happening before any of the characters. The diegetic singing from the school children help the build up of tension for the audience as we're the only ones that know the birds are going to attack. We see the character from different angles which influence the significance of her unawareness. Hitchcock uses inovative quick cuts between her and the playground behind her each time a new bird reaches the climbing frame, with each cut progressively getting closer to her face, which is significant in showing how oblivious she is also in creating suspense and tension for the audience. We also see her turn her head and look slightly behind her several times, which makes us think that she might notice the birds behind her, however Hitchcock plays on this to create suspense as more birds keep coming, which also creates frustration for the audience as we are aware of whats happening and how close she is to them yet she is so unaware. When she sees the bird, the audience are immediatley shown through a point of view shot that she has noticed, as it is flying to the playground towards the others she is still unaware that there are many more right behind her, from the point of view shot it cuts to a high angle shot of her to show her reaction, this is used to look down on her to show that she is vulnerable and useless in the situation and to show her fear of the birds. Hitchcock then cuts back to a point of view shot of the bird reaching the entire playground full of them. It then cuts back to an empty shot with the character rising into the frame looking over at the infested playground, suggesting the she is paniced and doesnt know what to do. it cuts back to a shot of the birds then back to the character looking over to the school, showing that she is aware the birds are going to attack the school children and that she needs to make them aware. As shes walking towards the school we see her point of view shot looking at  the birds whilst hurrying to the building, this emphasises her fear, as shes looking back at them also the diegetic sounding of her footsteps aswell as the children singing build up the tension and suspense of whether she can stop the attack.
The use of the quick cuts between the character and the birds are effective in creating tension and building up suspense and the audience are already aware that the birds will attack, this is an effective aspect of thrillers which will be useful in creating our own thriller as we can use the quick cuts to build tension and suspense.

Natasha

1) Introduction to Thrillers

To gain understanding of thrillers we have studied Hitcocks movies Rear Window, The birds, and Physco and looked at the various aspects and elements of how a successful thriller movie is created. After watching Rear Window and The Birds we wrote an essay on the comparisons of the techniques hitchcock uses to create suspense, tension and shock;

From doing this we gained the knowledge and understanding of the main important aspects which are needed in order to create a succesful thriller. For example the use of non diegetic sound is key in creating suspence and building tension, and the way Hitchcock focus' on insignificant aspects of the movie to create unexpected shock to the audience.

Natasha



3) How is Hitchcock an auteur

Hitchcock is an auteur as he uses common threads and themes throughout all of his movies which are recognizable to his audience. For example his distinct use of camera shots; very high angle shots - e.g; Norman carrying his mother downstairs and Normans mother stabbing arbogast. Exaggerated POV shots - e.g; Marions first glimpse of the traffic cop and Lilas long walk up to the house. Single take shots - e.g; the camera gliding across the cityscape to fly right through the hotel window and the camera moving away from Marions body in the bathroom, across the bedroom, past the money in the newspaper and to the open window. Through his creative use of sound - insistent and urgent non-diegetic music, the exaggerated lighting effects, very precise editing to create tension and suprise, the introduction of false leads and misleading information - used to create nerves and get the audiences physcological mind working, trapped/imprisioned characters, misleading relationships, false identities and personal  cameo appearance of Hitchcock himself.

All of these aspects of Hitchcocks work makes him an auteur,through his creativity of making his audience a voyeur he creates the audience to be both subjective and objective paricipants within the action to empathise with the characters, the use of mirrors to create the double identity theme also used to play on the characters emotions, for example when Lila scares herself with her own reflection. The double identity theme is significant in Hitchcocks work as he uses it through the narcissistic voyeurism that we love looking at ourselves Hitchocock develops the into us loving looking at other people.

We can use Hitchcoks auteur theory in our production as we can use his innovative camera shots and angles to make it an effective opening and try to make the audience be subjective and objective within our own thriller opening.

Natasha

2) Conventions of a Thriller

From watching Hitcocks movies and studying the various conventions of thrillers, we have gained a good understanding and knowledge of how to create a good thriller and started thinking of ideas on how to create our own thriller openings.

Some of the key conventions that are essential in creating a successful thriller is the use of non-diegetic sound, as this can instantly set the scene for a tense atmosphere and create the build up of suspense and shock.
Lighting is another key convention in creating a successful thriller as we can see alone from Hitchocks movies the significance of low key lighting the create a sisnister mysterious atmoshpere and to create shadowed faces which tell the audience alot about the character.

I think these are the main two conventions needed to be succesful in creating a thriller as the atmosphere has to be sinister and dark to set the scene and without the use of sound it wouldnt be very successful in creating tension, suspense and shock which are the main purposes of thriller movies.

Natasha