Creating our storyboard.

In today's lesson me and my group decided to create a storyboard of what our thriller film will be about. We drew visuals of the sequence and wrote down ideas of props and the settings that we will include in the thriller. Completing this gave us a more accurate idea of what we want to do.

Jurrassic Park 1993!

During the christmas holiday I watched a scientific film thriller series known to us as Jurrasic Park, the one I decided to watch was Jurrasic Park 1993. The director of this film was a man called Steven Speilberg and runs for 127 minutes. This film stars actors such as Richard Attenborough (John Hammond), Jeff Goldblum (Ian Malcolm), Sam Neil (Dr. Alan Grant), Laura Dem (Dr. Ellie Sattler), Ariana Richards (Alexis Murphy) and Joseph Mazzelo (Tim Murphy).

I really like Jurrassic Park because I like how the tension is built up for us in many scenes as they are accompanied and under attack by dinasours such as the T-Rex. This is shown to us in the scene where the two young children, Alexis and Tim are in the kitchen and soon find out that there are dinasours outside trying to get in. The tension is built up as the children have to be dead silent, trying to creep around the kitchen in able to escape from them. I also like the scene where the two men and the woman are in the truck and they are chased by the T-Rex. I think its really tense as the T-Rex gets closer and closer to them building up the tension to make us think are they going to get away in time. 

Sabotage.

During one of our lessons, we watched the opening extract of Sabotage; a thriller film made in 1936. This was again another one of Alfred Hitchcock's most famous British films that demonstrated several things. It included dramatic irony, meaning that us as the audience know something that the character does not. In the case of this film, a man called Verloc who is part of a gang of foreign saboteurs operating out of London  gives a package to his wife's younger brother to take it to Picaddilly Circus. His wife's younger brother follows the orders he has been given as does so even though that he doesn't know the package is in fact a bomb and will go off at 1:45. Although Verloc drumbs into the young boy's head that the package must be at Picadilly Circus by 1:30 he is unfortunately unable to make this deadline and therefore we see the end of his life.

During the film, suspense and tension is built up in many ways. For example, while watching the film we get several close ups of the package which is in fact the bomb. This is helping us believe that time is getting on and the bomb could go off anytime soon. We also hear the dramatic change in music. Whilst watching the young boy on the bus with the package, we hear a contrapuntal sound which comes across as a 'tik tok' which coudl therefore relate to a clock or a bomb which shows that the time is getting nearer to 1:45.

Thriller research interviews!

We carried out this research to find our target audience to see what type of thrillers people like and why they like them.We interviewed several people in this clip and the questions that we asked were,
What is your favourite thriller?
What do you like about this thriller?
What do you think makes a good thriller?

Conventions of genre (film language)

First of all there is:

Lighting & Colour

The lighting in a scene helps to express the mood and atmosphere that we are experiencing. The audience's attention can be grabbed by brightly lighting an object or gesture that is very important to the story line that we are following whilst keeping other details in either complete darkness or relative. A director can also use shadows to build up suspense and the tension by keeping elements in the scene from the audience.

In a studio the lighting comes from three main sources such as:
Key light- it is the most brightest light and makes the most difference.
The back light- this type of light makes a character/object look more 'rounded'.
The filler light- this light fills in the gaps and softens the hard shadows that the use of key and back lights create. There could be several filler lights used in a studio.

Lighting can be directed from different angles and heights to create different effects, such as:
Underlighting- this type of lighting is when the source light comes from beneath the object. This creates a distorting effect on the character or object and is often used in horror films.
Top lighting- this is when the main source of lighting comes from above the, highlighting the features and facial expressions of a character. It can also be used to make a character look glamorous.
Back lighting- this lighting comes from behind the subject. This type creates a silhouette, if little or no other lightings are used.      

The director of a film is the person who is responsible for the lighting within. They have to manipulate the studio lighting format to achieve the atmosphere that they are trying to convey.
Low-key lighting- this is achieved when only the key and back lights are used. It will then produce a sharp contrast of light and also dark areas on the screen as shadows are created. This effect that is formed is known as chiaroscuro. This is italian words for light (chiaro) and dark (oscuro).
High-key lighting- this is when several filler lights are used. This is lighting that appears normal and realistic to our eyes as the audience; shadows will also appear in this type of lighting. 

Thriller montage at OneTrueMedia.com

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I decided to create a montage of several images that come into my mind when i thought of a thriller. 

My Montage 12/17/10 at OneTrueMedia.com

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com
This is a montage that I created to show how Uncle Charlie and Charlie are both presented in the same ways when they are introduced to us in the film, 'Shadow of a doubt'.