Thriller Research- Fast and Furious

These are my other notes which I had made by watching another thriller. The other thriller I watched was Fast and Furious (Rob Cohen, 2001). These are the notes which I made on it.


Camera
who is in the film
effects
mise en scene
Font
- the Universal sign starts turning into a car wheel
- upbeat dance music as the soundtrack
- montage of people using and doing up their cars
- a lot of montage of clips where people are partying- stereos &loud music
- montage of the clips throughout the film
- music in background still upbeat/ fast paced
- explosive effects
- a lot of stunts
- montage of clips make you want to watch the film to find out what they are doing? and why they are doing it?
- a lot of montage clips of each of the guys relationships with their love interests.
- Fast & Furious fades in from the distance
- lots of close up shots
- mid shots
- long shots
- extreme close ups of cars
- block font, capitals, metal colour, fits with movie and looks like part of the film
- Vin Diesel- written font, middle of the screen, white and also lower and capitals for the 'v' and 'd' . Also having a picture of the actor with the font
- Paul Walker- same written font as Vin Diesel, also having an image of the actor
- Jordana Brewster- an actress, also same writing and fade in and out. First think she might be a love interest in the film
- Michelle Rodriguez- also love interest in the film
- Universal- drums in the background
- Tyrese Gibson- own style and quite messy
- car appears (sports car)
- yellow, blue and white car also pulls up after
- car drifting
- set in the middle of road at night setting the scene for the movie
- road closed sign - representing danger
- shows who the main character is
- rough clothes- blood and holding a gun
- Vin Diesel in white and enemy in black (good vs evil)
- more extra characters in the background of the scene
- in white also representing good?
- money
- different gangs wearing different colours showing the seperation between them
- looking after their cars ( means a lot to them) showing what the film is going to be about
- damaging sports cars, (representing and showing how he is quite tough)
- glamorous houses and locations
- swearing
- car racing
- trucks/ lorries
- cars getting damaged while racing
- costumes that show off a lot

Thriller Research- Casino Royale

We had to watch 2 clips of seperate thrillers to watch the opening sequence of credits, to see what different thrillers look like and their different ideas on how to make it look better and attract their audiences.
The first thriller film i watched was 'Casino Royale' (Ian Fleming, 2006). I therefore made notes about what I saw on the opening sequence.
Embedding has been disabled but the clip can be accessed here.
who is involved in the movie
costumes
camera
font
effects
- goes with the genre (storyline)
- gun shot- thinks what is going to happen?
- circle going round James Bond creating secracy and mystery
- red effect dripping down the screen (creating the sense of blood- danger)
- with the sound track being quite mysterious -"you know my name"
- DANIEL CRAIG- red background representing James Bond having may be a love interest or representing danger
- bond 007 effect from bullets being shot into a card of hearts
- goes to a black background
- sound track still rockish and also quite slow but goes with the film
- clips of the main character (guns and pocket chips)
- different background patterns appear but still with the use of the cards (spades, clubs, heart and diamonds)
- King of spades in background- using a gun (representing power)
- a lot of guns shooting in the background
- alot of the different playing cards appearing in the background with also silhouttes of main character (James Bond) and his enemies (gangsters)
- cartoons still mimicking what happens throughout the movie
- silhouttes smashing into pieces effect
- heart (romance)
- view finder of a gun going across a cartoon queens face but then as it goes across it turns into a proper face
- viewfinders start turning into poker tables
- computer typing effect
- blocks to black silhoutte
- then cuts to a blank black screen.
- starring EVA GREEN
- Mads Mikkeisen
- Alancarlo Giannni
- Caterina Munno
- Simon Adkanan
- Isaach De Bankole
- Chris Munroe
- Eddie Knight
- Jay Maldment
- Paul Endelen
- Christine Nlundell
- directed by Martin Campbell
- associate producer- Andrew Noakes
- production executive - David Pope
- Jesper Christensen
- Ivana Mkicevic
- Tobias Menzies
- Claudia Saniamana
- free filming stunts by Sebastien Roucan
- ALEBERT R. BROCCOLI' S EON PRODUCTIONS LTD presents
- IAN FLEMING JAMES
- With Jeremy Wright ( appearing in the left hand corner of the screen)
- and Judy Dench as M (appearing in the middle of the screen- showing importance in the movie)
(top right hand corner, fades in and fades out)
- going to blank red screen with extra hearts, swirl effects surrounding the font
- font- middle of screen, capital letters, white font, sophisticated font.
- CASINO ROYALE
- fade in transition
- black vs red silhouttes fighting representing good vs evil
- when James Bond is fighting with the enemies in the opening scene they are all in different colours so we can tell which is the bad guys and which is the good guy
- montage of smaller clips which happens throughout the film but just the silhoutte of the character in different colours
- business/ smart suit
- image of James Bond (close up of his face see his expression)
- extreme long shot of main character reaching for gun
- camera starting moving backwards so that James Bond gets further away
- fighting scenes


These were the notes that I had made when I was watching the Thriller of the opening sequence/ credits for Casino Royale (Ian Fleming, 2006)

Thriller Research

23rd jan 2012

In todays lesson we started on learning about different type of thrillers; the conventions of thrillers are:
- The Unknown
- Narrative Enigma (question that wants answering)
- Violent crime
- genre of thriller is hard to define
- complex narrative structure
- protagonist (a custom to violence)- investigation to solve a crime
- setting- city, woods, everyday situations
- somethign extraordinary happen in everyday situations
lots of themes- identity (Bourne Identity), mirroring and voyeurism (protagonist watching criminal)
- not a short film (opening sequence)

We also then wrote down conventions of a trailor but this is so that we make sure that we don't use this throughout the thriller due to the fact that if we used them then it would look too much like a film movie trailor.

- montage
- releases date
- corporate branding
- voiceover (deep voice)
- keylines from film
- advertising
- find a lot of the story
- title at the end of the trailor
- close up/ mid shot


We then watched several different beginning sequences from different opening sequences from thrillers. This is so that we could understand what to do and how to make it look as good as it possibly can, also to see what shots they use throughout the sequence.

Fargo ( Coen Brothers, 1996)

 To access the clip click the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI_4wvBHkrw

- mysterious music (orchestra)
- blank background - misty colour (sky)
- names (actors/actresses)- spread out, uppercase letters
- font style- screen looks bigger, dissolves from the screen
- snow
- car appears- lights
- title again
- fade to blank page
- in the pub- everyday situation (normal)
- introducing main characters
- violence is beginning to show
- normal dialogue
- close up
- conversation not explaining everything

Lost highway (David Lynch, 1997)

To access the clip click the link below. Watch 4 mins and 50 seconds.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20xw7IU1wPA&feature=related

- fast paced music in background- piano, pop, upbeat, moody, disorientated
- repeated clip of highway (in the middle of the road)
- actors/ actresses names- the same transition throughout, big, slanted, fades through us (3Dish), capitals, yellow font (fits with name)
- fast pace
- very plain and simple
- dark lighting
- close up/ extreme close up
- silhoutte
- starts moving quicker
- camera doesn't always follow the character
- characters acting- nervous, tense, eyeline match to buzzer, fast cuts, moving quite slowly

Se7en (David Fincher, 1995)
To access the clip click the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY
-
 Scary font- small, different transitions, flash/ flicker, randomly placed around the screen, fits with the genre, eye catching, fits with the name
- montage of different clips- wondering what is going to happen throughout the film
- scary music - machines working in the background
- extreme close up of what the character is doing in the clips (not telling us everything about the film)
- linking with above (not giving anything about the story away)

These are all of then notes that I got down whilst watching different opening sequences of thrillers, giving me different ideas for thrillers.

Preliminary Task

Conclusion

I have learnt how to edit all of the seperate sequences in the basic way, and also how to use different transitions to make the clip look better. I have now also learnt about the use of lighting and how to use it in the best possible way, to make your clip look as good as it can be. I have also learnt the different kind of varieties of shot-reverse-shot that you can use throughout a clip, such as over the shoulder and not going past the 180 degree line.

Preliminary Task

2301/2012

In today's lesson we reviewed both of the youtube clips that we made to see what we could have changed and made better.
- We figured out that for our youtube clip we could of made it better by using a more of a variety of shot reverse shot instead of having them all in the same place as each other.
- We could of also made it so that the shot was more of a widescreen but it looks quite squished in the shots so we could've made it more spread out.
- The last thing we could've changed is the lighting this is because when we tried to zoom in to the characters face or at an object it was a bit fuzzy and blurry but this is due to the fact of the lighting in the room, we would of needed to make sure that the subject is well lit.
- The things that were good about our clip is that we stayed within the 180 degree line, this means we stayed in the place we needed to so it looks like it is still part of the same shot.
- Also the next thing that was good in our clip was the use of shot reverse shot, they all fitted together and went at the right time.

Preliminary Task

16/01/2012
In the lesson we had to finish of doing all of the camera work, and finish of doing all of the scenes. Holly was still on the camera and Me and Ebony were acting out in the scene. When we finished filming a bit of the scene we all went back to the camera and reviewed what had been filmed this way if it didn't look right or someone may of had a better idea we could decide what to do by what we did.
When we finished the filming we were able to go onto the editing. We all had 10 mins each on editing so that we all had the basic idea on how to use it and what would be best for each section. I learn't a lot from using the editing section because I know all of the basics and how to piece all the sections together. After finishing editing we watched back what we had made and if something may needed changing then we were able to do that straight away due tot he fact we knew how to use it and all of the basics.

Preliminary Task

Today we started filming our scene. We did this by making sure that we had all of the right equipment with us and we knew how to use it. We also had to make sure that we had the right location and that we were wearing the right costume for the scene.
Holly was on camera filming the scene and Ebony was directing the scene, making sure that everything was going well. While i was acting in the scene. We all helped each other with different ideas, so if something didn't look right we helped one another to make it look better.

We also had to make sure that we had finished of our storyboards so that we knew where the camera was going to be, also what the best position for the camera was going to be. We also figured out what was going to be happening throughout each piece of filming.
These images are showing our storyboards and what we are going to be doing throughout the scene. The bottom image is showing the ideas of what our Preliminary exercise and what we came up with through the planning stage. But also how we also came up with idea.
Next lesson we will be finishing up filming the last bit of the exercise due to the fact we have got up to the 4th scene of filming, so we just need to finish the rest of the scenes off.
We also had to write down some notes so we knew what to do for when we are using the camera.
- we had to make sure that if it was on widescreen it would be 16:9.
- the audio level should always be the highest setting.
- pre roll/ post roll
- don't point the camera at the sun.
- when panning start further back.
- make sure you move into the shot of the camera.
- clean the lense with a tissue and not your finger.
- white balance- fill the screen with e.g. white piece of paper and then click the screen.
- editing.
- 5/6 seconds of ambient sound.
- rules of third- when deciding set up of frame.

Preliminary Task Planning

For my Preliminary Task I am working with Ebony Anderson and Holly Hulland.  We are having a female gangster having a conversation with a woman who owes her money, but can't get the money in time.
Our script is:


Clarrissa:  Sit down Maria.
Maria: I sorry I don’t have your money, I need more time.
Clarrissa: Sorry ain’t gonna cut it anymore. (Pulls out weapon)
Maria: I will get it to you I promise
Clarrissa: This is one promise you’re not gonna get to keep.

We have figured out who is going to be playing what character. I am going to be playing Maria and Ebony is going to be playing Clarrissa, (who is the female gangster). We will be filming in SF4. We have decided to use a weapon and a lamp for some props, and we have also decided to have the characters in smart/ casual clothing.
We also put together a mindmap with ideas of our Preliminary Task. We decided between family having a conversation, shopworker and customer, policeman/woman and prisoner, boss and worker and also a couple having a conversation. But Ebony came up with the idea of doing the female gangster.