Location of our thriller task

Are group went location scouting to find a suitable place to film and to show the atmosphere we want our thriller opening to express.

Here is was we came up with.

A Wasteland full of mysterious objects, we decided this place as it shows the place isn't looked after and suggest it being abandoned and give the audience a reason to think why is the protagonist there to begin with and to show us that nothing good can come from this place .

This place is also flat and big giving us the space needed for all the scenes.

 

 

This puddle is the thing needed to use in the scene in which the antagonist looks at his reflection to reveal his inner self and to reminisce over the murder he just committed . 



The second Photo shows how exactly the puddle would be used in

 our thriller .

 

 

 

 

 

    The following last 2 photos was just to show how much fun we had there and not really helpful to our thriller.

 

This is a group photo in which we took at the end of the session to congratulate ourselves. (Attempting to look serious)

This photo is of a plant which we commonly saw in this area so we thought it deserved some respect to our day there .

 

 





Storyboard for our thriller task

Side 1

Side 1: the first side includes all up to the scene where the victim(Me) gets attacked by the antagonist.

The shots used are wide shot, over-shoulder shot and two shot , the wide shot is technically our establishing shot as it is setting the mood and theme as the location is mysterious and dark. The over shoulder shot is used to show the action of the victim and the camera shot can suggest someone is behind him (In which there is).The two shot shows the comparison between both characters and that they are binary opposites as one is evil while the other isn't.  

Side 2

Side 2:Is the scene in which the victim has fell to the floor and trying to crawl away while multiple kinds of shots are used to create different effects. On the second tile the victim is crawling passed the camera while its on a fixed position just to show how fast the victim is moving and that its just fast enough to escape the victim however the murderer is doing the cliché slow walk while the victim tries to escape. Over the shoulder shot is used this time to show the height distance between the two characters and that  the murderer is in control of the situation and has overall more power .    

Side 3

Side 3:in this scene the witness (Brad) has seen the murder take place and the murder looks at his own reflection and the notices the witness in which he  turns to and then it ends to insinuate that isn't the only murder to happen or that murder is going to get caught. In the last two tiles we use shot/reverse shot to show the emotion on both the murders face and thee witnesses face and the next action they are going to take.  

 

This is our storyboard for our thriller.

 

Disabilities in tv dramas

Disabled people are represented in many ways through media some are seen as a role model and some are seen as a negative stereotype towards them and mostly the disability shown in media is a physical one and not mentally as that's hard to express as there's no way to be certain about that type of disability as some symptoms are faint compared to a psychical one.

 

The type of disabled person used is the "Super cripple" which makes them seem to be better than most other disabled people and despite their condition they can achieve anything and hope any disabled will follow them and also be the strong person represented . Here are some examples of this representation: Stephen Hawking , Ellie Simmonds

 

 

On the other hand they can be represented as someone to sympathise over as they need constant attention when looked after and that every day is a struggle to them and cant do anything and everything is a challenge in which they cant do themselves.

 

Or even worse they can be shown as laughing stock in which people see them as freaks as they aren't seen physically identical to everyone else and was also not seen as equals to non-disabled to people in which it wasn't till the mid 1970s in which they realised that disabled people contribute to society still and that changes have to be made.  

 

Source used for some of the information.

This blog is relevant to our thriller task because our murderer has a mental disability and we tried to make the person not appear to be one of the stereotypes and overall cant be stereotyped.

Lighting Practise

In this picture we used the natural light in the background to show that something can happening in the background as well as the foreground at the light is behind him.

 

In this picture we used the natural light to show focus on my face to make it stand out from the background and to make hair much brighter to show the strong contrast of colours .

 

 

In this picture we used artificial lighting to make me appear sad and in despair and I am intently looking at the camera to express this emotion .

 

 

 

In this picture we used multiple lighting to emphasis the emotion of him being happy, as one light shining the light from a low angle and one from the right, showing him to be smiling and overjoyed of what's happening in the view hidden by the camera .

 

In this picture we used the artificial lighting and concentrated it on one side of brad face to cast a dark shadow on the part with no light to emphasise the aggression brad has towards what's happening behind the camera.

 

In this picture we used the same lighting as the previous one but its less concentrated to express a much more relaxed situation yet the disperse of light suggests brad is plotting something evil of mischievous.

Paramount Pictures

Today, we begun our case study on the company 'Paramount Pictures', and what kind of films they produce in which are popular.


 Paramount Pictures was founded by Adolph Zukor, Jessie L. Laskey and W.W. Hodkinson in 1914. The film company has made many famous franchises' films, such as Transformers and G.I. Joe. It is seen as one of the 'Big Six' of Hollywood, producing entertaining films, often more-so aimed at males. They aim to make much more action oriented films using digital effects to maximize their special effects and potential realism; not producing an animated film yet. Many of the films are fictional, but have a base that has been worked off, such as the Transformers' films and Titanic being based off the true story.

One of the main type of films that Paramount have made that is popular is psychological thrillers. Examples of these are 'Shutter Island', 'The Conversion' and 'Rosemary's Baby'. These are all popular as they have induced their audience within the films, and made them enjoyable overall. I have looked into reviews from the following websites.Rosemary's Baby Review
Shutter Island Review
The Conversation Review
These reviews all have some things in common that they talk about. One of which is an interesting protagonist. This is done by giving them a niche feature, such as in 'The Conversation' where the protagonist is bad at their job, but is quite an important job. This is important as the protagonist has to be interesting to watch, or the audience may not enjoy the film.
It was also common to hear about an interesting plot. The plots of each are well written and, while not all original,(Rosemary's' Baby is quite similar to Psycho), it still has a reason to watch. In the case of 'Rosemary's' Baby' it was still different to 'Psycho', even if both protagonists were widows.
One complaint I saw from 'Shutter Island' was that is was too 'classy' for it's setting. This is important as the props and background had to be considered, but quite new and classy furniture was around on an isolated island full of mental people. The use of mise-en-scene is key to thrillers, and wasn't used as effectively as others.
There were also many other thrillers that I looked into as well.


The Film "Zodiac" was based on a true story that revolves around the "Zodiac Killer". The people that are more aware of the Zodiac Killer will already be more aware of the real life event and so will be a little harder to impress but for the newer audience you need to feed the story in a way that everyone would enjoy.
"The whole story is very chilling and kept you going.
The Zodiac Killer is a case that forever will remain a mystery and it was a
great idea for a film" one public reviewer stated on the IMDb website, and
the film gained an overall rating of 7.7 on the same website.It seems as though the film was a very effective thriller and
was received very well by critics. The look of the film was largely revolved
around the real 1970's case, so it is filmed in an aspect that would be similar
to the movies seen in the 70's. This helped to create more of an atmosphere
because you were made to feel as though you were looking into the past.
 Psycho (1998) is a fictional remake of a horror thriller of
the same name about a woman who is murdered in a motel and her sister, boyfriend
and a private investigator try to find her (because they don't know she was
murdered).The film received a review score of 4.6 on IMDB and many or
the reviews question why the remake was actually made because the original
Psycho was a classic film."My biggest question is "Why did they re-make a
classic Hitchcock movie?" It's a "no-win" situation", one
person said.The film did not receive very high review scores wherever you
look and thus was a very unpopular movie.

Textual analysis on the se7en opening

I made a Prezi of the opening to Se7en about the editing and the Mise-en-scene, etc. used .

Director/Producer case study

In the link is are presentation of a director/producer of our choice and we decided to do J-J Abrams link to Glog