Mise En Scene: Clothing

We wanted our characters to be easy to identify. The 'victim' in our thriller opening is supposed to have been coming out of a club, trying to get home, despite being heavily intoxicated. We wanted her to obviously seem this way, so we chose her outfit to make her look as partyish and almost slutty as possible.

We chose a tight & short black dress for her. This is a classic dress that is easily available and always seen on people at parties. The tightness and shortness add to the girl being seen as slutty.

We've chosen fishnets/ripped tights to make her have more skin on show, and have it seem as if she has fallen over and had her tights ripped in the process.

An obvious choice to complete her outfit is a pair of high heels. The victim will be seen struggling to walk in these shoes and stumbling down the road. The fact that she is in high heels adds to her vulnerability, and being seen as a target.

Inspiration for out thriller: RESEARCH

After we had finalized our idea as a group, we began researching into famous thrillers based around the idea of a stalker, we thought this would help to encourage our ideas and see how proffesionals had managed to create a successful thriller. We made sure not to copy any ideas, but to try and let it help to give us more inspiration for our thriller.

 Some Stalker-Thrillers we looked at:





Jilted-lover thriller - 'Fatal Attraction'





Masked-Killer Thriller - 'Scream'



 Psychological thriller - 'Sleeping With The Enemy'

1996 Thriller - 'Fear'

Location Planning

As a group we began looking into depth for location. We researched places that are known to be good for night-life and that also are close to a 'rough area' or a desolate area which would have an appropriate alley to film in. We researched on the internet and found good imagery to brainstorm from looking at bricklane, piccadilly circus, Liverpool street.

Location Brainstorming:

Mise En Scene Planning

As a group we looked at mise en scene, focussing mainly on costume and make-up. First we researched in detail a costume and make-up for the drunk victim (Rosetta). We decided she would need to be wearing little amount of clothes, to show her drunken/drugged up state and that her make up would need to be over the top and smudged. 

 'Victim' Costume Ideas:

Fake Gold Hoop Earrings

Fishnet Tights

Smudged Eye-Shadow Effect

Red Lipstick, False Eyelashes and Over the top eye-shadow

High Stiletto Heels

Then we began to research 'The Stalker' (Tyler) Costume ideas, we decided she should be wearing all black simple clothes, that make her mysterious and dangerous, a coat with a hood and a black scarf. We have decided on no extreme make-up as we do not want her face to be to bold.

Stalker Costume Ideas:

Mens Hooded Leather Jacket

Black Goves and Scarf

Plain Black Trousers

Inspiration for our thriller storyline

These are the films plots we were inspired by.

BRAINSTORMING

In class we began brainstorming ideas as a group. We focused on the main aspects:

• Mise En Scene
• Location/Setting
• Camera Shots
• Actors
• Music/Sound

We made sure to write down all our ideas, so that we'd have lots to choose from and mix together when creating our thriller. We wanted to keep to the quote "give the audience more and character less" making sure that our final movie will be successful in keep the audience's attention. We worked well as a group, and everyone was able to input there own ideas and we were able to adapt one and others ideas further. We made sure that everyones ideas were taken into account and written down, getting the best planning and brainstorming as possible. 

Quote to follow - "Give the audience more and characters less"

Draft Treatment

Ideas Brainstorm

"Must-have Shots"

Mise En Scene, Actors, Location etc

My idea for our thriller

This was my idea on what our thriller story line could be.

Thriller Review (Black Swan)

On the weekend I went to the cinema to watch the newly released film, 'Black Sawn'. I had heard a lot about the thriller and thought it would be a good idea to watch it, to give me a good sense of a successful thriller. I made sure to keep an eye out for use of tension building shots, music and editing, taking away ideas and inspiration. 


Music:
Throughout the film music is used to build tension and have the audience at the edge of their seats. I liked the way in which music box music is played, the music usually reminds us of childhood and happiness but it has been turned around to sound creepy and scary, leading up to what is to come. Similar to Natalie Portman's character of Nina, as she is seen as a sweet and beautiful ballerina, 'the white swan, but has another side known as 'the black swan' which is evil and crazy. Along with this dramatic and tension building music is used throughout whenever something bad or dramatic is to come, it lets us as the audience know that something is coming and that we should be aware. Both types of music are heard in the advert below, advertising the thriller well and making the audience want to watch it. 

Mise En Scene:
The film shows us two sides of a ballerina, and to do so switches between innocent and 'swan-like' colours e.g. whites, pinks to dark and demented colours e.g. blacks, silvers. This bold contrast between the 'black swan' and 'white swan' helps the audience to distinguish between the too and makes us feel as though they are two completely different people. The costume and make-up of each character helps to give the audience a sense of what they are like and helps to create our opinion on each character, wether we like them or hate them. Another key to creating suspense and tension in 'The Black Swan' is through the setting and locations, as for example when Nina is alone in her dark house we suspect something bad is coming likewise in the advert above, when Nina is alone on stage dancing in the dark, and the spotlight on her is the only light seen and we see her silhouette on the ground we are once again put in suspense as for what is to come, and music is used in these dark and gloomy settings to help build tension even further. 


Editing & Camera Shots:

I found the camera shots very suspenseful in the film as they built tension throughout the film, for examples there are many points during the movie when the camera follows Nina and we see everything that she is seeing from behind her, this makes us nervous for her and makes us feel the need to protect her as she is in front of us. This builds suspense, as we cannot see her face and we are aware of something bad approaching. Along with this there are many over the shoulder shots used, for example in the advert above, we see an over the shoulder shot in the mirror of her and her mother. This once again is successful in building suspense, as the mirror is only a reflection of reality and it takes a twisted take on what is really happening. The camera shots and editing of the ballet, I found the highlight of the film. I found this because they are so beautiful to watch and as there are many different shots (extreme close ups, close ups, mid shots, cutaways...) we get to see her dancing in extreme detail and the way in which they are edited together flows just as smoothly as the 'white swan' and when she doesn't dance so well the editing jolts from one movement to another and we see the side of the 'black swan'. This made me feel on edge and built suspense, as we see the clear distinction between the two sides of Nina. 


I found 'The Black Swan' an extremely successful thriller, and it kept my attention throughout and made me want to watch on till the end. It was enjoyable, and built up the much needed suspense in a thriller. It was a great to watch, as I felt much more aware of things I needed to be aware of when it comes to filming my thriller opening and techniques that would help to make my final thriller opening successful. 

Prelim: What Went Wrong

Many things went wrong whilst making our Preliminary film, we took account of all our mistakes, making sure that when filming our thriller opening we don't make the same mistakes.

• One of our main problems with our final prelim, was that many of the shots did not have the actress (Tyler) in the centre of the screen, meaning that when someone is to watch our prelim there whole focus will not be on the character but they may be more focussed on other happenings in the shot.
• Use of shots - we didn't film enough variety of shots (e.g. mid shots, close ups, extreme close ups, cutaways) meaning we had less choice of shots when it came to editing, making our prelim less interesting and making it more basic. For our thriller opening, we want to make sure this is not the case, making sure the opening holds the audiences attention with a wide variety of shots
• We couldn't use titles in our final prelim, as we created the titles and soundtrack in two different ways and then tried to add them both into final cut pro, but the process didn't work meaning we had to scrap the titles. For our final thriller opening, we need to make sure that as a group we edit the correct way and follow the instructions Jo and Bernard have told us. 
• Panning was not sleek and steady, but was shakey and too slow. We need to make sure for our thriller opening that it flows smoothly and doesn't take up too much time. 

Over all the filming was an enjoyable experience and I learnt alot from doing it, the mistakes we made help us to realise what to be careful of when filming our final thriller opening. 

Final Preliminary

Final Preliminary evaluation

This was our brief.

We were given jelly baby's to plan our preliminary film I thought this was very useful because when we filmed we knew want to film because we remember want we had planed using the horrible tasting jelly baby's.

Here we realized that you can not use a mobile phone in lifts because there won't be any signal.

These two over the shoulder shots are shot wrongly because we can see people walking behind which doesn't create the seriousness of our storyline and we get this again when we can see Bernard at in the right of the bottom picture looking towards us while buying coffee I think.    

Prelim: Adding Sound

In lesson we got our first chance at creating our own soundtrack, it was a good chance for us to try out different sounds and create the best possible soundtrack for our prelim. We told to create our own soundtrack using the sound effects on Soundtrack Pro and to mix them together in what ever way we thought sounded best for our movie. It was a fun lesson, as we finally got to see our prelim come together and we saw the effect that sound takes on a movie. 

Finalising our soundtrack

Trying out different sound effects

Adding special effects to distort and expand sounds

Testing out different volumes

Varying the volumes on different sounds, so that sounds can overlap and be heard together, having one sound more distinct than another

Prelim: Editing

After a good two lessons of filming for our prelim, we began the editing process once again. It was a good time for us to begin using more affects and techniques to improve the quality of film.

Reviewing shots

We used a 'fade in' effect to link two scenes together, making our film flow smoothly

Making sure we have added the fade-ins in the right places

Reviewing clips and cutting down

Getting ready to import sound 

Prelim: Jelly Baby practice

In lesson we were given jelly babies to come up with an idea for our prelim. We were told we had to include these certain things:


- A conversation
- A person walking through a door
- A point of view shot
- Shot reverse shot
- A panning shot


Here are the shots we took for our storyboard:

The Officers

The Prisoners

Interigation

The Line Up

Mugshots

The Robbery

The Officers Entering The Meeting