Opening to a thriller - The Dark Knight - Max

Research done outside of lesson - The Dark Knight - Rated 12.

The Target audience is for people who enjoy superhero films, but with many of the scenes including adult themes such as violence, blood etc.  We can determine that this film is meant for young adults.

Camera:
- Starts with a CGI shot of blue smoke, as if it was emerging from an explosion, fills the screen.  The image of batman's insignia blocks the smoke and zooms in to complete darkness.
- An immediate cut to an airborne establishing shot through Gotham City.
- The camera cuts to a couple of bank robbers looking out the window of a tall building, shot from behind.
- We cut to a lone bank robber shot from behind, standing on a street corner, slowly a tilt and zoom makes us focus on the mask he's holding.  A car pulls up and the bank robber enters the car.
- We cut back to the robbers up in the high building, shot from behind, they zip wire to the opposite building.  A high angle panning shot from in between the building and the bank, a shot shows them zip wiring down.  They land on the roof of the building, shot from a low angle.
- Cut to the other robbers in the car, shot from the back seat, then cuts to a side shot in a car of the robber in the passenger seat.
- Cut to the robbers on the roof of the bank, a handheld medium shot moves to use quick focuses on one robber to the fuse box.
- Low angle pan shot of the robbers leaving the car and entering the bank.

Mise en Scene
- Characters - The three car bank robbers and the two roof bank robbers.
The handheld camera movements show the moods of the characters, showing that they are in a rush, but the handheld is somehow stable so we don't miss anything important. The characters don't hesitate in doing their jobs, they don't get distracted, this shows they have been planning this for a long time and know what their roles are in the job they are doing.

Costume - The robbers all wear masks to hide their faces, the masks have been painted on quickly to show the jokers key signature, a clown face.  Gloves to conceal fingerprints.  They all wear easy to walk in, dark, maneuverable clothing so that their clothes won't get in the way by being too tight etc.

 Props -
Guns (pistols and semi automatics), Grapple gun, Zip Wire, Masks, Bag, Car

Editing -
Cross Cutting
Parallel Editing

Sound -
Orchestral soundtrack (Drums etc)
Diegetic sounds - Window smashing, Grapple gun firing, zip wire, loading guns. (All On Screen)
Non Diegetic sounds - A swooping sound is present when the two robbers zip wire to the other building, I doubt that would be there.

Establishing zoom in shot:

  Slow zoom in shot:

Research- Stormbreaker-Kate

Research done out side of lesson. - Stormbreaker opening film rating PG.


( the  Target audience is a key feature in this film - A Thriller is a film which can be viewed as believable- this film is targeted at a younger audience)  
CAMERA;
-Starts with a pan at eye level of a classroom of young adults.
-The camera is constantly panning the audience- establishing shots.
-As the character (Alex) starts to speak the camera cuts quickly between shots these are also establishing shots showing the audience which charterers are being spoken about.
-Canted tracking shots are used to create fast moving action shots -motorbike chase scene

MISE EN SCENE;
-Characters- 
The pan camera movement shows the body language of the characters in the "audience" at first their reactions show them as being bored or uninterested. Later on in the opening if shows them at the edge of their seats, this reflects on the audience watching this film.

-The main Character Alex (played by Alex Pettyfer) is dressed differently to the other young adults  in the scene , his costume is more sophisticated indicating age and maturity , I think this is because the character Alex has to grow up fast.

-The first time that the "Uncle" is mentioned Alex says "My Uncle has a very boring and uninteresting job" - at this time the camera cuts to the first shot of his uncle and it shows him on a motorbike , this reflects on what the Alex says and creates a bigger impact on how extraordinary t his job really is.
-Setting-
-The setting for the first scene in the opening is the boring and normal - a schoolroom.
-The second setting used is the opposite to the first , it is outside and is more interesting.
-Props- 
-The main props used in this opening are - Guns,motorbikes,cars and also dynamite.
-A ECU is held for a few seconds on a stick of dynamite to create suspense on the audience.
-Lighting-
-The lighting is natural and dull in the shots at the school 
-The lighting in the other shots with the action is allot brighter this adds to the excitment and action in theses shots
EDITING;
-Fast paced cross editing 
-Parallel editing 
-Montage- The Uncle is doing  the opporsit to what Alex says.

SOUND;
-Nondiagetic -Heartbeat -becomes faster paced with action 
-Foley Gun shot  motorbike
-Characters talking voice becomes louder and strong as the action becomes faster.

-Image 1- Action shot.







-Image 2 - Establishing character and age shot.

Research - sucker punch- Helena Grundy

Sucker Punch - This clip is 5 Mintues by i will only be aninlysing the first minute and ,

CAMERA;

• Starts with a stage and the curtains go up and it zooms in closer and closer.
• Then it zooms in on a stage with a bedroom set up. I really like this idea of the stage as it get closer in changes from a scene on stage to a house.
• Low key lighting. - Lightning.
• Pan - around her face into a close up.
• starts with long shots - slow pace.
• over shoulder - shot reverse shot between her and the buttler.
• slow motion running.

MISE EN SCENE;

• Setting

 - Stage - Bedroom. Then changes into the whole house through editing.

• Props

- Bed room - pain simple. quite dark.

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS;

• Girl looks upset and terrfied, nervous?

SOUND;

• Womans voice talking and then fades into a song. ( Non diagetic)
• music gets louder
• music fades so you can hear floyes
• floyes - echoing no, noise of them falling on the floor (faint) , cry?

lighting task - Kate and Helena.

heres our lighting task, we had to copy the following images.

 

 

 

Our verisons.

 

 

 

 

 

• -Dimed lgihting and soft yellow filtter
• -getting the light soft enough to create a night look.
• - I takes a long time to work out lighting and i needs alot of thinking about but it very effective once you achived what you have.

 

 

 

 

 

• we used bright lighting facing the wall to make sure no lighting was coming towards the model.
• the difficulties we expreinced was getting the lighting at the right angle, i also think we used a very small room. 

 

• we did over head lighting only using one light as the secound light was to powerful and over tock the left hand side.
• the problem we had was getting the light high enough so that it didn't catch the left side of the face,

Research- 44 inch chest - Helena

Research done in class: 44 inch chest opening.

CAMERA;
- starts on a focus pull

- focuses on broken things ( close up) 7 shots of broken or distressed things. Establishing shots.

- track/ pan which reveals the whole room.

- close up of man on floor - who looks dead at first and then he opens his eyes.

- 2 shot - long shot

MISE EN SCENE;

setting;

- Flat - trashed rooms.
Props;

- scared dog - poodle
- sofa
- food on woman's lap.
- apron

Facial expressions;

- Man on floor looks dead
- Woman happy and man next to her.

EDITING;

-long takes.
- slow pace.

SOUND;

- Only music until after title - contrapuntal . Then theirs small dialog.

- foley's - off screen T.V - Slurping Soup.

Thriller task - Helena

Main Task;
The titles and opening of a new thriller film , to last a maximum of two minutes.

As a group we will be researching thrillers and uploading it to this blog.
We will also be blogging our progress and our plans for this opening thriller.

Research- Girl with the dragon tattoo - Helena

Research we did in class;
Girl with a Dragon tattoo - Opening - original - Swedish version.

CAMERA;

- Theirs a close up of a Parcel. When the parcel is being opened really carefully.

- theirs a mid- long shot of the man when he looks at the picture that came in the parcel.

- extreme close up of the parcel showing you where it's come from.

- then theirs a long shot of the man crying.

- it cuts to a photography of a woman.

- then cuts to a woman walking down a subway, But you can only see the woman from behind, which suggests their hinding their identity.
- all low key lighting

MISE EN SCENE;

Costume;
-The woman in the subway is wearing all black.
- Man is very well dressed - tie and shirt. Hair is well looked after and his finger/ hands are very clean.

Props;
- The parcel - 2007 Hong Kong.
- picture in frame
- photograph - woman's hair - 50's
- Gloves

Facial expression;
Crying man - self despair.

EDITING;

- Match on Action

- Parallel editing - shows connection between the man, photography and the woman walking in the subway.

- slow pace.

SOUND;

-Foley's - parcel, crying man.

-Pace gets faster then fades at the end.

- music gets louder when man cries.

Final GarageBand Clip - Max and Helena

This is our final GarageBand product, the clip is from the film 'The Day After Tomorrow'.

Update- Helena

Max and I have been using garage band to experiment with foleys and music on a film clip from day after tomorrow. We did this task to understand how much time and effort we need to put into our work and also how different foleys can completely change a film.
This task was a lot of fun and we will be uploading it shortly so you can see what we've done.
We have also been working on a lighting task to show how fill light and back light can change the way we see our characters and how it can reinforce the time of day, or time you might like it to look like. Theses images of out lighting experiment will be uploaded after our garage band exercise.

here is our video - Kate and Helena.

Finished our movie - Helena Grundy

Hey everyone,

We've finished our short film and will be uploaded soon.

and will be uploaded very shortly.

Our Match on Action - Helena Grundy

Our shot reverse shot and 180 degree rule in our movie - Max & Helena

Issues of Filming - Max

We mistakenly chose a popular area that people go to on a regular basis, even after lunch when people are either in lesson or going home.  We were at times overridden by people who kept on interrupting our filming, which made it longer for us to film and continue with our work.  After completing our filming, we then had to download all of our footage onto the Macs, which took longer than we expected.  We eventually left ten minutes after we were supposed to leave.

Equipment used for filming- Helena

For filming our footage we used;

- tripod - to make sure our camera was steady and had no camera shake. The tripod also helped to make sure we stayed at the same level and angle for some re - take we did whilst filming.

- used HD camera - to film our footage.

- two actors - we used our selves as one of our partners wasn't their during the filming which made our filming harder.

Current situation - Helena and Max

So far Max and Helena have done all of our filming because Kate was absent for the duration of our filming time.  We will possibly be doing a few re-takes if we come across any issues with our footage. We have started editing our sequence together and should be finished by the beginning of next week.