Joyride - Emma

Three Stages of Narrative

Set-Up - Arrival of main charecter at pylon
Complication - 'Injured' man lying in the road, kidnapp

Resoloution - Police pulling over the car

That's where the three stages of narrative should conclude, but with Joyride it's a different story

Complication - implied death of Police

Resoloution - Crash, escape from boot
I like the way sound bridging was used in this scene, creating the effrct of a crash without the cost of actually showing it.

Complication - Hostage situation

Resoloution - Car alarm, knockes out kidnapper.

The irony of this peice is that he comes up with all of these ways to save himself from the kidnappers, but seems to die anyway, due to his own lazyness. I think it was good to come full circle, concluding the film at the place of the initial set up.

Restricted narration

• Close ups of the protagonist in the boot, emphasising the sense of fear and clostraphobia.
• Off screen sound helps us to understand what's going on outside
• Blood splatters re-inforce what the sound suggests, the injury/death of the police.

Un-restricted narration

• Large depth of field, show's the audience that one antagonist is still concious and about to do some damage. This creates suspence.

Research Task 5 Thriller Openings - Lorna Wilson

Deadline one. bullet point textual analysis of at least 5 thriller openings, from film or TV. Consider the blog format - text, screen grabs, embedded video and hyper links. Clearly headed "Research Task".

1. "Seven" - Research task 1
The opening sequence of this Thriller film bases on introducing the protagonist, character construction and forming enigma codes enticing the audience into mystery and to question the film.

• Mise en scene provides information about the protagonist, his orderly and precise fashion of picking up objects, owning a metronome and questioning the other characters, build up a construction of his character. These enigma codes make the audience react and ask questions about the film, the characters and plot. Where are they? The city isn't named. Why's the murder significant? etc.
  
• The mood of the opening sequence provides a mystery set-up of death and crime.
  
• Sound - There's no music, just background noises of constant rain, radios and police sirens giving the impression that the neighbourhood isn't very safe. There's alot of silence when Sommerset is alone, giving suggesting he's an isolated character.
  

2. "Memento" - Research Task 2

• The first opening shot, the set up, is an ECU of the protagonists face, with added shadow to disclose identity. "awake. Where am I? Some anonymous hotel room" - restricted narration. The protagonist is asking and answering the questions, also prompting the audience to think and ask similar questions - Audience involvement, makes the audience think and work things out for themselves - part of a complex plot.,

• Sound - sound effect of camera taking a photograph. Voice over of the protagonist explaining the story to the audience.
  

3. "Gamer" - Research Task 3

• The opening sequence of Gamer is fast paced, and launches straight into action. Titling "Some years from this exact moment" appears on the screen followed by the Camerawork centering on a puddle with a outlined reflection of a male, then swoops up into action. Time passing is shown through a fast forward view of a city street and traffic, clouds etc. Within these locations there are visible drawings and recruiting posters of a mans face in each different location, in different medians - thus introducing the protagonist.
• Sound - throughout the opening sequence Marilyn Manson- Sweet Dreams is played, fitting into the action.
  The music dies down for a split second as we hear deep breathing and a somebody loading a gun, this sound is non diagetic. Followed by a police siren is an explosion into game play a whole different location. Constant noise of guns and explosions are played with frantic camera movement.
  
• The scene changes from real life to game play this is shown by the different point of view shots also used in game play as well as a gaming screen. (see below)

4. "District 9" - Research Task 4
The opening sequence to District 9 is in a documentary format with background non-diagetic sound as the screen remains black with titling.

• The documentary format has non edited cuts within the interviews, and the camerawork is that of a handheld camera, noticeable as it shakes and has recording times running at the bottom. The beginning sequence of the film continues using home video with a voice over, explaining the subjective narration of the story so far.
• Titling "alien affairs" introduces the idea of the abnormality, the disruption. This then cuts to a extreme long shot of the cityscape and an alien ship hovering over the top. The prompts questions to the audience, what is it? how did it get there? why is it there? - restricted narration.
  
• Sound - engaging tribal music emerges slowly into the background of the documentary and voice over, the music is unfitting to the scene yet helps to create the (contrasting sound) . In the final establishing shot the tribal music gets louder, prominent and more consistent, as if a warning of events to come.
  

5. "The Dark Knight" Research Task 5

The Dark Knight goes straight from the establishing shot to action, of a robbery scene, which subtly introduces the main antagonist, the joker through clever use of masks and opinions.

• Sound- Throughout the establishing shot there is a music bridge of intense music -played at a very low volume. This is shattered by diagetic sound effects of a window breaking and equipment being used, the music intensifies and becomes louder and continues for the duration of the sequence.
• The establishing shot zooms in on a building, followed by a window being smashed from the inside and cuts straight to a medium close up of a character masked as a clown, this transaction creates an illusion of the antagonist which is later to be revealed. The next shot reveals the hole in the window to show where the character is heading, their goal.
• The screen grab below of a man holding an identical clown mask suggests he is a bad guy foreshadowing character types and themes of the main antagonist. Whereas suggestions of the main protagonist are still unknown. The second screen grab shows two of the criminals turning on each other communicating that whilst each character is masked they continue to turn on each other, making it impossible for the audience to grow attached to any character.
  

Thriller research - "Daybreakers" Lorna Wilson

Over the weekend I went to the cinema with some friends to see Daybreakers, also a Thriller. It's a great film full of action, suspense and thrills that had us jumping off our seats.

Outline of the beginning sequence

• Silence then bat flies at screen making loud screechy noise, making audience jump building unexpected tension.
• Starts with birds eye view of character, odd lighting suggests something extra ordinary close up of photographs of the small girl, eerie and cynical. sound – silence, sounds of pencil to paper , leaves note on her bed
  
• Dark room she opens door, light from outside creates sihloette of the girl. establishing shot of house and sunset, still silent.
  
• Audience see girls face, eyes prove theres something different about her, flashes back to letter. intense eerie music fades in getting louder building tension. close up on letter “never grow up!” “cant go on” music gets louder as sun appears non diagetic sound of girl screaming flashes back to character as she bursts into flames and disintergrates cut into darkness.
  

Joyride thriller - Amelia King.

Enigma Codes.
I found the short thriller film Joyride really effective, there were questions you wanted to find the answers to, for example;

• Who were the two antagonists?
• What did they want?

Narrative.
Throughout this film it was mainly restricted narrative, but there was a scene where it was unrestricted, this was were the protagonist thought he had escaped but we could see the antagonist behind him.

Sound.
I really liked the way they used sound-bridges in this film, the one I found worked the best was where their car crashed into a tree but the audience didn't see it you could just hear it. This left you wanting to know what had happened to them.

Set - up.
The establishing shot was of the protagonist presumably out doing a job for work, I thought it was good that this setting was also how the film ended.

Seven - Emma

Seven

Enigma Codes

These are used effectively to make the audience ask questions about what's happening.

• How was the person murdered?


• Why did the Police Man want Somerset to leave?


• Why did Somerset want to leave?


• Why was he so organised and precise?

• Why the metronome?
  


• Where were they? Which city?

These questions were raised by Leaving things out. Shot's of the first dead man didn't actually show how he was murdered, only a pool of blood next to him.

The tone in which the Policeman said that they couldn't wait for Somerset to leave was cold and hostile, making the audience wonder why.

His precision with his clothes and the metronome are very telling character traits.

Although they spoke about a city, they never specifically mentioned which one, leaving the audience wondering.


Character Construction

The characters are very well, but very subtly introduced in this opening.

Somerset

• Neat


• Tidy


• Passes easily through the crowd


• Walks with an air of authority


• Masculine house


• Old 'Used' switch knife

Mills

• Scruffy


• Battered/Worn leather jacket


• Crumpled tie


• Battered by the crowd


• Late


• Chewing gum


• Unshaven

All of these qualities suggest charecter traits that will help the audience to relate more easily.

One Hour Photo - Emma

In Class, we watched the opening of 'One Hour Photo', up until 3:43 and were asked to write notes and answer some questions.

A) The main character- What sort of person?

I think that the main character Sy, is a loner because he seems perfectly content being held in the interview room on his own. He's staring into space and smiling with his legs crossed, suggesting he's on his own a lot as he handles it so well. He seems a little doddery as he stumbled on the line and wasn't sure of his left and right.

B) How do you feel about the main character? - Why?


He gives me an edgy feeling, like I wouldn't want to be around him for too long or I wouldn't want to be near him on my own. Robin Williams achieves this by showing a lack of emotion, bar a polite smile here or there. This feeling was also emphasised by the fact that he was being questioned in what appeared to be a well equip police department.

C) Analyse opening credits - Why have they created them in this particular way?

i think that the credits are done in an effective way. even if the audience had never heard anything about the film other than it's name, they would link the title, being about photo's to the credits as the look like a film making prints and exposing paper. I also liked that there seemed to be an imprint left behind, hinting to the audience that there will always be consequences for your actions.

"One Hour Photo" extract - Lorna Wilson

1. In the opening extract from the thriller "one hour photo" camera work, sounds, editing and mise en scene communicate to the audience. From this extract the main character is depicted as an average middle aged family orientated man, soft spoken and seemingly not very threatening, this could suggest a psychological problem. The extract shows him in a police chamber being photographed and interrogated proving him to be a criminal, surprising for his appearance.
The opening credits have been created in a particular way, and could foreshadow the film. Colours used in the credits are white and red, this is typical of blood, death or danger. The credits start off white, flash then turn red. This could mean danger in relation to the camera. The flash of the text is similar to that of a camera, the detailing and symbols around the text are also found on a camera screen.
The setting of the police station is plain, spacious and linear, with a lot of metals and pale colours. This builds a harsh isolated and controlled atmosphere, making the main character look really out of place. There's a few long fixed pauses with the camera focussing on various pieces of equipment e.g. the camera at the beginning of the clip and the computer CCTV screen. This creates an eerie setting, along with the quiet sound which builds tension.
The effect of the Flashback is created through sound, mise en scene, editing and camera work. The sound effect of a camera flash links to make the transition in atmosphere and setting, other sounds of cheerful music and echoed children's laughter suggest a memory rather than reality. Mise en scene helps to create the effect as costumes are celebratory and lighting is brighter and colourful. Editing provides a brighter contrast in the flashback and the scene changes dramatically from harsh to fun and completely relaxed.
Aspects of mise en scene and sound work help to communicate very different atmospheres between the two places (police room and family celebration in garden) Body language in the police station is very stern and controlled, whereas the celebratory scene is active and fun. The sound work in the flashback is slightly echoed and is accompanied by a voice over taken from the main character who's memory it is. Generally the two settings are opposite to the other.