Music Score - Justification

As it has been said before the film Mulholland Drive (David Lynch 2001) was incredibly influential to the cinematography of our piece. It was also used as a model for our musical score, whilst their is no diegetic sound in the opening of Mulholland Drive their is a cleverly produced soundtrack, we tried our hardest to imitate a similar type of aura through the non diegetic sound. however this task proved harder than originally thought, as we were only allowed to use garage band to produce our soundtrack and not bring in any other music, making it sound professional and effective was difficult, partly because we were very limited in our selection and that the clips of music weren't long enough to stretch the whole length of the sequence, we had to try and overlap them, so if you listen closely you can tell where the music has been overlapped

Final feedback

We all went round in groups looking at the other members of our class's work. if we had more time and could improve on our film we may have:
-used a more realistic body
-got more shots of inside the car
- made the music a bit less repetitive
and include more close ups from inside the barn, for example unlocking the barn door.

All the groups could see that it does include thriller genre conventions, for example the use of light created suspense and the music held freaky quality's. Some people perceived it to be a murder/mystery.

Some groups also thought the soundtrack was repetitive, however still effective. Others said that the use of diagetic sound was pimping! for example the car pulling up and the dragging of the body. 1 group also pointed out that the body wasn't realistic enough and clearly just rags and a coat... oww dear.

Several groups also commented on the end title how it fitted in with the theme of the sequence with the use of moving light, as well as the choice of font.

The groups also depicted from our sequence that it required more close ups for a more effective atmosphere.

when asked to decide what they thought would happen in the film, the groups all predicted similar things, for example find out who's body it was and about his past and who the murderer was. and why this person was killed?

in all we are happy with the comments we received


:):):)

This is it ..!

After Light

Personal Views of Rough Cut 4/3/08

Personally i think that our Rough cut looked rather impressive for a draft version of our film. We managed to shoot all or footage, edit the shots down and practice adding titles and transitions, all within the time span. Of course their is more work needed to be done on the sequence, however i think we achieved what we needed to for our first cut. At the moment we are in the process of adding additional titles to the sequence and making sure each shot runs smoothly into the next using transitions (mainly fades and cross dissolves) We have also had to slow down one of our shots because the continuity of it doesn't match the majority of clips; the car is seen first as traveling slowly up the road and then the next shot (from inside the vehicle) shows the car moving significantly faster. We have also been editing our soundtrack, as the different stages of it don't link together and overlap like they should to make it sound professional.

response to rough cut feedback

After allowing every other group in our class to watch our project so far, we received some very positive feedback along with some ways in which we could improve it.

Positive feedback:
Editing: Good range of shots from in and out side of the car.
good use of transitions especially when the car pulls up into the yard.

Camera work: The car lights worked well and gave off a good source of lighting. for example the headlights as the man walks out of the barn to the boot of the car,
headlights drawing closer almost to cover the whole screen
good range of camera angles.

Sound: Soundtrack fits the piece well
Good use of diagetic sound at the beginning to create tension.

Mis en scene: the setting used was effective and worked well
the minimalistic use of mis en scene reflects the spookiness the audience are supposed to feel.

Narrative: it is simple but still good for and opening sequence.


Things to improve:
Editing: more transitions could possibly make it a bit more interesting.

Camera work: quite repetitve- similar shots.

Sound: more use of diegetic sound could be used- of the car.
repetitve

Camera Moves - Techniques and pointers

(This blog was composed with help from 'the guardian guide to making film')

Pan
A pan is a horizontal camera pivot from a stationary position from left to right or vice versa. this movement enables you to follow a subject or to show the distance between two objects. when panning, face the middle of the pan with your feet firmly planted on the ground. from there, twist your upper body towards the start of the pan, through centre, and end with your upper body twisted toward the end of the pan. Always start on a still shot and end on a still shot.
A whip pan is a sped up version of the pan that creates a blur effect, this can be used to convey the passage of time, or simply to frame rapid action as it occurs.

Tracking is lateral camcorder movement that parallels a moving subject. Professionals achieve this using a track on which a wheeled "dolly" is placed.

Shot examples.

These are similar to shots we will be taking.

-Time Frame-

Finish filming by the 8th February (1 week)
Start editing after half term (week beginning 18h February) (2 weeks)
Rough cut due by week beginning 25th February (3 weeks)

We are aiming to shot our footage on Monday the 4th February and get it all done that night.

Story boarding and animatics

We have made a story board showing the main shots in our sequence, so that anyone who looked at it would be able to work out what is going to happen. We decided not to include all of the shots we are going to take in the story board, as we did not think it was necessary to do so. however, it does still make sense.
Under the drawings, are captions showing the type of shot that it is e.g long shot, and a short definition as to what is taking place in the shot, and also the direction of the camera.
After we completed our story board in pencil, we then went over it in black pen so that when it came to taking the pictures for our animatic, it was clear.
We then used the camera to take pictures of our shots individually. Once all of our shots had been taken, we uploaded them onto our computer and then imported them into final cut. From here we could edit our sequence, adding transitions and cutting our shots to make them more appropriate lengths.
Then the music made in garage band was added so that we could get a feel for how weel it went with our sequence. we may need to alter this after filming.

Thriller types.

Our Thriller will fit under the genre of Psychological/Crime thriller. This, to a certain extent will be made obvious in the opening sequence we are creating.

Psychological thriller is a sub-genre of the wide-ranging thriller genre. However, this genre often incorporates elements from the mystery genre in addition to the typical traits of the thriller. Generally, thrillers focus on plot over fictional characters, and thus emphasize intense, physical action over the character itself. Psychological thrillers tend to do the opposite, emphasizing the character and his/her mind just as much, if not more so, than the plot.

Crime thriller - This particular genre is a hybrid type of both crime films and thrillers that offers a suspenseful account of a successful or failed crime or crimes. These films often focus on the criminal(s) rather than a policeman. Central topics of these films include murders, robberies, chases, shootouts, and double-crosses are central ingredients.

Other Genres which our film could fit into are: Neo Noir (a type of film that prominently utilizes elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style or visual elements that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s..) and Mystery (a loosely-defined term that is often used as a synonym of detective fiction — in other words a novel or short story in which a detective, either professional or amateur, solves a crime.)

Our Idea

This is a pitch of our idea so far...

We are going to have a car traveling down a private farm road. it will be late at night so in the dark, and the viewer won't really know why the car is travelling down this road. the first shot will be of the car turning off the main road. The audience will be unsure as to where the car is going and why at this point. after this their will be various shots of the car traveling towards the yard where the driver will park in front of some barns/machinery/scrap.. the sequence will probably go on for a while to create tension in the opening. Our soundtrack will be playing all the way through but it will be very quiet so that as the car travels down the road the sound of the gravel can be heard.
The driver will carry on down the road here, we will have a shot taken form behind the driver, so the viewer can see the drivers hands, the steering wheel and speed that he is going and the road ahead of him, i think this shot will work quite well and can create more tension. Eventually the car will come to a stop as it pulls into the yard area. The driver will get out of the car and walk around to the boot.
(POSSIBLE:)... Where he will get out what the viewer will assume to be a body.
We may possibly at this point have the boot shutting, him maybe locking the car and dropping the body as really quick shots where you can hear the sound each of these things make and they are sped up. this is just an idea, as we don't know whether doing this will ruin the flow of the film as before this part it has been quite slow and calm.
He drags the body to the barn and leaves the door ajar. Once he is in the barn he leaves the body, and leaves the barn shutting the door behind him. here, there will be a shot of darkness, from inside the barn and then the title of the film will come up on the screen in white writing. then the entire shot will fade to complete blackness.
Other titles will appear on the screen throughout the sequence probably quite small and in white to contrast the darkness. fading in and out probably.
I think that this sequence is clear to the audience that it is a thriller and also if it was to be made into a film it would set up a story quite well in my opinion. as the audience does not know too much information, and will want to know who was body, why he was killed adn who the driver of the car was?

Originally we had thought of the idea of filming the sequence on a rainy night, however, we are limited with our shooting days so may not be able to shoot on a nght where it is raining, although this definitely is an idea we are keen on.

We have also had to think alot about lighting for our piece, as the camera's are not top quality they may make the sequence appear slightly grainy because of the darkness, although we do intend to use the car headlights as our only source of light, this is intentional, as we dont want to show too much of the setting, the shots will probably all be framed by complete blackness.

things to include

car
farmhouse
headlights
yard
forest
farm/narrow road
eary music
sudden loud sounds
shadows/silhouettes
view of inside of car

Thriller opening evaluations

Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock (1960)
We particularly liked this opening because of the music used to create suspense and tension. Bernard Herrman did the score for this film, he has also wrote music for other thrillers such as 'Taxi Driver', 'Vertigo' and even the 'twilight zone'.




Dirty Harry - Don Seigel (1971)




This is a very good Thriller opening, however, not really the kind of thing we're aiming for, we did however analyse it because it has been very influential to thrillers in the movie world since it was made.

Bullitt - Peter Yates (1968)




This is again not something we would head towards producing but, like Dirty Harry it has been a great cinematic influence.


Mulholland Drive - David Lynch (2001)



This is a perfect example of a thriller, specific for our sequence as it includes many of the same elements.. The music in this piece is definately of the same type that we would like to accompany our piece; nothing too upbeat, eerie yet threatening. The shots have been very influential to our piece -shots from behind the car, of the headlights..etc- we will however keep our piece from looking too similar to this, we will make sure it has its own originality.