Ugly Betty

The postmodern text i have choosen to post is the US comedy drama Ugly Betty. Certain theories have suggested that due to television we now live in a 'three minute culture'. Much of the postmodernism within Ugly Betty supports Jean Baudrillard theory of the blurring of real and simulated. Another Baudrillard theory supported is that of hyper-reality. Celebrity culture is also seen within Ugly Betty, Victoria Beckham and Lindsay Lohan have both appeared as themselves within the series. Ugly Betty also supports Strinati's theory. Out of Strinati's five 'style over substance' is the one used the most throughout. As pointed out in the title 'Ugly Betty', Betty is seen as ugly within her world but is constantly reminded she is 'beautiful' on the inside, us as viewers are also reminded of this. Within Ugly Betty it also shows and represents to us that people in their world and the real world are stringly influenced by brands, the label is sometimes more important then the actual product itself, style over substance. This is shown in Ugly Betty in the fashion world.

Evaluation...

Thriller Music.... Garage Band...

Garage Band: We have learnt how to record our own music, due to plagerism... To do this we used garage band on the Mac Computers. Firstly we opened up a new track, and selected the software option... There are a variety of instruments provided. We experimented with different kinds of instruments to find which would blend best together. After alot of time spent moulding them, we decided that the flutes, organs and futuristic music suited the thriller styled music. After doing our questionaire we realised that the audience would expect to hear choral music, which fitted perfectly with our thriller opening. We used five seperate instruments: Orchestral String - this was the main sound the music was based around as this added a distant and eerie tone to the music. Serena Swirl (keyboard) was added on a low tone over the top, this added a low murmur to the music. We also used Aquatic Sunbeam and Bondi Breathe, also adding a creepy dark tone to the music. For every thirty seconds we used the Drum Kit to add a sense of suprise to the music, this is conventional to a Thriller.

The Matrix

Mise-En- Scene

• Black suits worn by men, looking professional
• Green Filter over the shots, like viewing the film through an old fashioned computer screen.
• Black Glasses are very secretive and also proffessional.
• Slow motion action, building up the tention - conventional to a thriller
• Dark room, with low lighting, like a cellar, this makes it seem like a police investigation and very dark and eerie.
• Rubbish on the floor
• Smashing of the light falling onto the floor, breaks the tension of the fighting.... conventional to a thriller.
• Blowing of a newspaper across the floor, like tumbelweed in America, this adds a sense of loneliness and apandement of this location, like a haunted house, no one wants to go there.

Camera Shots

• Mid-shot of man in suit wearing glasses, very intense expression on his face.
• Three shot of three men walking through the door, very powerful.
• In the Three shot, the men spred out and cover the whole screen, very dominating
• Extreme close up of the man standing in the middle which leads into a master shot of the room as the man in the middle is attacking the man originally in the room - conventional to a thriller with fighting
• Zooming into the action of the fighting, focusing of the punches and kicking
• Combination of over the shoulder shots between the two men fighting.
• Birds eye view shot of man lieing on floor after being thrown in the fight.
• Extreme Close-up of the glass light smashing.

Editing

• Straight Cuts between the shots, conventional to a Thriller as are very simple, and realistic continuity

Rebecca.

A textual analysis of Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca..
Rebecca was directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1940, it was yet another one of his successful thriller films, with the sub genres of mystery and romance. It won two oscars and had 9 other nomination.
The opening starts of with the creepy sinistar music that creates much suspence for the veiwer, which is conventional for a thriller film. As the film is in black and white creates an old, spooky atmosphere fitting in with the music. The overall feel i get from the opening is very mysterious and unknown, with the voice over of the charcter Rebecca createds a mysterious and unusual atmosphere. Although the music appears cheerful at the beginig it changes when the character speaks to more dark. The fact that the music has quite a cheerful element at the begining creates a contrast making it all seem much mkore sinistar and odd. The setting of the opening is also dark and mysterious creating unease. I found when watching this that i was always waiting for something to jump out and for something sinistar to happen, always on edge. A very typical setting for a thriller to take place in a drak mysterious wood by a enormous haunted like mansion. Its as if were being told a story by an narrator, which is unusal thereforeis holding our attention. It as if were being told a story by a character after the events have occured. When the transistion is made from that haunted mansion straight on to the crashing sea suddenly grabs your attention and seems so distant from the creepy old footage you were just shown. Establishing the main character in the first scene, conventional. From what the characters costume it implys that he is of some proffesion of quite a high social class as he is wearing a suit and hat, from the dialogue of the character this also tells us this as he speaking to the young women in a authorative tone. As the female character obeys him shows his high status and social class also. He appears as quite a mysterious character, keeping the audience intrigued as they want to know more about him and the whole reveal of the story.
Overall the opening scene of Rebecca creates much suspence and mystery is does this through the non-diegetic music and the mysterious character. These conventions all keep the veiwer hooked and intrigued to the action going on, on set.

Evaluation:

Within our evaluation we included still shots of the pictures shown. These are just some of the pictures incoperated within our media product. We included the photo of Alfred Hitchcock as we explained within our evaluation the successful thriller films created by Hitchcock, films such as 'Psycho' 'The Birds' and 'Vertigo'.

The Birds

Textured Analysis...



Mis-En-Scene

• Colour of Writing is blue, the same colour as the sky... Cold, dull colour, conventional to a Thriller
• Black Crows flying aross the screen... Crows symbolysing death and decay.
• Alfred Hitchcocks name in blue (cold colour) in a bold font, symbolising his importance

Editing

• The Institutions name 'Universal Pictures Present' the shot fades out, symbolising death with a person or something dieing.
• Distorted Transitions between the different Titles, to show the disorder and confusion of the film, which is conventional to a Thriller.

Camera Shots

• Extreme close ups of birds flying past the screen. This shows the main plot and characters of the film, which links to the Title of 'The Birds'.

Filming For Evaluation:

We plan to film and take location shots tomorrow for our evaluation piece.
What we plan to film:

- Audience feedback.
- Shots of the different locations used.

All our footage will be uploaded and will be incoperated within our evaluation footage. We are uploading the footage of me and Millie directing the actor on set and explaing is in order to portray our directing skills and managment on set.
We have created a script which will use in our evalutaion in order to anwser the questions effectively. In our evaluation we will may be using a voiceover and will be filmed whilst anwsering.

Our Evaluation:

Notes..
- Time Keeping
- Location choices
- Editing
- Garage Band
- Title sequence
- Filming Process
- What i did
- Filming dates
- Blogging process
- How our idea has changed since we have started.

Ideas for evaluation..
We plan to upload footage from our film in to our evaluation while a voiceover is being played. We also want to add in footage of me and millie on location whilst filming, to show our directing skills.
We are also going to use still shots, one idea we had for using still shots is when anwsering what the audience type is for our media product, is to draw out a type of diagram explaing our target audience, male is one discription. We came to the conclusion of male based on all the sterotypes of all associated with a male viewer.
We also plan to include footage of the audience watching our opening, focusing on their reactions and asking them their thoughts and opinions, this would link in to the audience feedback.
We will be including sound within our evaluation to, we plan to upload clips of the music which we used in our opening, Also the voiceover of me and millie anwsering and the digetic sounds of the background noise whilst filming.
Linking to the 'Evaluation Notes' our film has developed quite a large amount since we first begun regarding the plot. Although this slowed down the precess of filming this allowed us to think and analyse more deeply about the plot and what we wanted.

Planning for evaluation...

There are multiple styles in which we can protray our evaluation through film. A directors commentry style documentary is what we are hoping to achieve. To gain a better understanding of how a commentry is filmed, we shall evaluate different film directors commentries. With in our directors commentry we plan to include audience feedback for our film, to understand how an outsider has viewed our production and whether they like it or not. We are also thinking of using a voice over, and extracts from our film, and also including other footage i.e footage of us directing the film. The voice over will cover how we filmed, where, what difficulties we came across and what we wanted the audience to feel while watching the opening of our thriller.

What we need to do.....

- Upload the storyboards
- Cut the Music at the end of the film
- Upload new missing person poster (as we changed the actress)
- Start planning evaluation
- Location Shots
- Audience feedback


Sophie and Millie

Annabel

We have finally completed our film, and are happy with the outcome.

Annabel.

Refilming....

Through the editing process we have come across some shots that didn't fit into the style ofour Thriller. Also some of the shots were with an unsteady hand, and so it wouldn't follow the continueity rule if we used them in our Thriller opening. Therefore we have to go back to our location and refilm some of the footage... including:

1) High angled shot of the victim walking through the bypass of subway. This is to give an effect of a security camera. We have to refilm this as it was an unsteady shot.

2) Low angle of victim walking down the stairs outside. The lighting didn't work the first time, so we might have to reconsider the positioning of the camera.

3) Close up of feet walking down a flight of stairs. This was an unsteady shot, need to use a tripod.

4) Mid shot low angled shot of the victim walking down the stairs inside. The positioning of the victim wasn't right, therefore need to rethink this when on set.

5) Extreme close up of the hand going around the corner while holding the banister. We need to redo this to make the shot flow, as the duration of the footage was not long enough to flow after we had edited the footage.

There are a few more shots that we need to film, which are as followes:

1) Missing Poster Shot

2) Knife shot (either with a shadow or the real thing)

We are still uncertain whether to film the scene of the victims picture being crossed off. If we do decide to use this scene in our film opening, we will use a picture of the victim walking, therefore to give the effect of the killer stalking the victim.



BRING TRIPOD!!!



.

Music...

The Soundtrack for our Thriller has now been imported into iMovie along with our footage. Through importing our soundtrack, we have discovered that how something as simple as music, is more powerful and disturbing (when following the conventions of a Thriller) than the clips of film. The music adds a degree of intensity to the film, with a slow murmering beat continueing throughout, like a heartbeat.




Sophie and Millie

Touch Of Evil.

Touch Of Evil is a thriler directed by Orson Welles, the film was made in 1958. In falls within the thriller genre and has the sub-genres of crime and corruption.
Within the opening scene there is a pacey non-deigetic music played through out, in the track there is what sounds like a ticking noise relating to the bomb which is hidden within the car acting as a consatant reminder to us of the danger which will follow. This puts the audience at edge as it creates suspence and an uneasy tension.
There is also diegetic sounds such as the whistle from the policemen directing the traffic, the dialogue from the characters and the everyday noises of a town. The opening is not in technicolour which creates quite a dark a bleak effect.. setting the scene. You are also being introduced to the main characters, all of these conventional to a thriller. The large explosion is where the action really begins as apart from the bomb the only dangerous thilling prop or event. The man and women walking along seemed to me the establishing characters, both wearing fashionable costumes showing they are wealthy, with the man in a suit and the women in a dress and heels. Although within this opening the music doesnt really create much suspence, it more the constant reminder whenever you see the car, of the bomb, always wondering and thinking about whats going to happen next.

Thriller Filming..

We have now completed a large percent of our filming. We uploaded our footage and have found some of the shots dont fit in with our style so plan to re-film certain shots asap. We plan to carry on editing the footage we will use, continuity editing.
During filming we used three different locations which are close together..
1. The stairs in the mulit-storie car park.
2. The subway tunnel.
3. The long pathway.as shes walking
We also used a large variety of different shots such as a low angle shot from behiend the railings of the victim, this could connotate our victim is being trapped as she is seen from our point of veiw walking behiend the bars.
We are also going to make the action on screen fit with the music that we have created on Garage band, to make it fit and create suspence succesfully.
Within our opening we have two characeters the female victim and the villian- the kidnapper/stalker, throughout the opening you never see the threat just form his/her point of veiw shot, this will bring the audience in to a state of unknowing and hooked as they will want to find out who this mysterious villian is, pulls the veiwer in.
The costume of our innocent victim is plain and simple potraying to us she is just an ordinary girl. By making our victim an ordinary girl can make the audience relate to her, allows them to build a relationship, this could also make it seem more real in a sence that this could happen to anyone, even them, making their experience more shocking and disturbing. Causing and effect upon the audience.

Filming

Our plan for today was to film our first section to our opening but due to the weather conditions again it would ruin the continuity aspect. Instead we are changing our filming dates to half term so we dont have the difficulty of getting our actors out of their lessons. Hopefully the weather will settle as we plan to film a small section after school.
Millie and Sophie.

Filming....

Missing Poster scene:
Camera Shots..
-Establishing shot of poster
-slow zoom into the poster

Here is the mock up for the Missing Poster which we have created...

Filming Plan...

Walking down lane scene..
Camera shots..-
-Establishing shot of the lane.
-over shoulder shot of victim
-point of view shot of whislt annabel walking
-point of view shot from the kidnapper, of annabel walking
-Pan shot of walking past
-Extreme Close up of Annabels face showing a scared, confussed and anxious expression

Walking out of School scene..
Camera shots..-
- Establishing shot of school
- A master shot of her walking in a crowd
- Far back long shot of her walking from behind
- Extreme close up of putting her school bag on her shoulder

Garage Scene..
Camera shots..-
- An establishing shot of the garage from the oustide
- A Master shot of the wall covered in photographs of Annabel
- Pan Shot of photo's of the wall
- Zoom in shot of annabels latest picture
- Extreme close up of picture
- Extreme close up of Kidnapper crossing off picture of Annabel

Sophie and Millie

Garage Band

We have created our music in which we will incorporate within the opening of our thriller film. We have created two different tracks which are quite intense, which will create suspense for the viewer. The two different tracks are to be played from the beginning to the very end. One track will be played over the final scene, where her fate is decided. the other will be played on the flashback scenes, to set the mood of suspense.

Costume for 'new' actress

As we are changing our actress. we now have to reconsider the costume/make-up/hair style which the new actress will have. After alot of thought and consideration, we have decided that she will have the same 'innocent' feel that we decided on for the previous actress. To pertray this we have chosen a pale white/cream based costume including:
A white coat
White cotton dress
Black leggings
Black shoes

She will also have her hair tied up with a head band, to show innocence and to make herself look a stereotypical 'school girl'.

She will be wearing neutral make-up, to make her look younger and less grown-up (pertraying innocence again).

Sophie and Millie

Plan of Attack...

Our plan for filming this afternoon is as follows....

Depending on the weather, we will be filming the scene of the girl walking down the lane, being watched...

We will also be creating some music on garageband today, as this is a stereotypical element to create suspense in a thriller.

The Shots which we will be using for the lane scene are:
Establing shot of the lane
Point of view shot of girl and kidnappers
Long shot of her walking
Close up of the back of her head
Extreme close up of her face
Pan shot of girl walking past

Filming

We have come acrossed some difficulties wilst filming due to the weather conditions. As a result to this we will be filming later in today if the weather conditions become filmable.

As there is a issue with getting a younger student to act in our opening we have decided to change the age of our character to 16.

There are a few problems which have come across:
Firstly, our new actress has curly hair, and the pictures in which we were going to use from childhood have straight hair, with different facial features. Though this is not a major issue, as many people change as they get older.

Another issue we have come across is that the tapes from the childhood cannot be uploaded, as do not fit into the camera. How we will get around this, is that we will ask the actress to provide us with tapes from her own childhood. If this isn't possible, we will have to consider refilm the footage from the childhood...

Sophie and Millie

About Flash Backs

We have had some issues with resolving how we are going to portray the flashbacks of 'Annabel'. The choices we had were:
Refilming the scene of a childhood memory
or Pictures in a collage from different childhood occasions
or Using real footage from our actors childhood, (family relative so easy to get hold of).

After much thought and consideration, we have come to the conclusion that we will be using the real footage from the childooh of our actor, as this way, it will make it more realistic and reliable, as it is the actor when younger...

We have come to this conclusion because, if we would have decided to refilm the footage, we would have had the difficulty in finding a suitable location and actors to represent a family. As we needed a young actor, we would have needed to get permission, which would have been a lot more difficult process.

We have chosen against the idea of pictures, as it would have been tricky to film the pictures in an interesting way that would engage the audience that would keep the pace of the action fast. However, we are still going to use some pictures, as quick flash back before the end titles, in a dramatic and ongoing fast pace way.

Millie and Sophie

Audience Questionaire

In order to understand what the audience wants from a Thriller, we have written another questionaire, which was based on the audiences opinion and understanding of Thriller's. From this Questionaire, we have come to the conclusion that Action and Horror were the top two Sub-genres preferred. From this result, we will have to add in a sub-genre of either Horror or Action. We will do this by adding props which fit into these genres, i.e a weapon...
We Asked what the audiences top Thriller Films were, these included:Day After Tomorrow, Physco, Matrix. From knowing this, it has allowed us to research into these thrillers, analysing the conventions in the opening scenes (which have obviously had an effect on the audience) allowing us to be inspired for our own opening of a Thriller....

Directors Study..

Alfred Hitchcock.
Sir Alfred Hitchcock was an english film maker and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres.
Alfred Hitchcock was a best known for his thriller films. Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. He remains one of the most popular and most recognised filmmakers, and his works are still popular today. Often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker of all time, in 2007 Hitchcock was ranked #1 by film critics in The Telegraph's list of 21 greatest British directors.

Academy Award nominations..
Year Film Award Winner
1940 Rebecca Best Director John Ford – The Grapes of Wrath
1941 Suspicion Outstanding Motion Picture Darryl F. Zanuck – How Green Was My Valley
1944 Lifeboat Best Director Leo McCarey – Going My Way
1945 Spellbound Best Director Billy Wilder – The Lost Weekend
1954 Rear Window Best Director Elia Kazan – On the Waterfront
1960 Psycho Best Director Billy Wilder – The Apartment
1967 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award Y

Director of such works as Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds and The 39 steps, Hitchcock told his stories through intelligent plots witty dialogue and a spoonful of mystery and murder. In doing so, he inspired a new generation of filmmakers and revolutionized the thriller genre, making him a legend around the world.

Props, Costume and Make-up..

Props
With in our film we only need a small number of props which are:
Bin Bag
Rope
Pictures of girls memories of childhood (birthdays, School photos, Family occassions)
Missing Poster
Car
School Bag
Camera
Red Marker Pen

Costume
School Girl: Shirt, Tie, Skirt, Blazor, Tights, Black 'Dolly' Shoes
Kidnapper (altough never shown in full): Black Jumper, Black Trousers, Long Black Jacket, Black Gloves, Black Shoes.

Make-up
The Girl would be wearing natural make-up, to keep her looking innocent and not 'overly' grown up.

Directors Study...

Steven Spielberg:
Steven Spielberg is one of the most influencial and well known Film Director in Hollywood, also well known as a producer and writter of films. Born in Ohio in 1946 he has been in the film industry since 1957, when he was an uncredited assistant editor of "Wagon Train", a country western. For the First couple of Years he spent directing films, were all short Films, including Battle Squad (1961), The Last Gun (1959), and Escape to Nowhere (1961).

Spielberg's first major directorial film was 'The Sugarland Express' (1974), this was his first film that was his success was noticed by the film industry, and this film started off his 'expensive' and successful career as a film director. The next film that he made was his first Famous film... 'Jaws' (1974). This was the start of a series of Jaw films and Spielberg got the credit for starting this phase.

In the 1980's, Spielbergs work found itself in the pop-culture. In 1988 he produced a film called Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which was the landmark animation/live-action film.

Here are a List of the Films in which Spielberg has Directed...

The Sugarland Express - About a Prison Break... Involves a kidnapping of Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Kenneth Crone - The Film won the award for Best Screen Play at 1974 Cannes Film Festival.

Jaws - Shark attacks, Shark is killed by a fisherman's boat.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Roy Neary Stalls his car, and is shown the light, past that time he constantly sees strange visions and five musical notes in his head...

1941 - After the Bombing of Pearl Harbour, California is in panick, as they were the expected next attack. (comedy)

Raiders of the Lost Ark - Dr Indiana Jones fights snakes and Nazis, this film is full of cliffhangers aswell, which adds to the thrill of the film.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial - A group of Earth children help a stranded alien botanist return home.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - After arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by a desperate village to find a mystical stone. He agrees, and stumbles upon a secret cult plotting a terrible plan in the catacombs of an ancient palace

The Color Purple - The life and trials of a young African American Woman.

Empire of the Sun - A young English boy struggles to survive under Japanese occupation during World War II.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - When Dr. Henry Jones Sr. suddenly goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, eminent archaeologist Indiana Jones must follow in his father's footsteps and stop the Nazis.

Always - A romantic adventure about a legendary pilot's passion for dare-devil firefighting and his girl.

Hook - When Capt. Hook kidnaps his children, an adult Peter Pan must return to Neverland and reclaim his youthful spirit in order to challenge his old enemy.

Jurassic Park - After a Power Break doen, the model Dinosaurs run loose on the preview tour.

Schindler's List - Oskar Schindler uses Jews to start a factory in Poland during the war. He witnesses the horrors endured by the Jews, and starts to save them.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park - A reseach team is sent to Jurassic Park Site B to do research on the dinosaurs there. Another team sent for a different agenda.

Amistad - a 1839 mutiny aboard a slave ship that is traveling towards the northeastern coast of America. Much of the story involves a court-room drama about the free man who led the revolt.

Saving Private Ryan - Following the Normandy Landings, a group of US soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence - A highly advanced robotic boy longs to become "real" so that he can regain the love of his human mother.

Minority Report - criminals are caught before the crimes they commit, but one of the officers in the special unit is accused of one such crime and sets out to prove his innocence.

Catch Me If You Can - A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor.

The Terminal - An Eastern immigrant is left stranded at the JFK airport.

War of the Worlds - One family fights for survival as the earth is invaded by an alien tripod fighting machine.

Munich - Based on the true story of the Black September aftermath, about the five men chosen to eliminate the ones responsible for that fateful day.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Dr Henry Indiana Jones is called back to solve the mysterious artifacts known as the Crystal Skulls.

Target Audience Continued...

We have estasblished the two main categories of choosing our target audience. We have also covered some sub categories....

Interests: We believe that the main interests are as follows.. An Element of Family interest, because every one is part of some kind of family, showing it can relate to anybody. And the fear of loosing a family member is so strong that it being shown on screen would bring it to life and show you how it would affect a family...

Target Audience....

Age Group: 18-34. We believe this would be a suitable age range. Due to the large size of it, we can seperate it into two catergaries, allowing it to appeal to two seperate age groups. The first age group would be 18-24. This group would more likely be attracted to the adrenaline rush, on-going action, and suspense of a thriller. Whereas the larger age group, 24-34, are more likely to feel empathy with the characters, allowing them to build a relationship with the characters, and relate to the occurance in the family.

Gender: Our Missing Child film is more likely to appeal to the male audience. We have decided this as stereotypically a mother has a special relationship/connection, with a child, maternal insticts. Therefore are unlikely to want to watch someone else to go through what would be there worst nightmare, of their child going missing... Even though there is also a special relationship between a father and child, the bond isn't as strong as the mothers because stereotypically the mother would stay home with the children while the father goes to work, therefore connecting with the children. Also, as the main character is male, the kidnapper, it would make the men feel in power and the stronger sex.

Questionaire

For reasearch we created a questionaire to gain an audience understanding of what they expect in a thriller film.
Through our questionaire we learnt that the name of our thriller will now be Annabel as this was the majority of the votes. Also we have concluded that the setting will take place inside. Due to the results being to similar we are still undecided on the location it is a choice between a warehouse or a old abandoned house. To resolve this matter we are going to take picture of both locations and show to the audience, to get there opinion to help decide the better location because it has to appeal to the audience. The audiences opinion was also wanting it to be set at night as there would be an issue with lighting we need to think of solutions to solve this issue.
As the results from the questionaire were so varied when asked about music we are just going to go with the conventional choral music but to please the audience we could include elements of the other genre's in which have been chosen. Through the questionaire and our own decisions we have decided that there will also no dialouge in the opeinng scene as this would keep the audience engaged and intrugued with whats happening on the screen. This would also make the audeince think, another convention of a thriller.
In our questionaire we asked the question, What do you expect from a thriller?
Our results told us that the audeince expect to be scared, exciting and to create suspence.

Editing..

Within the opening of our thriller, the editing consists of cross-cutting between the action and the flashbacks. With many straight cuts to create continuity editing.
Also we will add the diegeitc and non-diegetic soumd in after filming for example in the kidnapping scene.
We will also be using eye line match to show the action between the two character- showing the more dominant character.

Plot

The main story line is kidnapping.
We will be cross-cutting between two seperate narratives (flash back, and the 'presnt' moment)

1. Fade in from black, showing a title..

2. Missing child poster is zoomed in..

3. A pan in shot of the kidnappers hideout, showing the pictures of different children, this immediately makes that viewers think, which is conventional.

4.Showing a short clip of action.. Pan shot of her walking out of school, surrounded by other pupils.. Fade to black

5. Showing titles..

6. Showing another shot from school, walking slowly along a deserted road. Point of view shot from the kidnapper

7. Last Title sequence before the title.

8. Continuaous action of her being kidnapped, and her struggling. Intwined with the flash backs of ehr childhood, Flashback start of quick, while the footage of struggling is longer takes. This swaps round as the scene goes on, and the flash backs dominante the scene.

9. Close up of the photo os the girl being crossed off.

10. Name of film (girls name... still undecided)

Opening Titles..

Name Of Studio
-name of the studio that is distributing the film and may or may not have produced it.

Name of production company
-name of the production company that made the film.
- name of the investment group or companies that finaced the substancial part of the film.

Starring
-principal actors

Film title

Featuring
-featured actors

Casting or casting by
-casting director

Music or music composer by
-Composer of music

production design
- production designer

Set design

Costumes or costumes by

Make up artist

Sound recording

Visual effects director

Editor

Director of photography

Producer
- producer,co producer, executive producer

Influences- instead of it being based on book

Writers

Director.

More ideas for missing person...

Missing person.....
It starts off with a sense of stalking, to pertray this we will use certain camera angles such as tracking, point of view, pan, extreme close ups (on eyes). For the majority of the opening of a thriller, we are not going to use sound, as the silence creates an uneasy tension. However, on the kidnapping scene, the diegetic sounds from struggling will be emphasised show the realism of whats occuring on camera. Through editing we are going to add in the sound of the struggling over the top of the action, to make the sounds clearer.

Opening scene from Vertigo

This is the opening scene of Alfred Hitchcocks Vertigo. Which doesnt include the titles before hand. Throughout the whole of this extract there is non-diegetic music playing which builds up an uneasy suspence making the veiwer feel uncomfortable and if something is about to happen almost putting them on edge. This shows that through playing music in an opening it really establishes a mood and theme for the film. There is also no dialouge, just action, through research we have found this technique in many other thriller openings such as Memento the technique is used so that it makes the audience think and question whats happening, waiting for the reavaling if the situation/crime. Through this extract it establishes the main character to us through a roof top chase between a police and our main character. This implys to us that crime is at the core if the narritive. The main character's costume is a white shirt and beige trousers, this sould connotate to us wealth, busniess or a profession. The setting is on a roof top in the middle of a city. Where the characters are in quite an isolated location (roof top). The binary opisition portrayed her are justice vs injustice. Which is conventional for a thriller. This opening consists of many conventions and creates suspence for the audience which is what a thriller is meant to do.

Mise-en-scene

Settings: A misterious hidden location where the kidnapper 'deals' with his victims.
Where the thirteen year old girl is walking home from school, a remote lane.
-From the flash backs, memories of her childhood: Family home, in a garden

Costume: 13 year old girl has to wear light colours, ie white or pink, or school uniform which would both pertray her innocence.
The kidnapper isn't seen, so not necessary costume, but costume would be black, incase of any glimpses. In a way, this adds to the binary opposition of dark versus light.
From flash backs, there are two obtions we have to consider: Just using pictures from childhood, or the actual action: All the family would be wearing light colours to pertray happier times.

Props: Pictures from childhood, from happy family occasions.
School uniform, school bag.
The bag which is put over the 13 year olds head.
The red pen to mark off the girls name/picture.

Top Idea

We think our most successful narrative is the 'missing person' thriller, as it includes all the convetions of a thriller: Crime, suspense, showing the main character, it makes the audience think, no dialogue-just action, Consists of themes: identity, representations of gender- male being the more dominant whilst women are more of the victims.

'Every 5 Minutes'

'Every 5 minutes' was written in October 2005. This wrote about the sources which were available, to establish how many children go missing in the UK every year. The account concludes that it is impossible to be exact but averages it around 100,000 and 180,000...

This has shown me the vast amount of publicity and time is given to give awareness about missing children.

From this, I think the amount of childrens names which are written on the wall in the kid nappers house should be loads, maybe not have the photos, but just cover it in names, male and female...

More Statistics on Missing Children

A total of 1,315,600 children went missing in 1999 (18.8 per 1,000 children)

Non-family abduction§
33,000

Family abduction
117,200

Runaway/Thrownaway
628,900

Missing involuntary, lost or injured
198,300

Missing, benign explanation
374,700

Some Statistics on Missing Children

There are three distinct types of kidnapping: kidnapping by a relative of the victim or "family kidnapping" (49 percent), kidnapping by an acquaintance of the victim or "acquaintance kidnapping" (27 percent), and kidnapping by a stranger to the victim or "stranger kidnapping" (24 percent).

85% to 90% of the 876,213 persons reported missing to America’s law enforcement agencies in 2000 were people under the age of 18.

152,265 of the people reported missing in 2000 were categorized as either endangered or involuntary.

The number of missing persons reported to law enforcement has increased from 154, 341 in 1982 to 876,213 in 2000. That is an increase of 468%.

Kidnapping makes up less than 2 percent of all violent crimes against juveniles reported to police.

Missing Poster

Here is a Missing Poster which I found on Google. As our film is on missing children, i think it is important to research how they are published to try to find missing children, i.e Posters, Websites etc... Here is one example

Little Girls Names For the Missing Child Thriller

Here are a few of the names which we have considered for the 'missing child' idea.

•Daisy
•Matilda
•Molly
•Isabel
•Maisy
•Charlotte
•Emma
•Alice
•Anna
•Bethany
•Abi
•Jenny
•Scarlett
•Rosie
•Clare
•Jessica
•Hannah
•Ellie
•Ruby
•Ella
•Lily
•Lilia
•Tilly
•Lucy
•Holly
•Fiona
•Grace
•April
•May
•June
•Hazel
•Hope
•Maria
•Sophia
•Megan
•Olivia
•Sally
•Sarah

Another Idea

Missing Person...
Close up shot of a Missing Person on Poster, a little female child aged 13. Goes straight the the action (conventional of a thriller) Straight cut to the 13 year old girl walking along an empty road. Flashback to the girl being aged 6, happy with her family surrounding her, cheerful, like a family get together, a birthday party. Straight cut to kidnap scene where a bag is put over the 13 year old girls head, see her struggling. Fade to black, lasting 2 seconds, Straight cut to another family affair, now at the age of 8. Fade to black again, lasting 4 seconds, straight cut to the 13 year old being put in the car boot. Fade to black, lasting 6 seconds, straight cut to last family affair, ages 10, blowing out the candles at the brithday, slowly fades to black. An establishing shot of the kidnappers room, the little girls photos covering the walls. On one wall, pictures of children with lines through to represent the kids hes killed. Zoom in on the picture of the 13 year old, close up of him crossing it off. Fades to black, 8 seconds, Name comes up in baby pink (the Title) fades to bloody red, conventional to a thriller.

New Idea

The Titles are on a black background. Straight cut to someone picking up a knife, with blood dripping off the blade. Black out to Titles. Straight cut to mid shot of person walking with the knife towards the sink, black out to titles. Close up of washing the knife. Black out to Titles... Name of the Film shown. Straight cut to slow zoom into the dead body.
Never see the Killers face, just hands and back of the head, adding to the suspense, convetional to a Thriller... Other conventions of this as follows:

• Indroduces you to the main character
• Crime is at the Core of the narrative
• The sense of unknowing creats suspense

Brainstorm for our thriller..

1. A conventinal character (young female) portraying innocence walks through woods in dusk. The supence created would commences when there will be an effect of her being followed. Introduces the main character which is conventinal. to a thriller. Flashbacks of a crime involving her- making crime at the core narratie-conventinal.
2. Ghosts, the idea of the unknown creates suspence and a sinistar atmosphere. With the main character being male- in thrillers males are usually portrayed to the audience as the more dominant gender.
3. Setting in abandoned warehouse, the characters, two men and one woman, one man being a villian, the other more of the hero. Both men back to back, with guns in there hands, walking away from each other, at any point they can shoot (idea of cowboys minus the american atmospherical settings) and through them walking away from each other, slowly, creates a suspensful and uneasy tention, making the audience feel on edge. With non diegetic music, with the slow low base beat representing a heartbeat. Fast pased attack is convetional to a thriller.

Analysis of 'The Sixth Sense' opening scene

Sound
Haunted creepy music, almost hear the sound of howling wind.
Asycronous sound of flute playing.
Music is slow and eerie, adding a feeling of suspense.


Mise-en-scene
Church- creepy and symbolic of death, graveyards.
White ghost figure walking towards house - disappears.
Tall houses in city.
The writing of the titles in white, emphasising the ghost like figures.


Camera
All shots start off in black and white.
Pan shot of Church from two different angles.
Short take of clock tower, with the clock hands not moving, sybolising that time stays still.
On clock tower, goes from shallow to deep focus on the clock tower
Gradually gaining colour in shots, pan shot of a house with arches.
Slow zoom shot of an alley way, with a white ghost like figure standing in the distance.
Short take of a city street.


Editing
Shots fade to black.
'Key hole' transition, only showing a section of the footage, keeping the audience interest.
After alley shot, the short take fades to black, leaving the white figure walking towards the camera.
The writing of the Titles transition are: fades in/ ghost effect out.

Clock...

We want this to show how slowly the time has gone. The clock will be set at 10 seconds to twelve. There will be a close up on a grandmother clock. After each tick, it swaps from the pendulum to the clock face, until it gets to 5 seconds, then focuses on an extreme close up of the clock face. When the Clock strikes 12, fades slowly to black...