Monday 31 October 2016

Thriller ideas.

Idea 1.

The woman is cooking in the kitchen. She's cutting vegetables with a big sharp knife on the cutting board and throwing them on the hot pan. The nice music is playing from the radio, she is quietly singing along.

e.g. "You make me crazy" by Gnarls Barkley
  

      Woman is wearing a dress (fashion of 50th) and apron, her hair is tied up, we can also notice a ring on her figure – she looks like a typical housewife. However, she has a fresh scar on her cheek and a couple of bruises on her hands, which are not identified from the first look. 
Suddenly, we can hear something else apart from the music, some sound like mooing, but very quietly. She is ignoring the sound, still cooking. It repeats. The woman looks a bit irritated and enhances the volume of the radio. She keeps on cutting vegetables, which sizzle reaching the pan. The mooing sound repeats again, now louder. She tries to increase the volume of the radio again, but its’ on maximum. The mooing repeats. She leaves the vegetables and expires to calm herself down. She turns off the radio. Now we can hear exactly what kind of sound is that – it’s the human mooing. She wipes her hands and knife with the towel and puts it on her shoulder. She then walks around the table with the knife in her hand.
 On the other side, on the floor there is a bounded man with a tape on his mouth, mooing. He looks at her, frightened. She looks irritated with him. The woman bends towards him and points her knife at his chin, lifting his head up. He obeys. She smiles at him creepily and says: “You’re making too much noise, darling. I can’t cook”. He looks at the knife, back at her, silent. She swings her hand and cuts his cheek. The blood flows down his face. “That’s better. Now we look similar, my love”. 

She stands up and walks back to the cutting board and turns on the radio again with the same song. She starts singing along quietly and quite cheerfully. She then takes a human heart out of the bowl nearby, puts it on the cutting boards and starts to carve it. The man notices it. We see his facial expressions when he suddenly realizes she’s a cannibal – he closes his eyes, the sweat is running from his forehead, his loud mooing is hardly heard through the radio and the sound of the knife beating the cutting board. The woman takes a heart cut in pieces and puts it in the pan, smiling. It starts to sizzle in the oil.
         
The whole film: The film is set around 1950s. At that time there was a patriarchal society, where the only role of woman was to be the housewife – cooking and looking after children. The main hero – is that kind of woman, a housewife, a victim of domestic violence and oppression from men. Due to serious health problems in the past she is not capable of having children now, which is the reason her husband does not treat her like a proper woman. She was often subjected to violence, what drove her crazy in the end. Now she decided to have her revenge over all men who treated her awfully, by doing what she ‘was born to do’ – cooking. The story-line is telling us about her inner fragile world and how she ended up in such an awful state, as murderer and cannibal, from her perspective.

Idea 2.

The man is running. 
We can hear his footsteps and deep breath. Somebody quite far away is chasing him – we can only see a couple of black figures, but the main hero looks extremely terrified. 
The man has a gun in his hand. 
(the picture shows men in suits, but in the shot we can't see what they are wearing)

He runs towards the high fence of the house. He realizes he can’t jump above it. Turns around – he’s still chased. He has no other way, he has to get inside. He sees a large trash can on the side of the fence. He jumps on it and them crawls above the fence and falls down on the ground on the other side of it.

The gun falls out of his hand on the ground nearby. The man fills a bit dizzy. He holds his head and looks around. There is a bit of blood on his forehead. He is in the ‘garden’ outside the house. He knows this place. 

We hear a growling sound from the corner of the house. He lifts his head, but he can’t see clearly yet, due to the fall. We only see the outlines of the figure, which is moving very slowly towards him, growling. The figure looks broken. When he’s able to see properly and realizes who’s in front of him he looks horrified and starts crying. 

The figure – is the woman, all rotten, with open wounds, scars, blue skin – like a zombie. She walks towards him. The man is still underfoot, so starts to retrograde slowly. He shakes his head and tears are falling down. He looks at her: “Mom, no. Please, mom, stop”. Her answer is growling. She walks lamely. Moving backwards, his hand suddenly reaches the gun. Quickly he looks at it disappointed. He looks back at her - she is getting closer to him. She stops for a second and smells the air, notices a blood on his forehead and utters a loud sound. He realizes what’s about to happen and grabs a gun. “Mom, stop!” he yells, but she ran towards him. He shoots her. We can hear his loud cry at the end.


The whole film: A medical thriller. The main hero, a doctor, returns from the holidays to his home town and accidently stumbles upon a couple of infected people on his way to work. He runs home, trying to escape the chase, where realizes that his whole family has already been infected as well. The plot line is building around him rescuing for help and a medicine to cure the disease. At one point he realizes the city is surrounded by the army men and he cannot get outside. He can’t receive any help from them as well, and they refuse to help referring to the risk of spreading the virus. Why doesn’t anybody want to help him? Is his city the only one being infected? The main hero has to find answers to all of his questions and cure the disease himself if he wants to survive.

Idea 3.


The woman in black is walking on the graveyard.  Her head is covered by the black hat. Her hands in black gloves are carrying a lush bouquet of red roses. She comes up to one of the headstones and sits down. We can see the name on the stone: “Matthew White”.
 “Our favorites” – she says and puts the flowers down on the ground.
She takes one glove off and we can see the ring on her finger. She wipes out the tear from her cheek. We can see somebody far away behind her back, watching her, but she does not notice him. Suddenly, there is a phone calling. She’s surprised and takes her phone out of the bag. But it’s not the one ringing. The music is still playing. She stands up, looking for the source of the sound. She realizes it’s coming out of the grave. She kneels back down and starts looking for the phone in the ground of the grave. She founds a plastic bag with an old phone ringing inside. 
                     
She takes it out, presses: “answer” and holds the phone to her ear. Somebody on the other end says: “Whatever you do – do not turn around. Do not panic. Do not react anyhow. Do not answer me. Whatever I say now – just do it, without questioning, I’ll tell you everything I can later...” On the background we can see the same man watching her. He now stands a bit closer to her. He is not the one calling. We realize he sees her on the phone. He holds his finger to his ear and speaks excited. He then turns and waves to somebody who stands even further back.

The woman sits straight on her knees. The voice in the phone carries on giving her instructions: “…but first of all you have to get rid of this phone, you hear me?”. She is amazed. The tear is running on her cheek. She whispers: “Matt?”. The voice in the phone expires: “I know It’s been five years. I couldn’t contact you earlier. I love you”. After the pause: “You remembered everything I said? The most important is…”. He stops talking suddenly and we can hear that somebody has run into the room where the man on the phone is now. There are a couple of screams, gunshots and the sound of the body falling. She screams to the phone: “Matt? Matt!? Are you there? What happened?”. Somebody on the other end has hanged up.

We now see the man who was watching her all the time. He puts a finger to his ear again and says: “All done. Good job”. He walks away and we can see her crying on the background still on her knees. 
She then stands up, rips the black hat of her head, her mascara all around her cheeks. She sees that man walking away and getting in the car. She looks angry and determined.

The whole film: Her husband has died 5 years ago. Even today she still goes to his grave – this helps her to fight off the depression. But once, on the 5th anniversary of his death she receives a sudden call on the mysterious phone with the instructions for her. Is this the ex-husband calling from the dead? She cannot believe he is alive! She is ready to do everything he asks to find him. However, this chance is taken away from her. Again. During the call she hears screams and gunshots. Her dead husband is killed again? She realizes she didn’t know enough about who her loved one was and the reasons for his death. But she will definitely find it out now and avenge everyone guilty of killing her husband.


Idea 4.

The man wakes up in the bed. Looks at the side – there is only a crumpled blanket. We can hear the sounds of radio music and somebody cooking. He smells the air and smiles. He stands up, brushes his teeth and goes to the kitchen. There is a woman in the sleeping shirt cooking bacon in the pan. She turns to him, smiles and says: “How did you sleep, my love?”. He smiles back, comes up to her and kisses her forehead: “Slept like a log. What are you cooking?”



 “Bacon for you” – she answers. 
He starts walking away, but suddenly touches the bottle of sunflower oil, which falls down and spills on the floor. He says: “Shit! Sorry, I’ll clean it up” and turns away to take some tissues. She laughs: “It’s fine I’ll handle this’” and wants to take a towel from the table, but slips on the oil and falls down, hitting the head on the table edge. He turns around and sees her on the floor, with the blood coming out of her head, mixing with the oil. He looks shocked and terrified.

Suddenly he wakes up in his bed in the cold sweat. 

Looks at the side – there is only a crumpled blanket. We can hear same music and same sounds. He looks confused. Stands up and comes to the kitchen. Same woman turns to him, smiles and says: “How did you sleep, my love?”. He answers timidly: “Slept like a log. What are you cooking?” “Bacon for you” – she answers. He comes up to her and kisses her forehead. Then starts to walk away, but touches the bottle with oil. He catches it before it falls down. She laughs: “Oh, wow!”. He expires and smiles. “What do you want with you bacon?” – she asks. He comes to the fridge and troughs her couple of eggs: “Eggs, please, darling”. 
She breaks the eggs shell into the pan and takes it away to the chopper in the sink. He takes a newspaper from the table. She turns the chopper on. Her sleeve is caught in the chopper, dragging her hand inside. She screams, the blood is all around the sink. He sees her and screams.

Suddenly he wakes up in his bed in the cold sweat.

 Looks at the side – there is only a crumpled blanket. He breathes deeply and grabs his head. “What do you want with your bacon?” – she asks – “Hey? Are you listening?”. He looks at her and grabs her hand: “Nothing, nothing, I want nothing with my bacon.” She shrugs: “Alright then, I want eggs” and walks towards the fridge. “No!” – he screams and rans towards her, slimming the fridge door with a force. The statuette on the top of the fridge is reeling. “What is wrong with you? – she is annoyed and opens the fridge again. “I told you not to…!” - he slams the door shut. The statuette falls down on her head. She falls down, bleeding.

He wakes up in his bed. 

He tried to prevent her death again, but she got an electric shock from the kettle. He wakes up in his bed. He tried to pull her away from the house but she got hit to death by the car. She fell down the stairs, he stabbed her accidentally, she stumbled and hit her temple one table – every time he couldn’t save her. 
He wakes up in his bed again. He hears her cooking. He grabs his head and starts crying.

The whole film: He wakes up in his bed one morning and whether he does – his wife dies every time. When her heart stops again everything goes back to the same moment in time - he wakes up in his bed. How can he escape the temporary trap? Who wants him to experience the death of his loved one over and over again? And if only he could escape if she dies – what would he prefer: let her die, or live the rest of his life in the Groundhog Day, watching his wife horribly dying over and over again?





Wednesday 19 October 2016

Prelim Task 2.

Prelim Task: EDITING.

why my name is DORD>. <

When it came up to editing we realized we forgot to bring our storyboard, so we had to rely on our memory while choosing our shots. It was a real disaster as if you don't have a plan in front of you - it's really hard to choose shots and put them into the right order, especially if you've never edited anything like that before. At such moments you realise how important the preparation and pre-production are. So, due to not having a storyboard, we've ended up with having long shots and close ups only, and then having to change some close ups to the over the shoulder shots to create variety in our footage.

Likely enough, we had great actor who knew the words by hart, however during editing it turned out to be the biggest problem - actors, being emotional, were speaking too fast and sometimes even talking over each other. Of course, in terms of acting and creating the right mood for the story - it's brilliant, but the speed of the speeches, overlapping with each other restricted us from choosing certain shots, as we just couldn't cut in the right place where one guy finishes speaking, but the other one haven't started yet.

For example in this part: the guy on the left has not finished his line yet, and the guy on the right has already started saying his 'go on'. 

Talking about what I would do differently in the future, looking back in my footage now:

1) I would ask the actors not to talk over each other as it creates problems during editing. Of course, it doesn't only refer to the dialogues - I'd need to be more careful and avoiding any continuity mistakes - otherwise it's either impossible to edit well or looks crap.


2) I would not film towards the evening as natural lighting from around 16:00 starts to change significantly. I wouldn't say it was a big problem, however, this short experience made me think about how the lighting is important as it may reveal the time period between two scenes, which shouldn't be noticeable for the audience. 

Due to the 'talking over each other' problem and the amount of time we've spent on it - we did not have the time to make another variation of our sequence in the editing process. But I think its a really good thing to do, as you have a chance to look at your work from another perspective, which may work way better than your first trial. On the other hand, you may get a proof that your first footage works best and other variations are just not as good. Anyway, this gives you something to choose from, so I've made a note to myself for the future editing of the thriller.

Despite the problems occurred, we've still managed to finish editing in the given time. That's crazy, but we've been editing 18 second for 60 minutes! I can not even imagine how long would it take to edit our thriller tasks, with special effects added on top. So, it also gives me something to think about in terms of time - our thriller will take much more planning time, shooting and editing times and I'm really happy we had this little 'trial task' so that we can learn on our mistakes and never even repeat them again, as it may cost too much.

To sum up, the editing process went quite well and gave us a more clear understanding of how to work with our future thrillers - being more concentrated during filming and maintaining the continuity all the time will help us when it comes to editing.




Sunday 16 October 2016

Prelim Task 1.

Prelim Task: FILMING.


To bring to life everything we've studied previously about camera movements and angles we've been given a short dialog to film.

Storyboard of the sequence.
I was in the group with three other students and we've been given two actors to help us. I think in such tasks it's very hard to maintain control and produce a good piece of work as nobody is given a clear role(director, cameraman, e.t.c) what makes the whole working process very unorganized. For example, several times we had somebody saying 'cut', before the actor had completely left the shot, what appeared as a problem during editing. Moreover, none of us had much experience in filming before, so everyone felt a bit strange and unsure in what should they do. For example, I completely messed up the order in which you have to say 'stand by', 'camera rolling', 'action', again, due to we all've been saying them at different times and order, even forgetting some of them at all.

Once I even said 'stand up!' instead of 'stand by!' :)

Surprisingly, we have finished filming all the required by the storyboard shots and had time to improvise. For example, we tried to have a really high angle shot by putting a camera and the tripod on the desk. It didn't really work as firstly we've just tried to hold the camera in hands and film, what looked really awful as it was shaking all the way through. However, when we've put a tripod on the desk, and the camera on the tripod - it wasn't any better - the angle made the shot look really unrealistic.

Afterwards, we decided to film how the actor is coming into the room just before the dialog begins. Our teacher gave us a hint how to do it well - one of us had to sit in the wheelchair with the camera and we've been dragging it alongside with the walking actor. As a result we've got a really nice hand held shot with a little bit of camera shaking what added naturalism.

Finally, we decided to add an extra scene, where I had to enter the room and scream something in Russian. At the first shot we made I started speaking the wrong language, what came out really funny. Despite the fact it was hilarious to film as we all just couldn't stop laughing - the extra bit didn't work as it looked really random and confusing during editing.


I'm really pleased I was working in this team as, despite nobody had a great experience in filming, everyone were really keen to film, were initiative and enthusiastic.

Everything went really smoothly. We've set the camera really fast, found the right white-balancing and camera positioning. Moreover, we've actually been smart enough to film the whole dialog from every shot required by the storyboard, rather than filming by phrases or parts - that really helped in the editing process as we had freedom to choose the best shots and vary them as we wanted. Another good thing was that we've done each shot twice to avoid any problems that could turn up during editing.


Beside everything I've talked about above, I think the only real 'problem' occurred was the lighting. We've been filming from around 15;30 to 16;30, but in that short period of time the natural lighting outside has gone so much darker, so that faces on the shot has come up a little bit yellow or orange.

Maybe it's just me being picky, but I really prefer the colors in the picture being naturally lighter, brighter, colder, rather than editing it afterwards, I think it makes the shot look sharper and much better.
                  But, of course, weather - is not something you are able to control during filming.


Anyway, now I have some experience in filming in the team for our future thriller tasks. However, I believe every member of the team should be given a clear role, so that everybody has an equal impact into the final piece - this would improve the productivity of the whole process, avoiding any conflicts in opinions, as obviously we all have a different view of the world.
     



Sub-genres of a thriller.

There are different key features that make up a particular genre.

For example for thriller this would be: 

                           

Blood

Crime

Maniac

Suspense

Murder

Knife

Death

Terror

e.t.c



                                                                                                              

Examples of thriller films may include:



            



Sub-genres of the thriller can be:


Action thriller

Focused on action, explosions and extreme violence.
 

Conspiracy thriller

In this sub-genre the protagonist hero must confront with the large, powerful organization, whose malevolence is only clear for him. Usually he is on his own.

Crime thriller

Is focused on the crime and usually from the criminal’s point of view. Usually the police is involved to investigate the crime.

Disaster thriller

Usually a natural disaster takes place like forest fire or flooding, and an antagonist is either trying to stop the disaster or just save himself, usually with a group of his relatives or friends, before the time runs out and the disaster occurs.

Eco-thriller

In this subgenre a protagonist must stop a threat to the environment which may affect local area, the whole nation or even the whole world.

Legal thriller

The subgenre takes place in and around the courtroom, where the main hero is usually a lawyer, who finds out his case is threatening death to him or to his client.

Medical thriller

The subgenre involves something usually used for medical purposes becoming a deadly weapon. Often it’s a leaking virus. Protagonist and antagonist are both doctors.

 Mystery thriller 

This differs from a regular mystery by being much more fast-paced, with the protagonist on the run and the threat of another crime serving as the time running out.







Genre, sub-genre and hybrid genre.

What are genresub-genre and a hybrid genre?


Genre – is the way of categorising the film so that the audience can decide whether they want to see the film or not before actually seeing it. For example – a thriller genre, if you like being scared and seeing blood, you would probably want to find out more about the ‘coming soon’ film in this category. A genre is often created through the use of conventions.

Sub-genre - is a category within the category, when a genre is divided into more directions, which are too small to be a genre on its own. For example, a political thriller.

A hybrid genre - is where two or more genres are combined in order to attract more consumers. For example, romantic comedy or horror-thriller is a nice hybrid genre because it may be attractive for both males and females, what brings more money to the institution. However, some hybrid genres become too popular so actually form a genre, like in the case of the romantic comedy.

Monday 10 October 2016

Types of editing.

There are different types of editing, or editing techniques, which are very useful to know:

Continuity.
Its when the audience should not be able to tell when the cuts have been made. A group of shots put together and linked by the plot.


Montage.
Its used to present big amount of information or the long period of time in the short way. Apart from that, they may be used in the beginning of the TV show to shortly inform the audience about what happened in the previous episodes.



Transition.
A process of moving from one shot to another. Transition has many different types: straight cut - when one image is suddenly replaced with another with no extra effects; face up - when one image is gradually fades into shot and fade out - when the image gradually fades out of the shot.

More examples of transitions.


Wipe.

Its when one image is replaced with another dissolving and it eliminates the first shot then replacing it with another shot.



Dissolve.

Its when one scene or image gradually moves onto another one and kind of 'fades away', so there's a very smooth transition.

for example:




A cross dissolve someone spotted in the 'Wolf of Wall street'.