Scream - opening scene

As a homework task, we were asked to present to the class the opening scene to a thriller film. I chose to do my presentation on Scream. 

 

I looked at the scene in the same way that we have been taught to analyise scenes from TV dramas (which we will meet in our final exam).

         MISE-EN-SCENE

• Shadows cast across the girl’s face add an element of horror and help set the scene – we are aware she is hiding and that it is night time.
• The scene is set inside an average home which makes it a real experience for the audience as it could happen to them.
• The car moving towards us, gives us a sense of the distance she is from her parents (who are figures of safety).
• The smoky room obstructs our view so we are in suspense as we don’t know where the killer is.
• The killer’s black suit and white mask protects his/her identity and gives a sense of uncertainty.

       SOUND

• The sound of her breathing and the creaking of the door are soft and are contrasted against the slam of the door as it closes. This makes us scared that the killer has also heard the door close.
• Soft music is used as a non-diegetic sound to build up suspense, which is a well known technique to many horror and thriller films.
•  Every time a shot of the killer is shown, there is an increase in the tempo and volume of the music which helps to scare the viewer.
•  The quietness and safety of the road is shown through contrast of music. The music gets much calmer when the focus goes to the road.
•  String instruments played with a quick and steady beat increases the audience’s heart rate.
•  Loud, non-diegetic music mixed with the diegetic screams and breaking of glass adds panic to the moment when the killer turns around.

EDITING
•    The camera focuses on the main girl for a long time at the beginning with no cuts, which helps the audience to empathise with her as they wouldn’t want to be in her position
•    There is a jump cut from one place to another – the house to the road, which shows the contrast in the two different areas.
•    This same cut is then used to show how slowly time is going for the girl who just wants her parents to get home already. This is shown through the time it takes the car to make distance down the road.
•     POV shots are used through the window before quickly cutting back to her face which shows her panic as she hides and does not want to be seen.
•     Quick cuts between the girl and the killer as he attacks her speeds up the situation and adds a sense of panic.
•     Slow motion is used to emphasise the danger as she has now been caught by a man with a knife. This shows a sense of defeat compared to her running beforehand as now she knows she cannot get away.
•     A cut is made from when the knife is stabbed into her, to her father inside as he realises something is wrong, this is an example of dramatic irony.

CAMERAWORK

•    The girl at first has a lot of camera time which helps us as the audience to empathise with her and we are immediately put on her side.

•    POV shots through the window add a sense of reality and we are put in the girl’s shoes making us imagine ourselves in the situation.

•    The camera follows the girl as she runs from the killer which emphasises the panic.

•    Medium shots of the girl lying on the floor are used to show her injuries and to therefore show how serious the bleeding is.

•    A shot taken from a camera which appears to be lying in the grass above the girl shows her struggling on the ground and because of the low height of the camera, this emphasises her helplessness.

•    Another POV shot is used, this time it is of her looking up at her parents as the enter the house, oblivious of her dying just metres away.

•    The camera also follows the girl’s mum as she searches the house for her daughter, giving a sense of desperation.

•     Initially an extra long shot shows the body hanging from the trees, however the camera shakily zooms in with speed, as if we are the father running in panic towards his daughter’s body.

Thriller vs. Horror mood board

After spending a lesson making a mood board on our ideas of what makes a thriller, we spent a lesson comparing the differences between horrors and thrillers. I decided to make another Powerpoint presentation in the form of a mood board.



For me a horror film contains gore, blood, repulsive acts of violence and often they have a supernatural aspect to them.
An example of a horror is Saw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq7FVtth39s)



The words and ideas which I chose to use to describe a thriller were: psychological, suspense, children used to scare the audience, obsession and real life situations.
An example of a thriller is The Strangers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1TBlPelvbE).



My thriller vs horror mood board can be seen below:

Mood board horror and thriller

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Thriller Mood Board

Our task for this lesson was to use Microsoft Powerpoint to create a mood board of all the things associated with thrillers that scare me. I looked primarily at the idea of unknowing and isolation. For example, if someone were wearing a mask this would scare me as I would not know who was underneath the mask. Isolation also scares me as the idea of being alone to me, means that there is no one there to help if you get in trouble. For example if a person is alone in a house and an intruder enters, it is made more scary as there is no one to help them out in their time of need.

Mood board

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Learning how to use Final Cut Pro

After we shot all the footage we needed for our preliminary task, the next stage was to go to the editing suite and put the footage together to make a scene which flowed well. We were introduced to 'Final Cut Pro' the programme we will later be using to edit our thriller.

In our groups, we were assigned to a computer. Our group decided to first look over all of the footage we had shot and decide which our favourites were. Matt taught us about the importance of bins. We were shown the 'log bin' where we put our favourite bits of footage to be edited and also the 'rush bin' where all of the footage is stored - wanted and unwanted.

Our group decided that instead of making our scene fast-paced, we would slow down the speed of conversation to add a sense of suspense. We managed to create this effect through our editing and the final outcome was very successful.

For me, the hardest part of adjusting to Final Cut Pro, was keeping the continuity of the scene flowing. For example, when making a cut from a wide shot to an over the shoulder shot and keeping the footsteps looking as though there is no break in the cut.

Above is our final edited version of the preliminary task

Preliminary task

The preliminary task was the first time that I got to work with the group of people who I will eventually be working with for our coursework filming task. In my group there are four of us - Talisa, Bella, Laura and me. This task not only tested our ability at filming and directing a short scene, but also showed us how well we worked together as a team.

I felt much more confident behind the camera in this task than I did in our practice. Our group was focused and we were keen to get all of the necessary shots in the 1hr and 10mins that we had.


Above is the first page of the storyboard we followed which shows the simplicity of it

In order to ensure that we all had time behind the camera, we used two students from the year above as our actors. How we interpreted the script was basic and involved:

1) Character A entering a room.

2) Character B is sitting at a desk with a sheet of paper in front of her.

3) Character A and B have a conversation together.

4) Character A leaves room, leaving Character B at the desk.

We tried to include techniques that we have learnt in the year such as not breaking the 180 degree rule, filming using ECU's for emotion and a variety of different angled shots e.g. over the shoulder, wide shot etc. It was also important that we kept the continuity of the shoot constant, so keeping an eye on little things such as positioning of props was key.

Overall, the shoot was successful and we managed to get all the footage needed in the time we were given. Now that we had all the raw footage, all that we had to do was to learn how to use the editing programme on the computer and edit our shots together to make a flowing scene between two people.

Practising using the camera

As I missed the lesson in which we were taught to use the cameras, my first experience with our school's cameras was in our practice shoot for the preliminary task. We were put into groups of three or four. I was in a group of three and as the script we were given had only two characters, we constantly had two actors and one person behind the camera. Our group was lucky enough to be given the studio as our set; this meant that we could play around with various different lighting and use the props available to us as well. Our group made the mistake of not filming the whole scene as a wide shot first, so our footage at the end was incomplete. By making this mistake, I learnt a vital lesson which later on helped me when we filmed our preliminary task. Other than this mistake, I learnt how to use the cameras, including how to control the white balance before filming and also the setting up of the camera and the stand.

The white balance is controlled by focusing the camera on a white wall or area so that the camera is able to pick up all of the colours correctly from the spectrum. Once the white balance has been adjusted, the temperature of the picture changes completely.

Using photoshop to create thriller posters

In this lesson, we had the task of going around the school in groups and taking pictures of each other in scary situations. We then had to return to the computer room and use our photoshop skills to edit our favourite picture into a thriller poster advertising a new film. I chose to edit a photograph taken of me on a bench. In the foreground were leaves and twigs, as if someone was looking at the hooded figure (me) on the bench (as seen below). 

 [UPLOAD PHOTO]

I played around with the controls, editing the colour of the photo to make it seem more eerie. I then used the text tool on photoshop to add in a title for the film. I had to play around with various colours in order to choose one which was legible against the dark background, I also tried different fonts and sizes of the text to find the one most suited to the thriller genre.

The Shawshank Redemption: my presentation.

One of our homework tasks last week was to prepare a presentation on a scene from our favourite film. I chose to research into The Shawshank Redemption, focusing on the escape scene at the end. I used a clip taken from Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCtgM1hWcUY).
I first looked into the mise-en-scene; the surroundings are dimly lit except for the one small window in the cell. This tiny window has light flooding through it, representing his slim chance of freedom Andy has. Through looking at the characters' clothing, it is possible to see the different positions of authority - the inmates are wearing worn workclothes and the highly ranked characters are dressed in smart suits. As a member of the audience, we empathise with the inmates as the majority of them regret the mistakes they have made, in the case of Andy (the protagonist) not only do we empathise with him, but we hope that he will escape as he is actually innocent and was wrongly convicted.
The camerawork was the next aspect of the scene I chose to study. My favourite use of the camera from the scene is when the camera zooms out from a medium close-up shot of the characters after they find the hole in the wall; I think that this zoom adds a sense of awe and shows the respect felt towards Andy for finally managing to escape the jail.
Throughout the film, the character of Red narrates what is happening to the audience, this is an example of a non-diegetic sound and is used in this scene to emphasise the amount of time Andy had spent in jail.
A dissolve is used from a still picture going backwards in time to show the day Andy first started trying to escape, the audience at this point are taken back to a shot seen previously in the film which creates a sense of familiarity.
At the point at which Andy actually escapes, lighting is used to add drama to the scene, it creates excitement and a sense of panic and urgency. The lightning also adds to the sense of triumph as Andy takes up the position of a cross, adding a religious aspect as if he is thanking God for finally escaping Shawshank.

A few definitions...

As the media course is completely new to our class, it is important that we learn some definitions:

MISE-EN-SCENE: this is everything in the frame

SEMIOTICS: the study of signs

SIGNIFIER: the object in the picture

SIGNIFIED: the implications of that object in the picture

SIGN: the combination of the signifier and signified that make the picture

DIEGETIC SOUNDS: sounds which are part of the world of the film

NON-DIEGETIC SOUNDS: sounds which come from 'outside' that world

POV: this is when the audience sees through the eyes of the character, this is a technique often used in thrillers.

These definitions are useful to us as we will eventually be using them in our final exam.

My First Look into Media...

Our AS Media course was soon started with our introduction to Adobe Photoshop. I was familiar with the name of the programme, but not how to use it. We were first taught the basics needed in order to edit film posters. I started off with a poster advertising The A Team, and through using the stamp tool, I was able to copy certain parts of the poster and make a replicate of it elsewhere. For example, copying Mr T's head and placing it onto someone elses body.

Our teacher, Matt, then showed us some more tools and how to use them, the lasso tool is used to make a selection and to then copy your selection to another part of the page. There are different variations of the lasso tool, for example the magnetic lasso which 'clings' to the outline of the shape you are copying.

We were soon introduced to the world of layers within photoshop. Matt explained all the complications which can arise through misunderstanding layers; yet the majority of the class (including me) managed to make a 'layers mistake' at some point during the lesson. I suppose this is when learning from your mistakes is key.

We also learnt how to edit the tone, colour and direction of the posters as well as learning how to edit an aspect of one poster onto another. I chose to combine The A Team with Alice in Wonderland which proved to be quite entertaining.

I enjoyed the hands-on lesson into the world of photoshop, and look forward to progressing in the programme as the course continues.

A bit about me to start off with...

...my name is Annabelle Swan, and I live in Surrey. I have recently started boarding at Hurtwood House, but I have been coming home most weekends. I live at home in the countryside with my parents and two cats and I love it there!

My interests include music, film, seeing friends and art.

I decided to study media as one of my AS subjects as i thought it complimented my other subjects well and I am interested in films (in particular comedies and horror). I am also studying: English, Spanish and Psychology and possibly hope to move on to journalism later in life! 

I am looking forward to exploring the world of media, and learning all there is to learn throughout the course of the year.