Final Piece: Resentment

Evaluation Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the product?

Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Make your own mind maps with Mindomo.

Evaluation Question 4

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Evaluation Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our thriller contains one type of social groups; African/Caribbean-British lower class adolescent males trying to rise above the gritty environments they were raised in. Unfortunately, due to struggle and pain they have received in their upbringing they have become blatant products of their environment. A prime example would be in Nortz' and S Wavey's case. The fact that they have abandoned their birth name and now go by tags that they are known by, shows they are products of their environment. Nortz is also an upcoming rapper who has the opportunity to make something positive of the life that he has suffered from. However, due to his upbringing he decides to insult other rappers which in turn gets him killed in the end. This portrayal of black teenagers in film conforms to stereotypical view of them. The lead character's measure of success is brought to him by being a musician specialising in rap, a predominantly black genre. This conforms to the stereotype that black people can only be successful through aesthetics and not through   The character is aggressive, obdurate and completely oblivious to other people's feelings. S Wavey is also another example to this stereotype. He is extremely hot tempered and ultimately becomes a criminal when he kills Nortz. This also conforms to the stereotype that most black people become criminals. Our thriller does contain any other gender, sexuality, age or ethnicity.  Overall this is a negative portrayal of black people. In conclusion, I believe there were many things that we could've changed about the portrayal of characters displayed in the film. For example, an introduction of female characters would've gave the film more substance and more opportunities to develop storyline as well as enabling the chance to apply binary opposites.

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of real media products?

Audience Feedback/Film Screening

We had many screening including one at our media class with a couple of fellow students. Here are some of the comments.

Deja said "I liked the action parts of the film, it really kept me on the edge of my seat and I would like to see what happens next".
Dara said "the bad guy's costume suits him but apart from that I don't think the film is very realistic".
Jonny said "I think the acting is very good".

Designing/Making: Ident

Today we developed our studio ident.
It displays cars driving along the streets at a relatively fast rate, the rate then slows down and we see a man riding a bike. The short clip then pauses, morphs into black and white and displays the words 'Rider Productions' and fades to black. We created the fast effect by tuning the speed of the visuals to 150% as the man on the bicycle approaches we slowed this down to 75% to give the illusion of slow mo. We then inserted a almost warped sound to fit the introduction of the 'Rider Productions' part of the ident, and finally faded it to black.

Editng Our Film

Hello examiner!

We have started editing our piece and are currently working on the second sequence. We decided that this should be a team effort so we could come to a fair conclusion of what scenes are the best for all of us. I believe today was success! Here is a sneak peak below

First Day of Filming

Today we developed our first shots for the project. In this scene the main character, Nortz, is at a party with friends and just having a good time oblivious to the events succeeding. For this scene we asked all our school friends who could join to be extras and dance for the camera to make our party scene more realistic. We shot this scene at Leon's house as we all agreed it would be the best place to do so. For this scene we turned off the lights and use an iPhone as a torch so you could see characters faces but also have the effect of low key lighting.

3rd Production Meeting

Welcome back Examiner! For our third production meeting we discussed our new last minute ideas as some of the resources needed for our original project could not be accessed. After a lengthy discussion we decided on a new film 'Resentment' and headed to Elijah's house to start filming. We managed to get 3/4 of our film finished.

Storyboard

Hello Examiner! This is our story board which we completed today.

Animatic

Hello examiner! Here is our animatic. I hope you will find it interesting.

Second Production Meeting

Cast & Crew

At our second meeting we discussed the events that would take place in our film and the location. We also decided who would handle the different responsibilities to make our film a success;

- Tino would handle Costumes and Props

- I would handle Treatment and Shot Listing

- Leon would handle Location

- Elijah would handle Storyboard and Animatic

We also planned a new storyline.

First Draft/Evaluation

Hello examiner, this is a draft of our project that we have put together for evaluation.


As you can see there are many improvements that can be made to this piece of work. The storyline is very simplistic and thus make the film non sensical. Also, as the film does not have many plot and character elements, viewers may be confused at what is happening throughout the film. For example we see the character 'Nortz' at a party and walking angrily and the reason for that is not revealed. In addition to that, our film does not contain a title at any point of it which may also confuse audiences. Furthermore, our selection of music is laid back and mellow, in contrast to the zealous events taking place in the film. This, in turn, makes our film look idiosyncratic and extremely disorganised. Finally, our student identification numbers are not present so examiners will not be able to mark our work.

Rope

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Writer: Hume Cronyn 

Screenplay: Arthur Laurents

Editor: William Zigler

Cast: 

James Stewart as Rupert Cadell

John Dall as Brandon Shaw

Farley Granger as Phillip Morgan

Joan Chandler as Janet Walker

Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Mr. Henry Kentley

Constance Collier as Mrs. Anita Atwater

Douglas Dick as Kenneth Lawrence

Edith Evanson as Mrs. Wilson

Rope is Alfred Hitchcock's critically acclaimed 1948 80 minute roller coaster about two (possibly homosexual) friends who try to commit the perfect murder 'for the sake of the arts'. The film is based on the 1929 play of the same name, which in turn is inspired by the true events of the murder of 14 year old Bobby Franks carried out by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.

This film is what I would call an quintessential thriller as it contains all the main conventions of a thriller.

The film begins with the introduction of three classmates; Phillip Morgan, Brandon Shaw and David Kentley. Phillip and Brandon are aesthetes who commit the murder of their friend David as an manoeuvre to prove superiority, in their apartment. This excites audiences as they are immediately drawn into action,  They then proceed to hide the body in a wooden chest and host a dinner party inviting most of David's family and including; his best friend, Kenneth, Kenneth's former lover, Janet, who is now David's fiance and former headteacher; Rupert, all of whom are unaware of the events that have taken place. To make matters even more dramatically ironic, Phillip and Brandon decide to have food and drink served on the wooden chest instead of the norm dinner table.
In the end, Phillip and Brandon's crime is uncovered by their Rupert, when maid Mrs. Wilson accidentally hands him David's monogrammed hat when he leaves the party.

This film is known for its long shots. Every shot in the film is roughly 7 - 10 minutes and cuts are only separated by the panning or tracking of an object. For example one of the shots cut with a man's jacket blocking the entire camera. Although this is so, in the last 20 minutes the cuts are explicitly unmasked. Here is a table of all the shots with a description of how they cut:

Segment	Length	Time-code	Start	Finish
1	09:34	00:02:30	Close-up (CU), strangulation	Blackout on Brandon's back
2	07:51	00:11:59	Black, pan off Brandon's back	CU Kenneth: "What do you mean?"
3	07:18	00:19:45	Unmasked cut, men crossing to Janet	Blackout on Kenneth's back
4	07:08	00:27:15	Black, pan off Kenneth's back	CU Phillip: "That's a lie."
5	09:57	00:34:34	Unmasked cut, CU Rupert	Blackout on Brandon's back
6	07:33	00:44:21	Black, pan off Brandon's back	Three shot
7	07:46	00:51:56	Unmasked cut, Mrs. Wilson: "Excuse me, sir."	Blackout on Brandon
8	10:06	00:59:44	Black, pan off Brandon	CU Brandon's hand in gun pocket
9	04:37	01:09:51	Unmasked cut, CU Rupert	Blackout on lid of chest
10	05:38	01:14:35	Black, pan up from lid of chest	End of film

The Birds

The Birds, is Alfred Hitchcock's critically acclaimed film that shocked audiences in 1963. The film was Hitchcock's first directed film after his classic 'Psycho', so it is safe to say it was highly anticipated. The film stars Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy and Suzanne Pleshette, It is set in Bodega Bay, California a town that is mysteriously targeted by birds which leads to which leads to violent attacks by them, The film begins with the introduction of Tippi Hedren's character Melanie Daniels, a mischievous young socialite who's flamboyant, animated personality is reflected through her demeanor. She meets lawyer Mitch Brenner, in a San Francisco bird shop who wants to buy lovebirds for his sister's eleventh birthday, and he remembers her from a previous encounter. As she does not recognize him, he decides to play a practical joke on her by pretending to mistake her for a salesperson. She is angry when he leaves and realizes that he was playing a prank. Feeling both resentful and intrigued, she plans to buy the lovebirds and surprise him. After she finds his address in Bodega Bay she gets the birds and leaves it at his house. On her way back via speed boat, Mitch sees her and she is briefly attacked by a bird. He helps and invites her to dinner and this prompts the start of the many attacks Bodega Bay receives from the birds. 

Mise En Scene

Mise en scene is the technical term commonly used among filmmakers to describe the design aspects of a film production. Although the term 'Mise en scene' means placing on stage, it fundamentally means 'telling a story' or 'visual theme'. In other words, the 'Mise en scene' of a film production means how a story is told via the visually artful ways of story boarding, stage design, facial expressions, cinematography and narrative.

Colour (Denotation & Connotation)

Denotation

       - The literal definition or meaning of a term, devoid of emotion, attitude or colour

Connotation

       - The definition or meaning of something according to a person

For example, if you think of the word 'Anger' you will automatically think of a dark red/orange shade of color. as it represents the fire and passion you feel when you have that emotion.

The Five Main Aspects of Mise en Scene

• Settings & Props

• Costume, Hair & Make Up

• Facial Expressions & Body Language

• Lighting & Colour

• Positioning of characters/objects within the frame.     

Psycho

Psycho is Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 world renowned horror masterpiece. Now it may seem like a low budget played out story, but at the time it was almost reminiscent to The Conjuring. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Janet Leigh. The film contains many conventions of a thriller such as low key lighting, quick cuts, tension music and the whole film is shot in black and white. 

Janet Leigh's character is an interesting one as we see different sides to her. In the film we sees different buildings in Arizona in broad daylight. We then see one building where someone shuts the curtains. This will immediately intrigue the audience as they would wonder why a curtain would be shut in broad daylight. This is when we are introduced to main character, Marion Crane, a real estate secretary, (pictured) and her boyfriend; Sam Loomis. They are worried as they want to get married but due to Sam's debts, cannot. After lunch that day, a client drops off $40,000 (the equivalent of approximately over $830,000 now) and her boss asks her to deposit the money to the bank. She then asks the take the afternoon off. This immediately strikes the audience simply due to her facial expressions when the quantity of the money was revealed. In an act of desperation we see a shy, humble girl turn into a sly thief as she takes the money and instead of going to the bank, plan to run away with it in order to begin a new life with Sam. On her way we see that she is visibly guilt ridden and self conscious about the fact she stole the money especially when a police officer questions her and follows her. This cumulates into her trading her car for a new one in order to escape him. Taking a wrong turn (no pun intended) she ends up at the Bates Motel. This is where she gets killed.

North by Northwest

North By Northwest is one of Alfred Hitchcock's '7 defining films'. It displays all the main traits of a normal thriller, including a protagonist and antagonist, tense music, scenes containing cliffhangers and more. It was very anticipated as it was Hitchcock's first film after his controversial masterpiece 'Vertigo'. Hitchcock decided he wanted a change of pace after the dark themes of motives was the source of hoards of criticism towards him. This resulted in what he called 'fun, light-hearted, and generally free of the symbolism permeating his other movies'. Although this was the case, ironically, the film was notable for it's themes of deception, mistaken identity and moral relativism. 

Protagonist vs. Antagonist

The film stars Cary Grant as advertising executive, Roger O' Thornhill who is mistaken for George Kaplan, a decoy caused by the US Federal Agency. Roger is the stereotypical protagonist. He is heroic, respected, and most significantly astute. He is looking to clear his name as the mistaken 'George Kaplan' and ultimately restore justice.



James Mason is also prevalent in the film as main antagonist
Russian spy, 'Phillip Vandamm'. Due to very little character development, we do not know much about Phillip's personality; all we know are his motives although we do not know why. He is very sinister, unsympathetic towards anyone and overall will not stop at anything to get what he wants.

Cliffhanger

The film makes use of cliffhangers as way to thrill audiences and keep them interesting and anxious to find out what happens next. This is explicitly shown in the scene below.

In this scene, Roger is apparently shot by Eva which causes viewers to be completely thrilled in amazement as they never expected it. After this we are shown Roger being loaded into a ambulance and where he is then taken to a forest. He then gets out injured and it is revealed that the bullets were blanks.

Preliminary Task: CHERYL

 

Director: Elijah Smalling

Writer: Elijah Smalling & Gottfried Nortey

Editor: Gottfried Nortey

Cast:

Gottfried Nortey as Gottfried
Tino Chimunye as Tino
Leon Macauley as Mr. StealYourGirl

Cheryl is a short film developed by myself and fellow students; Elijah, Leon and Tino. The film follows stars myself as a hungry, un-respected student who is shocked to one of his friends is wooing his sister, Cheryl.

Various techniques were incorporated into the making of this film, but the main ones I will assess are:
-Match on Action
-Eye line Match

Match on Action

In the first scene, we see a very malnourished Gottfried rubbing his belly and staring at his  watch.

The Shooting: For this technique we filmed two different shots
- The shot of the watch
- The shot of the biscuit

The Edit: I then used Adobe Premier to put the two shots back to back. I finally put a crossfade on to create the dissolve effect.

Eye Line Match

In the second scene, we see Mr. StealYourGirl laughing at his phone while Gottfried suspiciously looks over.

The Shooting: For this technique we also filmed two different shots

- The shot of Mr. StealYourGirl
- The shot of the phone

The Edit: I used Adobe Premier to put the two shots back to back.

Intro to Modern Thrillers

Welcome back Examiner!
In this post I will be analysing the opening scenes for four different films in order to explain the vital (and non vital) elements of a modern thriller. Thriller genre films are films that use suspense, tension and excitement as it's main sources of attraction. Modern thrillers are thrillers that extensively borrow elements pionnered by hollywood veterans Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang. Modern thrillers also tend to contain heavy action to propel the excitement.
The four movies I will be assessing are;
- A History of Violence
-Zodiac
-Brick
-No Country for Old Men

A History of Violence
'A History of Violence' is a crime film directed by David Cronenberg starring Viggo Mortensen as Tom Stall, seemingly regular restaurant owner whose life is turned upside-down when his criminal past is brought to light.

A history of violence
Slow paced, tension filled first scene
2 Characters - One wearing white with lacks writing other wearing all black = Suggests binary opposites
Dark Mis En Scene

Zodiac
Slow paced
Panned camera shows setting
Sets the tone for the beginning (The State of Equilibrium)

Brick

No Country for Old Men
Starts off dark ends light

Unknown

Unknown is a thriller released in 2011 starring Liam Neesom as a man who has and accident which results in him losing his memory although he still remembers his identity and close associates such as his wife. Although this is so, nobody believes him even his wife. However mysterious things happen to him such as being targeted for an assassination. He then sets out to find out just what happened to him and who he is with the help of Gina; the woman who caused his accident.

The Film is directed by spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra and is written by Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell.

From the trailer alone we see scenes of quick cuts, tense music and a high sense of mystery, all of which are main conventions of a thriller.
One of the films most notable scenes is the car chase scene embedded below.

In this scene we see characters 'Martin and Gina' trying to escape a enemy that is seemingly trying to kill them. It is clear this scene is action packed as it has over 120 cuts within those two minutes. The non diegetic chords played by the orchestra suggests trouble is a clear presence in this scene. Also the mise en scene further makes the scene more exciting, thrilling and dangerous.

Shooting Schedule

This is our shooting schedule. We planned it according to the days that we were all free.

Costume and Props Images

Character Name: Nortz
Costume: Stereotypical rapper Baggy jeans A cap Large T-shirt Red Jacket.	Props: Chain Mic
Character Name: Eeze
Costume: Assassination attempt    Black bally All black track suit Mask	Props: Guns
Character Name: Tino
Costume:  Party clothing Jeans Shirt	Props: gun

Risk Assement

Location Visit Sheet

Treatment

Treatment

Group Roles Cinematography: Elijah Smalling Mise-en-scene: Leon Macauley Sound: Tino Chimunye Editing: Gottfried Nortey

Title: [WORKING TITLE: Gott Fried Died Tryin’] Tag Line:

Synopsis:  Gottfried is a relatively infamous rapper with plenty of enemies. Whilst at a party he is shot by his arch nemesis, Tino. Fast forward, Elijah goes out to avenge Gottfried’s death and sees Tino, who just got out of prison.

Key Genre Conventions: Suspense Fast Paced Action Quick Cuts Tension Music Black and White Shots

Shot List

Shot List
Scene	Shot Number	Description
House scene Outside Scene Elijah’s Bedroom Scene Street Scene	Wide shot Panning Mid shot Back to Back Mid Shot Over The Shoulder Master Shot Long Shot Extreme Close Up Close Up Sudden quick fade to black POV Shot Over The Shoulder Medium shot Close Up	Everyone in the party, having fun/enjoying it Elijah whispering in Gottfried’s ear ‘lemme chat to you’ Elijah and Gottfried walking out Elijah and Gottfried talking about how Gottfried needs to be careful. Gottfried reassures Elijah he’s cool The two say goodbye for the last time Gottfried on stage, performing Tino pulls out gun Gottfried’s face (shocked/anxiety) Tino’s face as he pulls trigger multiple times Diegetic sounds of gun shots heard during black scene sequence (Black screen represents time skip) Gottfried Dying Elijah looking at the calendar Tino walking out of prison Elijah putting on gloves