Research - Interveiws

research on im a celebrity

This clip is an example of the shocking task they make people do in reality tv shows. The fact that they are making this 80 year old man eat insects on TV is somehow seen as entertainment, but when looked into it seems so wrong that these people are trapped in a jungle and are forced to do such tasks is against a lot of ethics. We use this as a starting point to look at TV shows in the future where they go so far they actually have to kill eachother to win.

The research on x factor.

We used this clip to help is with our title sequence, as we wanted our audience to have that type of excited feeling when they were about to watch the show. We used this clip of x factor to give us an idea of how reality tv shows are introduced so that we can reflect it in our thriller. We liked the freeze-frame of each person as we thought it would help introduce each of our characters quickly and dramatically. The voice over in this clip also gave us an idea of what we wanted our voice over to sound like in which would trigger intrest from the audience.

Story Boarding

First production meeting

In the first group meeting about our thriller we started to pull all our ideas together to make the idea more structured and easier to develop.  We did this by starting to make our story boards to show what each scene of our thriller will contain. We changed ideas from the original idea that is shown in the presentation on this blog.
Firstly we added another character - a presenter who will interview the contestants. We also changed the title of our Thriller as we didnt think it matched the idea of a reality TV show, it was changed to Friendly Fire which links with the idea of people who are friends normally, shooting eachother.
During this meeting we also started to make our script for the voiceover at the start of the film which was based around the introductuions you have to reality TV shows like Big Brother, making it seem dramatic and glamorous when the reality is that this show is morally wrong.
We changed the order of the scene from the origial idea to make the Thriller flow more and to have a more shocking ending so that it can conform with the thriller genre.

THRILLER IDEA SECOND PRODUCTION

In this production meeting we presented our thriller idea and the feedback we got was that the reason why people are in the programme should be changed, and that it should be less about teachers just killing students for fun and more about the audience wanting these people to be killed as they are like the outcast in the society. Also they said suggested there was too much happining in the sequence and that it doesnt have to be the begging of the film and can just be something leading to main plot of the film. so with this feed back we decided to change the characters and the place of the plot, for example, the girl geeky girl was then made a hacker and there where other outcasted characters such as a druggie, asbo and a pedophile. We change the place from it being the school grounds because the idea wasnt really humanly right, instead we decided it would be set in a town and it wouldnt be that it was a competition, rather it would be that they were outcasts, fed up with society and a result to that they started kiling people. There would also be a montage of the winner of the previous season which would be a homeless single mother , this would then cause the audience to feel sympathy towards the outcasts and actually want them to kill.

Convetions of a Thriller

A convention thriller is not a cliche because unliike a cliche a ocnventioni as a compnent something the audience understands and so will react well too, while a cliche is liike doing a convention in a tiered and well used manner. Conventions are good ways in connecting with the audience

In thriller, conventions include:

Protagonist is at mercy of the antagonist
A False ending- when its almost like the case is solved, but its really not. Speech in praise of the antogonist - often done by the protagonist and is used to build up the villain, even if the speech ultimately damns the villain.
cheap surprise -  an easy shock generated by an sudden unexpected action/movement/sound
Make it personal - where the crime/plans draws in aspect of the protagonist emotions or life just to change the plot from a professional action to a personal quest. This can be taken even further by taking it from personal quest to make the protagonist also become the victim.
Theatre of the mind - when you intensionally dont show everything to the audience and force them to imagine some things with their own minds

Action Thrillers

In this genre the hero known as the protagonist is up against a villain. In this genre  , the focus most often takes the form on a rational force (i.e not supernatural). The value at stake that is being struggled for is that of survival (rather than justice, those it can be a seconday value in the plot)

TYPES OF THRILLERS

The genre of thriiller includes, among other sub-types

Legal thrillers, in which the lawyer-heroes confront enemies outside, as well as inside, the courtroom and are in danger of losing not only their cases but their lives.

Forensic thrilllers, in whcih the heroes are forensic experts whose involvement with an unsolved crime puts their lives at risk

Psychological thrillers, in which ( untill the often violent resolution) conflict between the main chartcters

Sunshine, this is the presnter, we chose her because she's hippy and jumpy and loud, which are the qualities of the type of presnter we need for this show,

Mina, the smoker we chose her cause she looks like a typical teenager and thats the dominant ideology of the age range that smokes.

This is Racheal yeo an example of someone that'll get killed.

This is Stephen Paxton, we chose him as the ex politician because he looks very business like, usually looks stressed/frustrated and he is a business teacher anyway, so he looks very stereotypical

This is ollie we chose her because she is a good actress and she looks very much like a disturbed school girl.

This is freddie dixon we chose him because he looks like a homeless teenage guy and the girls appaul to him.

Shot Type in "Friendly Fire"

First five shot will be a montage of all the contestants. These will all be medium/medium close ups. The next shot will be a long shot of the presenter on stage. After this there will be medium shots and wide shots of the presenter interviewing the contestants in various locations, including a police station and on the street. Then there will be a montage of the winner from last series coming back as a special guest. The montage will include medium shots, wide shot and panning shots of her running around and killing people. This will be followed by the Friendly fire logo.

PROP LIST

Prop List1

FIRST GROUP MEETING

This was the first meeting we had as a group so we came together and each preseented our idea to eachother mainly by powerpoint presentations. We talked through each of our presentations and talked about what we could alter in it to make it better. We then discussed ways in which we could maybe link a few together and which one would be better in terms of the genre of Thriller. Finally, we decided on the idea of having a reality TV show that goes to far in terms of morality.The contetsents in this show have to find ways to kill eachother and the last person left is the winner. We all felt this was orginal and started discussing ideas for scenes within our Thriller so that we could make a finalised presentation and plan of our Thriller. This was then presented to the class who gave us feedback on what was good and what needed to be improved. Using this feedback we improved our idea further. Some of the feedback we recieved was that the basic idea was good but we need to develop on the idea of making this seem like a normal reality TV because teachers just killing students for fun was just morally wrong and we could think of a better reason in other to create sympathy of some sort

WHAT IS A THRILLER?

A THRILLER is a novel, movie with an exciting plot, typically involving crime or espionage. it uses suspence tension, and excitment as the main factors. It is mainly about the battle of justice and injustice. Also usually after the conclusion of the story there's a price to pay. Each possible protagonist in such a drama can have both major and minor character roles and an opposite e.g. detective (minor - Jack Vincennes, Kevin Spacy's character in L.A. Confidential or major - Sherlock Holmes) and its opposite.

There are different types of thrillers there are, conspiracy thrillers, psychological, spy, horrow and hybrid  thrillers, a typical thriller should include be able 'thrill' people in any kind of way, which can be action, horrow etc. it should have suspence elements and it should be able to keep the audience guessing, the audience shouldnt be able to know exactly whats happening. A huge amount of thriller films combine the elements of horror, action and psychological aspects to make the movie more thrilling.

A quick powerpoint explaining what thrillers are;

Thriller

More presentations from Post

THREE EXAMPLES OF THRILLERS

Final destination 5; with this poster you can clearly see that the movie is a Horror thriller as you see an abnormal face that looks like a skull as it has absolutley no eyes and really horrible looking teeth. Glass is being smashed amd that means 7 years of bad luck, dark colours are being which gives a negative effect which leads us to already knowing that its a horror thriller.

Inception; This is an Action Thriller  you can already tell by the fact that its mostly  men you can see in the poster, the time of the day and the way the atmosphere is gives a very dangerous vibe. The building being distroyed and the whole cloud of smoke shows that the film invloves explosions and explosives, which is quite fast pace and action like.

 This is also a horror thriller as we can see the boys eyes not looking very pleasant or normal, the house behind him looks lonely, deserted and scary. The clouds are dark and the house itself its isolated, with this poster alone you can tell its quite scary and thrilling and its very stereotypical for the little kid to be dangerous because it makes it more thrilling for the audience that this young innocent child could be either posessed or disturbed.

IMDB TASK; SE7EN

USER RATINGS

Males: 293,760 
Females: 50,765 
Aged under18: 4,724
Males under18: 3,787
Females under18: 889
Aged18-29: 205,818
Males Aged18-29: 173,548
Females Aged18-29: 31,067
Aged30-44: 116,447
Males Aged30-44: 99,811 
Females Aged 30-44: 15,426
Aged 45+: 17,770 8.0
Males Aged 45+: 14,614
Females Aged 45+: 2,920
IMDb staff :60 8.3
Top 1000 voters; 889
US users: 94,513 
Non-US users: 230,885

IMDb users: 407,641

You can see the primarily target audience for se7en is between 18-30 because its a thriller and it wouldnt appeal to a younger audience due to the difference in intrest. Also you would notice that it also appeals to the main audience more because males are generally mroe intereste in thrillers than females.

Analysis of the title sequence of SE7EN

Se7en is a thriller about two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi

Account of editing preliminary task

firstly i set up Log bin by Whenever you create a new project in Final Cut Pro, the program automatically creates a new logging bin in the project file that is created. In this way, Final Cut Pro helps ensure that your media remains managed and well-organized, you can easily create a new logging bin on the main log and capture window that is used to capture video footage from your camera or deck. The clip beggins with a mid-shot so you can see the set and enviroment of the clip and you can tell how what its about. the it cuts to and over the shoulder shot behind the person you see in the midshot, facing the door in which the other character comes in from, this was chosen so you can see the other character clearly and tell by his attitude what his about to do. He then says 'do it go on...' then it cuts to a close up of the wallet which he was trying to give to the first character, i chose this close up so you could see exactly what he is trying to give her and get the central idea of the discussion. Then there's a shot/reverse shot of them showing them having a conversatiuon, then there was a close up when she yells at him to show the intensity of the situation and the tension between them. Then a close-up of the wallet when he drops it on the desk. Then wide shot when he leaves then a mid-shot of her then a close of her facial expression showing her emotion.

INSTITUTION; THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

From the start of the film you can already tell that the film is not aimed at aa younger/children like audience because its generally quite scary. You can tell its aimed at an audience between ages 18-30 and also a male dominated audience beause its dark and that suggests its either action, horror or a thriller of some sort. A woman tied up and struggling suggests the film involves toture and hurting graphics. You can also you can tell it kind of involves technology because it involes keyboards and apple mac chargers. You see a whole lot of liquids such as blood water oil etc and see a man and woman kind of pulling out from eachother, this suggests maybe some sort of romance of some sort invloved or relationship e.g. siblings.  we The first credit goes to the Organisation Columbia pictures and metro-gooldwyn-mayer pictures then it goes to present 'a scott rudin yellow production , and it comes after the columbia pictures credit beacuase of its level of importance on the line of the movie, it also comes under columbia and metro-goldwyn- pictures. You wuld notcie that the title sequence isnt being focused on the titles themselves as they are in small fronts to the sides of the screen this allows audiences to focus on the whats going on with the film in the opening sequence rather than the names.

INSTITUTION: THE WAR OF THE ROSES

The opening 2 minutes of the war of the roses, The overall First of sow the company in which the movie is from which happens to be fox. it then shows that itsa film produced by gracie films, which comes under the main comapany fox. Then comes to show a main actor in the film who is A list and also helped produced so has a main part in the whole process of production.

The Power Point Pitch[1]

Prelim task

I filmed at the studio because I liked the environment. It worked quite well because it had a door in which we needed and a chair/desk (something to sit on) in which we needed as well for one of the actors, so this enabled our filming process easier for me.

I took on the role as the director; I told the actors what to do and where to sit. I also took on the role as the cinematographer which basically means I was the camera man too.

 I filmed in a very bright environment (artificial brightness) so it’s very clear, bright and visual for the audience watching the film. This was important to the scene because it was quite short and we wanted the audience to be able to see as much as possible to boost understanding and some of our camera shots were close-up shots. This was effective because in the close up shots their facial expressions are clearly shown so the audience can tell what they are thinking.

I set the camera up correctly, I checked that the bubble was in the circle and screwed it back up so it stays still and the camera footage is clearer when the bubble is in the circle. Zoomed in and made sure the focus was clear. I checked if the tripod was level at each shot I adjusted the height of the tripod to fit the type of shot I shooting at the time. I checked the shot was framed correctly each time, I made sure our reflections didn’t show I chose appropriate angles for the shot e.g. if it was an over-the-shoulder shot i would set the camera behind the actor and at the level of his shoulder.

 I made plans before I started shooting i.e. I started with the wide shots then did an did a mid shot then a close up and repeated the sequence with each actor. We did an over0the-shoulder shot and the camera had to remain at a certain angle in other to go with the 180 degrees rule or else it would appear as if the actors had switched places. So I used this rule so the audience doesn’t get confused because of how it would appear like the actors switched places.

 I also used terminologies such as; standing by to tell every one I’m about to start filming, camera rolling to tell everyone actors to start of the scene. So basically I have learnt to use the 180 degree rule to do as many the camera is recording so the environment has to be quiet and action for the shots of a particular scene as you can in other to get the right footage in editing. I learnt how to adjust the tripod stand into different heights, zoom in and out and adjust the focus.

StTORY BOARD - Pleminary task

HOW TO USE A CAMERA

We have learnt how to use a tripod and how to put a camera on it. In order to fix the camera, so it is in the right position, you need to do "bubbling". The tripod is definitely very important because we can shoot smoothly and without shaking. If you hold the camera, that is called "handheld" and it is used to evoke a feeling of chaos. The film Coverfield is shot all the way trough with handheld camera and the audience can imagine that is also there because of the shaking, it makes the action believable.





The following video is about how to use a video camera:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyIXutPCTzs


2. Using the camera.


Rule of Thirds applying to film language:
Do not film the object/person in the middle of the frame and do not shoot eyes e.g. close up shot, within the first line, it is supposed to be slight above or under the first line. It is good to keep a space before the face because otherwise it would look like the person is facing a wall.


3. Continuity editing.


180 degree rule:
This rule helps to maintain continuity by ensuring that the action within a sequence takes place in front of an imagining 180 degree line. If the line is crossed the change in perspective can be disorientating for the audience.







Eyeline match technique:
It means that a character looks at something and in the next shot we see what they are looking at.


Cross cutting:
This involves cutting back and fourth between different locations which helps to convey that two or more things are happening in the film in the same time. It also builds suspence.


The following video summarizes what continuity is about:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xauSCz1mEk




4. Mistakes in the first shoot.


In our first shoot, the preparation for the preliminary task we have broken the 180 degree rule once by shooting over the shoulder shot from the wrong side. In addition, sometimes there was empty space in the frame (broken rule of thirds).


5. Industry terminology.
STAND BY / STANDING BY - readys everyone into position for the take. The AD calls STAND BY and the response tells them that everyone is prepped
TURN OVER / TURNING OVER (Roll film/Rolling etc) The director tells the camera operator to start filming - a few seconds of film is then run as the camera gets up to speed - this is often referred to as LEAD IN. Once done the Camera operator will respond TURNING OVER or ROLLING (etc) to indicate being up to speed
ACTION! - Cue for the actors to perform the take, and the crew to do their jobs. It is good practice for the Director to let the film run on a further few seconds after the take is completed before cutting - this is referred to as LEAD OUT
CUT! - Cue for the camera to stop running film. Industry practice expects that the camera operator does not CUT before being told
5. From still to video camera.
I found filming with a video camera very different and far more exciting. I enoyed very much because it is such a nice feeling to use the camera, shoot and then to see the result. It also is very interesting to find out how cameras work and to finally figure out how our favourite movies has been shot.


About me

My name is Siene Nelson-Jaja and i'm Nigerian. I schooled in America for my first 5 years of living before i finallly moved to Nigeria, this is because my mum's side of the family is African- American. I schooled in British international school in Lagos from year7 to year 11 then i finally moved to England to continue my education. Right now i study Sociology, Media Studies, Theatre Studies and Business studies. I decided to study Media because i always wondered what goes on behind the cinema screen, How they make movies and edit it and how i see different camera shots in one seen. I have an interest in the overall Media and i watch alot of movies. My favorite genre of film would have to be romantic comedies. Romcom's are my best type of films because they always make me smile at the end but the films i actually spend my money going to the cinema to see are high concept, action thrillers because i the experience is so much better, and 3D films aswell.