naming our film

Well the deadline is approaching quickly and we have finally narrowed it down to a few possibilities for the name of our thriller. We have made them into a questionnaire and asked people “ if these where titles for a film which one would you want to watch ?”
Reminisce
Recapture
Recur
Educe
Elicit.
Evoke
So far Reminisce is the most popular…. Wait and see what we name our film tomorrow!

‘Momento’

How does Christopher Nolan use film language to establish narrative genre and audience engagement in the opening scenes of ‘Momento’

The swelling of the strings as the opening of the film progresses with the on chord harmony creates a creepy and eary mood and builds tension. The use of the violins are used to make you jump, your not expecting them and the screech is unpleasant warning you to brace yourself for what is to come. Along with the strings comes a level of sadness, we cant understand what is happening in the film and the music compliments our developing questions and curiosity. Towards the end of the beginning clip you hear a disturbing voice and the guy who is shot in the scene almost says something but you cant quite catch what he says, leaving more questions as to why this is happening.
The opening titles are black with blue writing which instantly creates a cold sharp atmosphere by using the blue writing, along with then appearing slowly indicates you will have to think during this film, and will unravel slowly to reveal its pieces of the puzzle. The beginning shot of the Polaroid is in reverse, however this confuses you and invites questions, I personally like this technique mainly as it is unexpected and puts the film in control with the audience anticipating the next twist. The change in pace and action reinforces the power over the audience, and the lingering shots gives the time for the viewer to question the film, inviting enigma codes. There is also a clever black and white contrast used, and we don’t know if the black and white or colour scenes are in present tense.
The tilted angles creates uncertainty, and I feel is very stylish. The action is panned used to show the importance. Several low angle shots indicate this character is in control of this situation giving him power and authority over the other person in the frame and the audience. Close-ups and extreme close-ups are used excessively on certain objects of importance, and is also used so cant make out what the object is and have a vague idea of what it may be, making the audience collect various pieces of the puzzle as the story is slowly unravelling.
This male aged around late twenties early thirties we are lead to believe, wearing smart summer suit fairly casual telling us he is successful in what he does and isn’t short for cash, however this suit has scratches on it and mud indicating what may have happened before they ended up in this damp, dark dingy deserted warehouse which is a conventional setting of thriller. I noticed a wedding ring suggesting this character is married, and tattoos on his hand which was a shock of my initial judgement of this character, signifying there is more to this character.
The slow central titles of this film is a convention of thriller accompanied by the fading into the screen as if something is being forgotten and drifting away. The backwards first minute is eary and like thriller films do make you think and create questions. The cuts to black and white are confusing and make you want to keep watching to make sense of it all. The fast cuts are to stop you from making sense of the scene to quickly. The main character also narrates, also a main convention, we get an instant insight into his mind, we are following him and feeling what he feels. The way he talks he is unsure like us of himself, he isn’t normal and it is hard to trust him, he is quite clearly lacking knowledge. In the first few scenes the idea of him not all being right in the head is complimented with the half light, we don’t know what he looks like properly under the low light.

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (1899-1980) also known as 'The Master of Suspense', was an iconic and highly influential director and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and thriller genres. After a substantial film career in his native Britain, he moved to Hollywood and became an American citizen in 1956. He had directed more than 50 feature films in a career spanning six decades, from the silent film era, through the invention of talkies, to the colour era.

Hitchcock was among the most consistently recognisable persons to the public, and one of the most successful film directors during his lifetime, and continues to remain one of the best known and most popular film makers of all time.

Some of his most famous films include; - Psycho (1960) - which we studied in class and included many of Hitchcock's trademark themes of ... Macguffins, stairs, & controlling mothers
- 'The Birds' (1963)
- ' To Catch a Thief' (1955)
- 'Rear Window' (1954)
- 'Rebecca' (1940)
All of these films Hitchcock directored and a lot of them he made very short cameos in.

As a writer Hitchcock wrote some of his earlier films such as...
- 'Dangerous Lies'(1921)
- ' Woman to Woman' (1924)

Hitchcock's famous motifs include...
-Ordinary person
-Wrong man
-Likeable criminal
-Stairways
-Trains
-Mothers
-Brandy
-Sexuality
-Voyeurism
-Crime
-Esspionage
-Blonde women
-Number 13
-Silent scenes
Nearly all of these motifs are used in the film 'Psycho'.

A long LONG day of filming!

hello! so we've come up with our narrative for our thriller, from watching various films such as 'The Butterfly Effect', 'Garden State' and 'Memento' we have taken inspiration and decided upon the basis of our film. We decided to use black and white scenes, such as we'd previously seen in 'Memento', the two clips we showed from 'Garden State' we've adapted into our film - we used the bathroom idea of having our main character look into the camera is if it were the mirror and then cut to a different shot showing her in the bathroom washing her face, (so that the audience can see where she is), we are also using the sped up scene and shooting this in town with hopefully a big group of people all moving around our character as she stays still.

We have managed to film most of our film (all except for the town scene) and this is our final narrative.... Our main character is going about her daily routine - she gets up, washes her face in the bathroom, and through the use of dissolve she is shown to have got ready (without shooting all of this) and then we show her leave for work. The routine is repeated every day for the next three days, with slight changes made each day,for example using different camera angles in each scene for each different day. Until day four in which everything changes and she has flash backs of past events which have left her scarred (emotionally) and are all brought back when she sees her plant pot smashed....

Also the flash-backs we are considering either making them black & white or perhaps with colour instead, as we thought colours could be used to symbolise for example red = anger, passion, blood? that might be appropriate as they are having an explosive argument!(just a thought!)

watch this space.. we'd like your opinions on short clips of our uploaded footage, once we've done it!!


Laura & Vicky

'The Butterfly Effect' ideas

Another film we have been analysing the film aspects of (such as camera, editing, mise-en-scene,& generic conventions) is 'The Butterfly Effect'. This a psychological thriller which we used for inspiration and we found the opening scenes very intriguing as they used title cards, jumps in tenses, and we also liked the scans of a persons head which we felt represented the psychological factor and we also would like to use something similar in our film as ours will also be a psychological thriller.

Laura and Vicky

Garden state inspiration for our thriller

This clip is from the film 'Garden State', which although is not a thriller it has an element we would like to use in our thriller film. We liked the scene where Zach Braff is sitting on his sofa and everything around him is sped up really fast, we like the effect this creates of time passing and the lack of significance to what's happening around him. We are definately going to use this on our thriller, with some changes of perhaps in the town square on a bernch and we havent decided if we will see her face or have the camera from behind her yet.

Laura

first ideas for interesting camera angles

hey guys we really like the idea of putting the camera in place of the mirror as Zach Braff does in this short montage from the film 'Garden State'

vicky