Preliminary Task

The preliminary task is a demonstration of continuity editing. It must show successful use of:

Match on action- where you see a character doing something in one shot and continues it in another.

Shot/reverse shot- where the camera films over person A’s shoulder while person B is talking. It then cuts to show person B talking while being filmed over Person A’s shoulder

180 degree rule-this rule is a basic guideline that states that two characters in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called “crossing the line”.

Eye line match- this is where a close up of a person’s face and then cuts to someone or something else. This makes it look like the person is looking at this object.

Character A walks towards the door.

Character A enters through the door and crosses the room to where B is seated.

Character A+B exchange few lines of dialogue.

There is at least one eye line match

Either character A or B exits the room.

Psycho

Psycho is a 1960’s thriller by Alfred Hitchcock which sees a mad man murdering several people. The film starts with a women stealing $40,000 and running away. She stops at the Bates hotel where she gets murdered in the shower. An investigator and the women’s sister follow her tracks to the hotel where the story develops in to more brutal murders. 

Run for 109 minutes

The budget of this film was an estimated $806,947 and grossed $50,000,000 up until 2007.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:  Joseph Stefano (screenplay) and Robert Bloch (novel)

Starring: Anthony Perkins, Jane Leigh and Vera miles

The Macguffin of this film is that a young woman steals $40000 and runs away.

As a usual thriller psycho has many fast paced action scenes such as the staircase, the shower and the seller scenes. In all of these fast paced scenes the music by Bernard Herrmann builds the suspense and tension. The strident, discordance music does this as the music is sharp and sets slight fear and into the viewer as they know that something is going to happen but are not sure when. For example when the investigator is climbing the stairs the music is playing as soon as he heads up the stairs however nothing happens until he gets to the top.

The screenplay deceives the viewers into thinking that Marion was main character, however her death due to the murder is ruled out and we are still wondering who the main character is. The strident, discordant music of Bernard Herrmann increases the suspense in the film.

Psycho is a villain driven plot because after Marion is murdered the investigator goes to the Bates hotel who then is murdered. Lastly the sister and partner of Marion goes to the Bates hotel and the last fast paced scene takes place in the cellar.

In the original film there were no advanced screenings and all viewers were told not to tell people anything about what happened in the film, this was said at the end of the film. 

Psycho was remade in 1998. It was directed by Gus Van Sant and stared Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche and Julianne Moore. This ramke ran for 105 minutes.

Paranormal Activity

The 2007 thriller Paranormal activity runs for 86 minutes and was released in 2009 in the UK.

This film is about a women who has been haunted by a demon since she was little and now she has moved in to a house with her partner. They are then increasing disturbed by a demonic presence.

Written and directed by: Oren Peli

Starring: Katie Featherstone (Katie) and Micah Sloat (Micah)

 Produced by: Jason Blum and Steven Schneider

The budget of this film was an estimated $15000. On the opening week it grossed $77873 from only 12 screens in USA. To the 21st January 2010 they grossed $193,355,800 worldwide.

The story shows a sceptic who after a while starts to believe in the demons who are disturbing him and his partner. The film shows takes in the night and day. It is filmed at night to show all the action and to build the suspense but it also filmed in the day to break up the suspense. The whole film is recorded using a regular film camera that any one of the public would use for their home videos. This and the general day to day activities of the characters with friends coming over makes the film seem realistic and believable as it also makes the viewers realise that we can do it our self.

The story becomes even more believable when experts and internet pages are used to describe what happened to other people in similar circumstances to Micah and Katie.

Tension and suspense are built up by the use of simple sounds that in the circumstances of the film become increasingly scary. The selective use of sound volume also makes the sounds and the visuals seem scary and jumpy.  There is no use of non-diegetic sounds in the whole film.

Effective use of light and dark puts attention on some objects or people to focus attention and to also avoid attention in some cases. An example of this is when the bed is lighted but all the surroundings are in dark. This draws the attention of the viewer to the bed but when shadows and movements are produced in the dark areas our attention is then drawn to that.

All this then builds to an inevitable climax.

North by Northwest

North by northwest is a 1959 thriller which shows a hapless New York advertisement executive who is mistaken by for a government agent who is pursued across the country while he looks to find ways of surviving.

North by northwest was written buy Ernest Lehman Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and stars Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason.

The many fast paced action scenes show us that this film is a good example of a thriller. The plain scene creates tension as we are waiting to see who is going to meet Thornhill. As all the cars go by more and more tension builds. Thornhill starts to talk to one of the people waiting for the bus who suggest that a plane is crop dusting where no crops are growing. The plane then flies towards Thornhill following him through the crops and finally crashes into an oil tanker. Thornhill then steals a near by vehicle to escape from the scene. Tension is built in this scene as we are unsure of what is going to happen to Thornhill.

Thornhill is a resourceful hero as he uses sensible ways of out running the police and the villains. In the train scene he hides in the toilets when ticket inspectors and police are looking for him and steals a guard’s clothes to escape the train without being identified. Suspense is built up in this scene as we are unsure how he is going to escape the police on an enclosed train where it seems impossible to hide, but Thornhill along with Miss Kendall find places where he can hide. The fast pace scene where they quickly leave the restaurant helps to build up this suspense. 

The red herring that is used in this film is that at first we think that Miss Kendall is just a women helping Thornhill escape the police, however we then think that Miss Kendall is one of the villains and is helping them to get Thornhill. We later find out that she is working for the government and is spying on the villains

A macguffin is a plot element that catches the viewers attention at the beginning of the film and drives to plot on. Major players in the story are willing to sacrifice anything to get to it despite the macguffin. The macguffin in this film is the tapes.   

About Me

Hello welcome to my thriller blog. My name is Luke Phillips and I am studying Media Studies along with ICT Business studies and Health and social Care. This blog is part of my AS Media studies course work and i will be making regular posts about the thriller genre.