Thursday 27 January 2011

Production Logo Research





20th Century Fox Logo

20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox is a well known production company. Their logo is predominantly Gold coloured with a dark blue background. Because of the dark background, the text ("20th Century Fox") stands out.
The main franchises that are owned by 20th Century Fox are as follows;
  • Star Wars
  • Die Hard
  • Home Alone
  • Ice Age
  • X-Men
  • The Simpsons
  • Family Guy
  • 24

The franchises owned by 20th Century Fox are mainly television based as apposed to being film based. This production company doesn't release many thriller genre movies meaning there is nothing that they have released that can be compared to the genre we are studying.


DreamWorks Logo
















DreamWorks

The DreamWorks production logo is made up of dark colours (black and dark blue/purple) with white text over the top. Like 20th Century Fox, the text stands out on the logo and makes it more eye-catching.

DreamWorks have released a number of films over a variety of genres. A main thriller film that has been released by DreamWorks is The Lovely Bones. The Lovely Bones is adapted from a novel and has sub-genres of horror and action. This film is a good comparison to our opening sequence as it has a similar storyline. The Lovely Bones also has the same two sub-genres as our opening sequence, as we aim to use some elements of horror and some of action.


New Line Cinema Logo













New Line Cinema

The New Line Cinema production logo is similar to DreamWorks in the way that both have a dark background with white text. Due to the white text, it stands out and is more eye-catching than if it had a darker text that would match the background.

Before being bought out by Warner Bros, New Line Cinema released a number of films over a number of genres. Some of the films released by New Line Cinema fall into the thriller genre. An example of this that could be compared to our opening would be Shoot 'Em Up. Shoot 'Em Up is a thriller film with a sub-genre of action, which is what we are aiming to have in our thriller opening sequence.

Wednesday 26 January 2011

Presentation Feedback

We were given feedback on our presentation and were told things that were good about our evaluations and what we needed to improve.

Areas to improve where as follows;
  • The storyline needs to clearer. Some people felt as though we weren't certain on what we had chosen to use in our final piece and what bits we were still deliberating on.
  • Another issue raised was the health and safety issues within using the weapons in our project. There was a concern about whether or not the weapon was deactivated or not.
  • Another health and safety issue raised was that of us being in a secluded area at night, so concern was raised about the state of our well-being, which has been resolved by obtaining a chaperon to come along with us to make sure nothing goes wrong, and if it does, it will be resolved quickly. This will be stated in our risk assessment which will be completed at a later date.
  • An area we were questioned on was that of our camera shots, as people were not sure if we were going to film holding the camera or with a tripod but this had already been decided as using both handheld and tripod shots, depending on whether or not it was a chase scene or not and what would be easier and what shot we wanted. This had been decided but was not stated on the blog, causing confusing. 
  • Finally, we were asked about our story line, and what was our final idea. However, we were able to answer this quickly because we were able to clear up this matter as we knew what our story was going to be, we just hadn't stated it as clearly as we had intended to.
With areas to improve being spoken about, we were given areas in which we presented well, these are as follows;
  • We were told that we described each point was done well and that the detail was all very clear. We were told that the level of detail was good, because in a majority of points we didn't leave key areas out, and went into detail about big and small details as to not cause confusion. 
  • We were also told that our explanations for the issues with our presentation cleared up any queries e.g. about our health and safety, where it was just a case of not having it added to the blog at the point of the presentation.

Opening soundtrack -



This was our initial idea for our opening soundtrack after about 2 minutes in, which is the same song we used for our preliminary task as we tested it to see if it fitted the genre of 'thriller'. We chose this as the piano at the start of the song creates a suspense and with the lyrics going along with what's happening in the sequence. We felt it fitted in with the genre because it creates suspense and an atmosphere which fits in with the scene. As the song progresses, the song speeds up and becomes fast-paced and suspenseful which fits in well with the scene as the chase scene starts. This builds the story and the characters as it reflects what's going on in the story. The song will be played throughout and will be faded out at the end as the opening comes to a close and as the main story starts. As we are only filming the opening to the thriller we felt this song would fit well with the scene to introduce the characters, and to establish the main character witnessing the crime and getting away, which will then flow into the following story of him evading the two murderers that he witnessed committing the crime.

Production Logo

ass productions

Ass productions is our chosen 'production company' the ass coming from the american term for a type of donkey, our inspiration for this original and fairly humurous idea came from the famous 'dick house productions' as of featured in the famous and much loved 'Jackass Franchise' We feel it is an unique design and slightly witty at that, we are also proud of the logo featuring a donkey ' the ass'  with glowing eyes and a darkened background which will also fit with our thriller narative. The writing is also easy to read a flows constructivly around the donkeys back.Futhermore feedback was possitive from the target audience of our thriller.

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Planning For Our Presentation

 Narative:

After an initial brainstorm of potential ideas (listed below);

  • Balaclavas, as masks, for 'baddies' / Antagonist 
  • Narative, boy and girl, girl gets murdered boy spends movie running away.
  • Specific narrative of opening sequence, guy and girl walking through forest 'antagonist(s)' jump out and kill girl through a beating of baseball bats then guy escapes after chase accompanied with tense music and reaches home before fading to black for the rest of the movie.
  • Location -  A forest with nearby 'house'


We then want onto establishing asuitable location and finalizing certain aspects of our initial narative brainstorm the result is as listed below.

  • Masks are now infact typical white theatre masks as we feel this will not only be more visable to the camera as we aim to film at night but also  to keep up the thriller and suspence aspects. and also we feel to often in media the balaclava is featured and sterteotypical of robbers, where as ,asks are something fairly un known inturn creating a sence of mystery to the charechters inturn the audience.
  • The location for filming has now been clarified to be at a member of our groups home/ village which we believe to be sufficent.
  • Also the overall narrative has somewhat been adapted with a man (protagonist) this time in fact returning home through the forest and witnessing a murder and the antagonists hunting him down so there was not a witness. Within the opening sequene after realising what he has witnessed he after a short chase returns home where other conventions of the thriller genre will be portrayed.
  • Also other aspects have been changed as to heighten the sense of danger, as of opposed to the antagonists weapons being baseball bats we are now using deactivated shotguns as well as the weapon featured in the  grim reaper.  

Charechters:


The Victim- Only featured for a brief moment this role will possibly be played by laura t and her role consists of being murdered.

Killers / Antagonists-   these two roles of the same nature are to be played by the other laura as well as Steve-o  this role will consist of killing the other laura/victim seeing the protragonist has witnessed there escapades and then persuing him for the rest of the movie. These charechters will be eerie and clearly superioer to the protragonist.

The witness/ Protragonist - This role will be played by James and will consist of  not only being beautiful and charasmatic but also escaping from the killers after winessing the murder but also to portay emotion to the audience.

The Sub Genre: 

The sub genre of our Thriller is to be Action this will be portrayed throuh the high intensity chase scene(s) one of shown in the opening sequence but also through the fight scenes.  As well as many other of the micro elements prtrayable within the Action subgenre.

Costume ideas: 


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Friday 21 January 2011

BBFC Classification

Picture 312A


  • Only used in cinemas, not on DVD's. 
  • These films contain films not suitable for under 12's but under 12's can go see it if accompanied by an over 18.
  • 12A's include mature themes, discrimination, soft drugs, commonly used mild swear words, moderate violence and sex references.

Picture 5



12
  • DVD's of 12A's are just 12's meaning that no one under the age of 12 can purchase them.




Picture 6





15
  • Films in the 15 category contain more adult themes such as; hard drugs, commonly used swear words, moderate/strong violence, sex references and mild sex scenes.
  • No one under the age of 15 can purchase or rent a 15 rated movie or game.




Picture 7

18
  • 18's don't have a limitation on the bad language used, hard drugs are allowed freely and strong violence and sex scenes are commonly used along with non-detailed sex activity. 
  • Adults only.

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Thriller garage band



The music we have constructed was done because we thought it fit in appropriately with the genre of Thriller as the music was quite suspense and upbeat.

Analysis of Thriller opening sounds

Catch Me If You Can

In the first few seconds within the opening scenes of Cacth Me If You Can it starts with a jazzy theme song for the first two minutes followed by non-diegetic sounds of "Shh" and fingers clicking in time with the music.


Vertigo

Straight away the scene start of with fast jumpy music like in a chase scene. Hearing footsteps running and you see people running, then having non-diagetic sounds such as people shouting, screaming and booming going along with the scene.

Face Off

The music in the opening of Face Off is dark followed by sound effects such as the gunshot, which is deigetic. The music is also coming from the merrygoround which can come across as nostaligic. The music fits with the storyline and we feel some what emotion for the protagonist.

Tuesday 18 January 2011

Difference between thriller and horror -



Rec is a horror for a number of reasons: The film contains a huge amount of blood and protrays more gore then suspense. This is consequently different as shown in Phone Booth which is dragged out and we feel some sort of emotion towards the protagonist as there is generally only one compared to a horror where there are generally many characters and these usually die unexpectedly. The music used is normally a lot deeper and it may just be diagetic sound compared with a thriller where there is no foreshadowing through the music.

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Friday 7 January 2011

Preliminary task and evaluation




For our preliminary task, we were instructed to script, film and edit a 30 second thriller snippet, just as we were for our children's film project. However, we felt we struggled as we made it too long and we had problems with the camera adjusting to sudden brightness change. Other then this we each contributed to filming and being in the task.
One of the micro elements we used to create the film was music to emphaises the sense of danger and suspense.

Thriller Final - Initial Ideas

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Preliminary Task - Shot

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Preliminary Task - Story Board

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