Blog 4 : Psycho

The thriller psycho is a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the film is based around the women who steals 40,000 dollars. However this is in its self is not what drives the film, this only gives the film a starting ground it is referred to as the mcguffin . Half way through the film people will forget about the money or just not find it important any more, as there are much more pressing issues that will turn the audiences attention. But this is what Alfred wanted to achieve, he wanted the audience to become compelled at the mystery of the 'psycho' killer.

This film is under the name of a thriller, so therefore it should have aspects of the thriller genre, and it does. The film contains moments of fast pacing action, where there are quick cuts from scene to scene, with music and that compliments the scene making it parallel. A well recognised scene that this is seen in is the scene where the main character is killed in the shower. However, does this film contain, a hero and a villain? The idea of having a hero and villain is recognised in near enough all thriller films, however not this one. As there is no hero that saves the day. On the other hand there is a villain if you will, this is the psycho, who is the motel owner, but no hero defeats him, there is only the police who arrest the man. We cannot count the main character as a hero as she dies half way through the film, as well as this the police only do there job of arresting the man which isn't heroism. The only people that come close to the idea of a hero is the sister of the main character and the man the main character has an affair with, these two people start engaging with the film when the main character dies, this is so that these two replace the woman. With this it is these two that find the psycho, so maybe, these two can be considered the hero's.

When this thriller is mentioned the first thing that will pop into peoples heads would be the shower scene, this is because it had such a big impact on people in the cinemas in 1960. There are recorded incidents of people collapsing in the cinema because of how shocking this scene was. However it has been said the true brilliance of this thriller is found in the editing, for example. In the shower scene will only see the knife, the woman and blood, this all taking place in the shower. It was then left down to the audiences imagination, as there is no graphic footage of the knife impaling the woman. The camera work of this scene is truly good as the angles used hide the woman's body, this also was a shock to the audience. The angles used were mainly close ups, whether this be on the knife or woman, by doing this it was able to hide the woman's body but also the identity of the killer.

 

Media Theories

There are 5 media theories, these theories are:

1.Barthes – Enigma Codes

2.Levi Strauss – Binary Opposites

3.Traditional Hollywood Narrative Structure – 3 Acts (linear)

4.Todorov – narrative theory – 5 stages

5.Propp – Character Types.

Barthes believe in the Enigma code, this is that text portrays a mystery to draw an audience in to the filmOpen – not resolved at end Closed texts – resolved at end Polysemic texts – lots of different meanings.

Levi Strauss said narratives can be organised through binary opposition -  two things opposed – often dominant vs subordinate - e.g. male/female, hero/villain.

Traditional Hollywood Narrative Structure the typical Hollywood narrative = set up (25% time) /confrontation (50%) /climax (Final 25% of film time)

Todorov believed that all films followed the same narrative pattern through various stages.
 1. A state of equilibrium (All is as it should be.) 2. A disruption of that order by an event. 3. A recognition that the disorder has occurred. 4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption. 5. A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium

Propp believed that there are 8 key character roles Hero/Villain/Helper/Donor(Provider)/Father/Dispatcher/Princess/ False Hero - N.B. one character can perform more than one role – how many in your thriller?

Blog 1: Thriller convention

Thriller convention

A thriller is a type of film that is fast pacing, there is action throughout the film frequently,in a thriller there will more than likely be a hero and a villain. We will normally see the hero over come the villain, and save everyone. Thrillers use devices such as suspense, this is where by the film grabs the audiences attention, and makes the audience want to carry on watching as they will want to find out what will happen next to either the hero or villain in this case. Thrillers also use red-herrings, this is when the film tricks the audience into thinking some will happen when something else completely different happens. Another device is a cliffhanger, this means letting the audience question a film. These are usually found at the end of films, with usually another film to follow as the last has been left at a point where audience has their full undivided attention on the film, but the film just ends, and leaves the audience questioning what happened?

      A thriller is a flexible genre, the genre is flexible and can engage the audience through a dramatic rendering of psychological, social and political tensions. Hitchcock said thrillers allow the audience, "to put their toe in the cold water of fear to see what it's like”. Other characteristics of a thriller are that thrillers often take place in exotic settings such as foreign cities. The heroes in most thrillers are frequently "hard men" accustomed to danger e.g. policemen.  However, they may also be ordinary citizens drawn into danger by accident. Usually the hero is seen to be a man however there have been cases where we see a woman being the hero. Danger and violent confrontations are standard plot elements of a Thriller. The climax of a mystery is when the mystery is solved, a thriller climaxes when the hero finally defeats the villain, saving his own life and often the lives of others.

There are all kinds of Thrillers these are as follows: legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, medical thriller, police thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller, religious thriller, high-tech thriller, military thriller. The list goes on and on. Thrillers can be defined by the primary mood that they create: fearful excitement. In fact, this openness to expansion is one of the genre's most enduring characteristics.

Sound exercise

In this exercise the aim was to film a video with the use of boom microphone. By using this it was easier to record sound, instead of relying on the camera to pick up sound. By using the boom we were able to record conversations between us and other types of sound, such as dietetic and non-dietetic sound.

For our video if feel that if there was more time then we would have been able to make the video better this is because there was parts of the video where we added sound tracks in that didn't match the seen. Another thing that I feel could have gone better is the camera work, some camera movements weren't good as the tripod got jualted. I believe this to be down to accidently kicking the tripod or as we go to press the button to stop recording hitting the camera.

However things I feel that went good are the way in which we added sound tracks in, although I said I feel this went bad, I think that on a couple of scenes we seemed to pull it off. For example the Scene where my partner and I are running away from the killer we used two different sound tracks, this is so that one sound track is associated with the killer and the other is associated with my partner and I.

blog 3 'North by Northwest'

Crop duster scene in 'North by Northwest'

In the film 'North by Northwest' we come across a scene that can bring a viewer to the edge of their sit, this scene is the crop duster scene. This is where we see Roger Thornhill try to escape death from a crop duster. Throughout the scene we see a wide range of camera movements, different types of sound, a variety of mise on scene and a couple of editing techniques. All of these combined help make the scene compelling.

Upon first look at the crop duster scene, it may not look like that there isn't much editing throughout the scene, however when analysing the scene that the editing has been done so that a viewer can feel differently about the on going scenes. Such as, at the beginning of the crop duster scene the scenes are long, this is because of the fact that there is not much action going on in the scene we only see roger Thornhill waiting for the so called George kaplin. Further on though we see how the scene starts to change and the scenes start cutting faster, this is because of the action that is starting to happen. We see roger talk to a person who is waiting for a bus, although roger believes that this person is George kaplin. After this this man says how the crop duster isn't dusting the crops, as soon as this scene ends we see the crop duster come into action as it tries to kill roger Thornhill.

As well as this the mise on scene of the scene that Hitchcock used complimented the scene in the way that the scene is based in the desert, and the only objects used in the scene are only really cars, the way that have been used creates suspense, we see a number of cars pass by Roger Thornhill, as the view hangs in suspense to see if George kaplin gets out of any of the passing cars. At one point we do see a car stop with a man get out, roger Thornhill along with audience is lead on to believe that this man is George kaplin due to the fact that roger was took that George kaplin we meet him in the desert. In this sense we see that the cars have been used to keep the viewer on the edge of their sits. 

The camera work in the scene can establish a lot about Roger Thornhill, for example the way in which some of the POV shots show how Roger Thornhill is on his own, but more 

then this, that he is vulnerable. Hitchcock achieved this establishment by using a range of wide camera shot, this shots are used so that the audience can receive a lot of information from the shot however when we come to the wide angle shots in North By Northwest we only see a desert with a crop field and a road going through the middle of it. Another bit of camera work used is the tracking shot of Roger Thornhill running towards of the camera while running away from the crop duster, by this shot being used it helps establish the nearing threat of death that is closing in on Roger, but not only this. By Roger being so close to the camera it lets us become aware of his reaction towards to near threat of death. 

Another part of the scene I feel has been put together very well is the sound. We see that Hitchcock put dietetic sound in the first part of the scene and non-dietetic sound in the second part of the scene. We also see essences of parallel sound and contrapuntal sound.