Past student work

In this lesson we looked at five different thriller opens from past students. The first opening we looked was one called "Hidden"

In this is opening we see what we would think is a couple, walking home at night, then the boy drops the girl off home, to then which he gets killed. The first thing i see as a problem is the lighting.

Rope

“Rope” 1948

Director:
Alfred Hitchcock

Writers: adapted by Hume Cronyn from Patrick Hamilton Play. Dialogue Arthur Laurents.

Stars:
James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger
Rope is a film based on a true story, this story is that two men under go the role of god and they decided who lives and who dies as they go kill a man just to see how it feels. Alfred Hitchcock took this story and made it his own. The two men that kill in the film kill there own friend, then as a cover story they pretend to invite him to their own party as well as inviting his parents and other friends and ex lover. From this they act oblivious to his where about's, this is until one of there friends finds the hat of the man of has been killed, he then leaves and comes back pretending to forget his cigarette case. He then starts questioning the two men about him, one of the men crack under pressure and he finds the body.

When analysing this film, there is no thriller conventions, for example there is no fast pacing action, there is no resourceful hero and the bad guys are not villains who are powerful and better equipped they're just two normal people who killed a man with no motive other than to see what it feels like. However there is suspense builders, ones where we don't know if someone is going to open the chest where lay the dead body. Hitchcock built the suspense by getting different characters to go near the chest and question why the food is being served on the chest instead of the dining table, by doing this it makes the audience hang in suspense to see if anyone realises that there is a body in there. As well as this there is dramatic irony in the way that we know the where about's of the missing man and we also know that this person is dead in the chest. I believe myself that the film wouldn't be as affective if we didn't know about the body.

When filming this Alfred Hitchcock wanted it to be a continuous film and it to be a one shot take, however due to how only film reels were only 10 minutes long he couldn't do this. So instead he tried to edited it in the way that it seems like a one shot take. he did the cuts by zooming in on one of the actors backs. By doing this he gave the film the affect of real time and continuos shot, in my opinion i believe that this didn't make the film sloppy or bad, and that it was a good attempted at making a continuous  

Studio Idents

Idents are animations that we see that the beginning of a film, they come become the title sequence and they are the studio company logo. The big six idents that people usually recognise are:

• MGM
• Universal 
• Columbia 
• Paramount 
• Warner Brothers
• Watt Disney 

Looking at all these idents I can see that they all have something in common, that is the fact that they all have a image that represents something big and that has power. For example, MGM has a lion, which is "the king of the jungle" Universal has a picture of the world, making it seem powerful. Also the paramount ident shows a mountain, if someone can climb a mountain then they are considered a powerful person.

 From when the first idents were used in films to now they have changed and evolved, the most obvious changed would be the colour, as they used to be black and white films however now they are coloured.   

For example when looking at the universal ident, we can see the way it has changed. However one thing in the ident has stayed the same, this being the way they have kept the world in the ident. Although we can see that the animation has changed, the graphics have got better and the plane and we see in the first ident has been removed and instead we see the word universal go round the world.

Modern thriller openings

From looking at four different thriller openings I can tell that there is something that they all have in common. One of these is death, in each clip opening there is at least one death, by doing this they are setting the scene for the rest of the film, for example. In the first film we watch "Brick" we see that there is no dialog, there is only the backing tract, which does go with the scene making it parallel. In the scene we also a boy next to dead body, its set next to a tunnel with a blue dominating colour, by using the colour blue there is the overwhelming sense of cold, possibly representing death.

In the next opening thriller clip "Zodiac" we also see a dominating colour which is black, being similar to the dark blue in "Brick". This could be again representing death, however this is a longer opening scene, by doing this they are giving the audience more of a understanding of the back story of the film. For example we see that the woman that picks up the boy in the car is having an affair, as the boy says "is that your husband". As well as this, with using a longer opening scene, which as able to give the director the ability to create suspense. By using the car that pulls up near them then goes then comes back, as a way to build suspense, it also shocks the audience as we expect the man in the car to be an officer, as he uses the torch. However this man ends up shooting the boy and the girl in the car, which i feel no one would expect.

However in the next thriller clip "No country for old men" there is no dominating dark colour, expect for the opening voice over when the sun is rising, but after this the scene is set out in the open in the daylight. After this we see the first death where the man kills the office, by doing this it defeats the idea of the mystery of who killed the person, like we have in "Brick" and "Zodiac". However, another mystery is created in the way of why does this man kill people in the way he does.

The last film we looked at was "A history of violence" this film gave a different affect, it was a slow opening to the film, there was no intense action which gives a relaxed feel to the film however, when one of the actors goes inside the house eyebrows get raised and because of the relaxed state that the viewer has been put in, there is an overwhelming sense of shock to the view when we see the little girl killed.

Mise-en-scene

Mise-en-scene means "in the scene or frame" This is a french term. There are five elements to Mise-en-scene, these elements are:

• Settings and props 
• Costume, hair and make-up
• Facial expressions and body language 
• lighting and colour 
• Positioning of character and objects in a frame 

Settings and props would be where the frame is set and the props would be objects that are either in the back round of the scene or being used in the scene. Costumes, hair and make-up would be what happens tot he actors before they go on to the scene, someone would chose their costume and another person will do hair and make-up. Facial expressions and body language is what we see the actors do in the film and this is how we can tell what kind of mood there are in. Lighting and colour is the way that the film could be lit in the studio, and the way colour could tell the audience what type of mood the people in the film could be in, for example if the room is coloured blue then it would suggest that the mood of the people is cold, also that they are sad. Positioning of characters and objects in a frame is how the room is set out, that is if they are in a room. For example, where about's they would be standing in the room, as well as how the room is set out. 

The Birds

The Birds is a :

  Horror  119 min  -  Horror | Thriller

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Writers: Daphne Du Daphne Du Maurier (story), Evan Hunter (screenplay)

Stars:Rod Taylor Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren and Suzanne Pleshette

The film is set in Bodega Bay, this is where the external threat of birds comes and sends the town into ciaos. The fast pacing action of the birds attacking the town shows that this film is a thriller, for example when Mitch's family are having tea and then the birds start coming through the chimney. In this scene we are able to see how fast Alfred Hitchcock was able to build tense, as one moment they are having tea then suddenly one bird comes through the chimney then a flock follows causing the fast pacing action :



The thriller convention is that there is a resourceful hero, is this true of "The Birds"? well considering that there is no actual villain in the film to drive the plot, and that there is only the threat of birds, its hard to say whether there is a hero or not, as these are just normal people trying to escape the birds. We see that Mitch is resourceful in the film however he doesn't over come the birds. As Hitchcock ends the film with them only leaving the house, it doesn't answer the question whether they over come the threat or not. But this is what Alfred Hitchcock wanted to do, he wanted to leave the impression of an never ending terror of birds in the audiences heads.

Through out this film we see the use of suspense, and it is used extensively. For Example, when Melanie was outside the school waiting for Mitch's little sister. Without Melanie knowing, there is a growing threat of birds build up behind her. It takes over 3 minutes for the crows to attack, which is longer than a normal suspense building scene which would probably be around a minute or less. The affect that this has on the audience is one where the audience knows something that the character does not, this makes the audience worry for the character and lets them hang in suspense. We also see in this scene the use of a contrast of music, this is that of the innocent children singing there song and the squawking of the crows and the threat that they pose. As well as this, in the whole film the only piece of music in the film is the part where the children are singing.

It is common of the Alfred Hitchcock films for him to use a MacGuffin, in this case the irrelevant thing that drives the film is the relationship between Mitch and Melanie, most of the audience couldn't really care if they get together or not they just want to know if they can escape the birds. In the film the representation of different groups has been clearly shown. It is seen that the men are the people who protect and it is the woman that need protecting, as we see in Mitch's family. The mother herself shows how much she relies on the men in her life as since she lost her husband she is left to rely on her own son. We see this in the seen where they are attack by birds in the the house, we see that Mitch takes control of the situation, and tries to fight off the threat of birds. We even see the mother shout at her son Mitch and say how the father should be here and that if he was this situation would be more under control. As for the younger people in the film we see that they depend on the adults in the film, by Hitchcock doing this he is mirroring the real world.