Student Work: Violet

Thriller opening:

                                          

The thriller starts with an extreme close-up shot of a coloured flower on a dull, grey background.  

The contrast of this reflects innocence and youth within the first shot. The opening of the thriller is a ‘titles on a black screen’ opening which is effective as we get glimpses of various shots. The font of the titles is very unique with the titles flickering in a creepy way.

The beginning starts with a variety of medium and close-up shots; accompanied by an eerie, mysterious soundtrack which connotes to the idea of the opening being thrilling. 

The clip then moves on to show an entrance to a how – all speeds have been enhanced to show a quick paced opening – revealing the pace of the storyline. Flash backs are occurring between the house and a girl standing in a park in a costume covered in blood. 

The mise en scene if effective to the viewing audience as the costume shows a definite killing/murder that has taken place – whilst showing flashbacks to the current day. The mise en scene is also effective with location; the park and dark house really are opposite locations to shoot in but also really effective as the forest is light with open space and the girl, already have suffered the injury. It’s also like the world she is in now that he has killed her, but she is still haunting him. Close ups of blood dripping in the bath and dripping of the girls hand also add to the portrayal of a thriller as we see an insight into the bigger story. The blinking effect used shows a flashback memory of the man that committed the crime, and when we hear the voice over of the girl saying “you did this” we see the editing pace increase dramatically with extremely fast-paced edits of the total events of what happened during her death. 

With the shot of the man at the end elicits the idea that his actions are haunting his mind, to the audience.

Still Shots From Original Film - The Collateral.

Collateral Original

This blog is of still shots from the film starring Tom Cruise -  Collateral and our remake of the film. I had difficulty setting this out - so this blog does have to go on for about 11 years.

This shot is a medium close up, and there are loads of people in the background which creates a busy atmosphere, and everybody is out of focus, giving more emphasis on Tom Cruises character, indicating he is the main charecter. He is walking  towards the camera. On a storyboard this would be shown with arrows pointing downwards.

Once again this shot is a medium close up. As you can see the man in the front is blurred and the background is blurred except for Jason Statham. This is emphasising Jason Statham's character, indicating that he is the protagonist. He is walking towards the camera, in a storyboard this action would be shown with an arrow pointing downwards.

This shot is a close up on Tom Cruise's face. The frame is done particularly well because the top part of his head is cut off - using the rule of third. In addition if he looked up - the frame would be following the rule of third because his eyes will be on the top line. He is walking forward. The background is blurred.

This shot has been filmed from a low point of view. The bag has been dropped, in a storyboard the action would be represented with an arrow pointing downwards. We can see a close up on the bag, which is stressing its importance, making it the main focal point. The background is blurred.

This shot is a medium close up. This shot shows the two men bumping into to one another. In a storyboard this action would been shown with an arrow point at one another but coming from the other persons direction. The men are in focus, so this shows that they are both equally important, but they are more important then the rest of the people in the background because they are blurred out. Furthermore the medium close up of the two men emphasises their relationship and it creates a relationship with the audience because they are close and personal. Moreover it creates a tense atmosphere.  

This shot is a close up however it is an over the shoulder shot. The frame follows the rule of third because his eyes are on the top line of a 3x3 grid. The reason it is an over the shoulder shot is that when it comes to the editing process it will make conversation scene.

This shot is a close up however it is an over the shoulder shot. The frame follows the rule of third because his eyes are on the top line of a 3 x3 grid. The reason it is a n over the shoulder shot is that when it comes to the editing process it will make conversation scene.

This shot is a close up on the bag but from a far away distance. This is because you can seen a blur at the top of the screen, which can make out to be a point of view shot. Moreover that blur can be someones legs in the foreground passing along to create a busy atmosphere. The close up on the bag emphasises its importance especially when it comes up twice in the footage.

This shot is an extreme close up, however it is an over the shoulder shot. The extreme close up creates a menacing powerful interpretation of Tom Cruise;s character. This is because his face has been marginalised from his body.

Collateral Reshots

This slideshow views the remake of the movie collateral, where we took still pictures from the story board we made.  We have elements of different type of camerashot (close ups, over the shoulder shots, medium shots etc).  

Shot by shot remake of Collateral.

Shot by shot remake.

SCREEN SHOT FROM FINAL CUT PRO

After filming the shots on the storyboard around Angel we put all the footage onto Final Cut. There were 8 shots we needed to remake the opening of The Collateral however there was more footage as we tried to create the correct angles - i.e looking for the rule of thirds and accurately judging the extreme close up. We used slow motion when the bag was being dropped to add importance to the shot and show there was a large significance on the bag.


We had difficulty when editing Rochelle's legs during the picking up of the bag as we tried to configure two different shots that we took - however when editing we discovered there was a slight jump within the shot so we decided to only use one of the shots. This proved successful as the shot now runs smoother. Another problem we discovered after we had made the final remake was that during filming there was a police siren in the background - this diegetic sound was only in one shot so it didn't connect in every shot. We then had to take this sound off the clip in Final Cut Pro and drag the sound of traffic along the shots. 

SCREEN SHOT OF VIDEO DRIVE

I took this screen shot to familiarise myself with how to use the hardrive. Taking this helped me - as i'll be able to find all the footage taken previous to editing on Final Cut.

Collateral Storyboard

We watched a clip from the film collateral and made our own story board from it. We were concentrating on the camera work (shot type) which would then help us with making our own movie sequence aswe have more knowledge of the shots.

shot types practice

Here we took a panning shot to show the movement of feet. A panning shot allows the camera to stay in one position but follows the person without moving the position of the camera.

In this shot we wanted to get a close up of the feet. the close up makes the clip more intimate and makes the viewer feel more closer to the action being shown.

This is the medium shot of somebody walking. A medium shot allows us to view more of the person but we generally don't tend to see everything in a medium shot.

Here we have a close up of the face. The close up of a face allows us to see the emotion being shown by the character. An extreme close up would concentrate more on a certain part of the face for examoke the eye, mouth, nose etc.

Here we have a still shot on some steps to show the movement of the character up and down the stairs. This shot would be used in a continuos cut so we see the movement from more angles.

Conevntions of a film opening

(Here we see the introduction to a film, letting us know clearly the company of the film.)
Introduce group company logo

Introduce distribution company logo

Often carry a title sequence

The mood and tone is established through sound, camera work, editing, music and mis-en-scene

The music contributes to the mood of the film.

Intro is intended to hook the audience in to the film

Introduce to key characters in the film

Task 1. Conventions of a film opening.

1. Introduce Production Company and Distribution Company logo:

2. Carry a title sequence.

4. Mood/tone of the film - established by sound/camera/editing/mise en scene.

At the beginning of Psycho there is an establishing shot of the city - which then pans to a CU shot of a window to a room whereby the characters are in. This is to set the scene.

5. Non-diegetic sound - in the form of music is used to establish the mood of the film.

6. Narrative is used to hook the audience into the film. 

7. Opening usually introduces the key characters in the film.

The opening has the key role of introducing characters and the beginning of the plot however it also holds the responsibility of making sure the audience stays engaged to watch the whole film.