Different types of thriller openings

 Intertextuality is a term used to describe films that borrow visual or audio elements from another film in the way that the audience will recognise and if they do they will understand clearly the film borrowing the elements. Films do this through either camera-work, mise-en-scene, characters and editing. In class we have identified a number of films that use intertextuality successfully.

For instance The Stepfather has successfully taken scenes and shots from Psycho the original. 

 

On the right image we can see that The Stepfather has clearly borrowed the visual elements such as the background setting: the door behind is open and is white, white walls. This is a mid shot to emphasise the killers intention of murdering their victims and for it to appear as if the audience is in the victim's position. The difference between the two is that The Stepfather antagonist's identity is exposed and the audience can see his facial expression whereas in Psycho it is hidden. In my opinion this is because of different plots and in Psycho it adds more fear because the audience cannot see the killers face.

 

 In Psycho (left) this is the scene when the women is stabbed to death and as she falls she rips the shower curtains and it falls down with her as well.The fall of the curtains emphasises her affliction as she is hunger to protect herself from the killer. The stepfather has borrowed the idea of the shower curtains breaking and the close up. 

 

The difference between the images is that in Psycho the mid shot shot shows the victim more to the right and a huge space on the left. And The stepfather shows the killer on the centre. The similarity is that both are inclined onto a white wall in agony and we can tell this because of their facial expressions.

Different types of film openings

There are various types of film openings for example, narrative, trainspotting, discrete and title over black screens.

Narrative film openings set the scene and introduces the characters and their situation by giving the background information to the audience. The reason for this is to make the plot easier to understand. Camera shots, editing and sound are used to do this. An example of a narrative film would be The Shining.

This film opens with a car journey at a rural and isolated place. The music is tense which puts more emphasis on the uneasy feeling about the film making the audience doubtful. Due to the voiceover monologue by the protagonist the audience gets a sense of his personality which makes it easier to engage because the audience is aware right from the start.

Secondly, trainspotting film opening is when there is a voiceover and multiple scenes give us the sense of the chracter's life. An example of this would be Choose life.

The voiceover introduces us to the protagonist's life as well as the other characters.

 



Thirdly,  the title over black screens opening is like a separate film. This is when the title credits are shown separately from the film and completely unrelated to it. The font is also stylised differently to make it look dramatic and on black background to have that old-fashion look.  It shows the plot of the story however it still does not answer the audience's questions. In fact, this opening sequence is the hardest to make but is great because after we have watched the film it feels as if we can place the 'pieces' into their place. Seven is an example of this.

Seven uses sound really well to go with the film, it is disturbing and rapid making the audience feel like there are many events happening in the film. The film has a old and distorted effect. It uses close-ups of the hand and photographs to highlight what the person is doing. The props are really well dominated.

The discrete film opening sets up the mood and expectations of the film, it does this through sound, setting and introduction of the character.  Donnie Darko is an example of this.

I think that all the different types of film openings would be a great influence on my film opening because then it would follow a certain structure and it would be a way to engage with the audience. I think that I prefer the title over black screen because it appeals best to me

Research - Timeline of two film openings

There is a strict order in which names and jobs appear in the opening credits because it shows the order of importance for who is involved in the film.  The companies involved are shown first of all as they put in the money towards making the film, most significant actors in the film because if they are the most famous it will influence more people to watch the film as they have a high status and are known to be in good films. Then the casting crew, costume designers, music and editing crew, production designer, director of photography, executive producer, the writer(s) and finally the Director. This shows that the main people involved in the making of the film are shown last so their names are the most memorable and they get the most credit for their hard work.

Signs (2002)

00:03 - Touchstone pictures presents

00:08 – A blinding edge pictures/ Kennedy/ Marshall Production

00:14 – Mel Gibson

00:20 – Joaquin Phoenix

00:25 – Signs (music begins)

00:29 – Cherry Jones

00:34 – Rory Culkin

00:39 – Abigail Breslin, Patricia Kalember

00:45 – Casting by Douglas Aibel

00:51 – Music by James Newton Howard

00:59 – Visual effects supervisors Eric Brevig, Stefen Fangmeier

1:03 – Costume designer Ann Roth

1:08 – Edited by Barbara Tulliver A.C.E

1:14 – Production designer Larry Fulton

1:19 – Director of photography Tak Fujimoto A.S.C

1:24 – Executive producer Kathleen Kennedy

1:28 – Produced by Frank Marshall and Sam Mercer

1:34 – Written, produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Captain America: The first avenger (2011)

00:03 – Cirected by Joe Johnston

00:08 - Screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely

00:14 – Produced by Kevin Feige

00:20 – Executive producers Louis D’Esposito, Joe Johnston, Nigel Gostelow

00:26 – Executive Producers Alan Fine, Stan Lee, David Maisel

00:30 – Director of Photography Shelly Johnson, ASC

00:35 – Production designer Rick Heinrichs

00:39 – Editors Jeffrey Ford, A.C.E and Robert Dalva, A.C.E

00:43 – Costume designer Anna B. Sheppard

00:48 – Visual effects supervisor Christopher Townsend

00:53 – Co-producers Stephen Broussard and Victoria Alonso

00:57 – Music by Alan Silverstri

1:02 – Music supervisor David Jordan

1:09 – Casting by Sarah Halley Finn, C.S.A, Randi Hiller, C.S.A, Priscilla John

1:15 – Chris Evans

1:19 – Tommy Lee Jones

1:22 – Hugo Weaving

1:27 – Hayley Atwell

1:33 – Sebastian Stan

1:37 – Dominic Cooper

1:41 – Toby Jones

1:48 – Neal McDonough

1:50 – Derek Luke

1:54 – Bruno Ricci, JJ Field, Kenneth Choi, Richard Armitage

2:00 – Stanley Tucci

2:05 – Paramount Pictures and Marvel entertainment

2:10 – A Marvel Studios Production

2.17 – A film by Joe Johnston

2:22 – Captain America: The first avenger

Prelim Storyboard

Research - Psychological Thriller films opening scenes

Psychological Thriller Films - opening scenes

From these opening scenes I can tell Psychological Thrillers tend to start off by introducing the main characters in an every day life situation, they don't go straight into telling us what is wrong with the character, or to give anything away about what might happen later on in the film. I think this creates tension to make it more creepy and  dramatic when the audience sees later in the film the thought processes behind these characters.

The Talented Mr Ripley (1999)

Fatal Attraction (1987)

The Game (1997)

Arlington Road

My task was to put silent clips taken from Arlington Road in what I believe was the correct order and edit. I had to include title sequences in the correct order.However, the main reason behind this task was to expand my knowledge on Foley sounds. Foley sound is done in post production; they are everyday sounds such as footsteps. Foley artists use foley studios to perform the sounds by walking, running, jogging, rubbing their clothing, handling props and breaking objects etc.The Foley sound I recorded and used was when the car was going towards the child’s direction.  I recorded a footstep sound however it did not follow the boy’s pace and that was my difficulty because it was not in time. I understand the importance of Foley sounds it is because it makes the image we see on the screen ‘come to life’; Foley sounds make it realistic and sets the mood. We may have a fist fight but the audience won’t be able to listen to the sound of a fist punch, which is why Foley sound exists. The term Foley is named in honour of Jack Foley. He is the one that established the technique that is still used  today.

Below, shows an example of what Foley artists do by me and how I tried to include a sound of footsteps on my remake of Arlington Road.

I did not include the footstep foley sound because it was difficult to match the footstep sound pace with the boys actual footsteps. I put music over that instead. 

This clip shows more understanding of the term.



Holiday Homework - Research 1

The second opening i analysed was 'Strange days' this film was released in 1995. The opening of this film is a narrative opening; this is because the scene is set, the characters are introduced and we see the situation that they are in.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/strange-days/

The camera was shot through a characters point of view; we know this because we cant see the character himself however we can hear his voice. We also know that it is through his point of view because we see what he sees and when he runs it feels as if we are running with him. The camera shot seems like it is through his point of view because he has a camera attached to him; towards the begnning of the opening he clearly says: " Im recordin' I'm recordin' ". The camera shot stays the same throughout this opening.

The mise en scene suggests that it was shot in a urban city; this is through the props and the buildings that we see. There are props such as the guns and this has conotations of crime and gun crimes are more likely to be in the city rather than suburbs; we also notice that the characters are stealing from a resturant as they try to take the money and make the victims go into one room; this suggests that it is in the city as there is also a mix of races and ethnicity (we notice an asian man and a white lady). another reason why is may be set in the city is because when two of the charaters run onto the roof there are many building; it is also very noisy and the atmosphere very much contradicts rural areas such as the country side.

The sound of this opening starts off with a very weird sound and then goes on to dialogue. The characters are American as they speek english in an American accent. They use a lot of swear words and this suggests that the film is going to have a lot of violence since there is many police officers involved. The slang vocabulary suggests that they are american since the police says: " drop the god damn weapon " and this is something that an American would say. There is a lot of giegetic gun shots and siren sounds which suggests the violence in this movie.



Holiday Homework - Research 1

I will be analysing the opening of a film opening called 'burried' which was released in 2010.

 

 

This opening is a titles over a blank screen opening as it is titles over a blank screen. There are not many images in this film however sometimes when there are images that are shown it is unclear of what the image is. There are titles over a black screen in yellow and white and tthere are patterns which form the titles in log rectangles and squares. The movement of these shapes vary as sometimes they are slow and sometimes they go really fast depending on the mood of the music and the pace of the music.

The music starts off slow and becomes intense later towards the end of the opening. The music is scary and therefore bui;ds up the mood of the film and portrays the genre of the foilm which is a thriller. The music also gets louder and there is a change in the music at some points. The music is very dramatic due to the heavy deep sounds of the instruments.

A clear camera shot would be a close up of money and the long shot of the graffiti on the wall. Theclose up of the money suggests that the film may be revolved around money and money plays a big part. Also the shot of the graffiti suggests that the film was set in an urban city as there is more likely to be vandalisms and youths doing graffiti on walls.

Overall this opening of the film is really god because it sets the mood of the film and gets the audience ready for what they are about to watch. The colours are also eye catching. The images are mysterious and this builds tension as the audience want to carry on watching.